Yeonnam-dong Japanese spot: skin-on salmon sashimi & tendon, Jongno

Today I'm introducing Jongno Donburi Yeonnam (종로돈부리 연남), a Yeonnam-dong favorite near Hongdae! It's a casual Japanese restaurant in Yeonnam-dong with tons of menu items that look great and are a bargain, from tendon (tempura rice bowl) to salmon sashimi. The atmosphere is cozy too, so it works as a Yeonnam-dong date spot and for a solid, filling meal! Okay, let's start my honest review~

Where is Jongno Donburi Yeonnam, and what are the hours?

• Address: 9 Donggyo-ro 46-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: daily 11:30–21:30
• Break time: 16:00–17:00
• No break time on Saturdays and Sundays

Jongno Donburi Yeonnam is in the Yeonnam-dong food alley, and even the exterior is cute, a perfect date spot. The warm mood mixed with clean, modern white makes you like the place just by looking at it. There's a menu board outside, so you can see what they serve before going in, which I really liked.

Cozy Japanese restaurant in Yeonnam-dong: what is the seating like?

Inside, Jongno Donburi Yeonnam has tables for 2 and 4, and there were more seats than I expected! The inside is even prettier! The soft, warm yellow lighting and cozy walnut wood interior make photos come out beautifully even when you just snap away.

There's also a bar counter where you can eat solo in Yeonnam-dong, with a lot of seats! Anyone who wants to dine alone looks like they can visit without any pressure, haha.

The tidy, clean restroom is inside the restaurant, which made it even more convenient!

Jongno Donburi Yeonnam menu and side dishes

The main menu at Jongno Donburi Yeonnam is Japanese rice bowls (donburi) like tendon, sake-don (salmon bowl) and gyudon (beef bowl), but there were also lots of easy items like salmon sashimi that go well with a casual beer! Each menu item has a photo on the table, which is super handy when choosing~

The side dishes come as 4 items: warm, savory broth, pickled radish, garlic stems and seasoned jalapeño! Often you only get pickled radish, so Jongno Donburi Yeonnam, our Yeonnam-dong Japanese pick, seems to put real care in right from the sides.

Ordered: salmon sashimi, tendon

Skin-on salmon sashimi at Jongno Donburi Yeonnam: was the staff pick worth it?

We ordered the salmon sashimi because the staff recommended it, saying the salmon was really good today! I wasn't very hungry and rice felt like a bit much, so it was the perfect menu item! And it had been a really long time since I'd seen salmon with the skin still freshly attached like this.

The marbling and vivid orange color made my mouth water just looking at it, and the moment I put it in my mouth it clung chewily and then melted away, which was even more impressive. It's way, way better than the salmon at most sashimi restaurants, so please give it a try!

Jongno Donburi Yeonnam tendon: good value in the low-to-mid ₩10,000s

Next came the tendon, with really clean-looking batter. A tendon in the low-to-mid ₩10,000s at Jongno Donburi Yeonnam is genuinely good value! Sweet pumpkin, shishito-like peppers, mushrooms, shrimp, eggplant and more, all the tasty ingredients fried and served neatly, and the batter was really crispy and not greasy.

They first put the tempura on a plate so it wouldn't go soggy. Seen like this, the portion is really big too. With the thin, clean batter, even the mushrooms I usually eat without any excitement were really delicious.

There were 2 shrimp tempura, and they weren't small shrimp but fairly big ones with a bouncy texture! That made them even more satisfying to eat, haha.

Extra rice for the tendon soy sauce: does Jongno Donburi Yeonnam charge for it?

I asked for extra rice at Jongno Donburi Yeonnam, and they didn't charge anything extra, they just piled more rice on for us T_T The tendon rice is fluffy and tasty, and it's soaked through with plenty of soy sauce. We were the ones who ordered salmon sashimi saying we wouldn't eat rice, but the soy sauce was so good we got extra rice, lol. Such generous people at Jongno Donburi Yeonnam, our Yeonnam-dong favorite!

Jongno Donburi Yeonnam coupon book and total cost for two

After paying, they gave us a stamp card where you get 1 stamp per menu item! Honestly the prices are cheap already, and with an event like this I'd definitely become a regular.

From the tendon to the salmon sashimi, everything was so delicious at Jongno Donburi, our Yeonnam-dong Japanese restaurant! We ate really full for ₩30,000, and with the nice atmosphere on top, it felt like we'd had a proper Yeonnam-dong date.