Four grilled fish and puffed-rice ice cream: Geoje Gohyeon restaurant

I went on a one-night, two-day trip to Geoje and Tongyeong, and near our accommodation there was a place selling both grilled fish and ganjang gejang (soy-marinated crab) together! The name is literally Geoje Grilled Fish Ganjang Gejang — I found it while looking for somewhere to eat grilled fish haha. It seemed like a lot of people order the crab too, but this time we went for grilled fish, so let me tell you about this hearty, stuff-yourself-full meal at a Geoje restaurant 😁

Hours | Daily 10:30–21:00 / Parking | Available

Where Geojedo Grilled Fish & Ganjang Gejang is, and where to park

Located in Gohyeon, Geoje, Geojedo Grilled Fish & Ganjang Gejang is within a 10-minute walk of Gohyeon Bus Terminal, so it looked convenient to visit if you're using the terminal too. We drove, and there was a parking space right beside the restaurant, so parking was easy haha.

The inside was bigger than expected, with plenty of tables. We arrived a bit past the lunch rush, and luckily it wasn't crowded, so we could eat at a relaxed pace.

What was on the fish-of-the-day board

This place uses Norwegian mackerel and 100% domestic blue crab, and the seaweed apparently comes from Gyeonnaeryang wild seaweed. They also season lightly with sun-dried salt aged over 7 years to remove bitterness, so it was clear they care about ingredient and seasoning quality from the ground up!

The fish selection seems to change a bit day to day — the day I visited, they had hairtail, flounder, golden croaker & yellow croaker, and mackerel ready.

The self-serve banchan bar is almost a buffet

Some side dishes were already set on the table, and we were seated at a table with banchan (side dishes) already prepared. There were 6 side dishes on the table, plus a self-serve bar where you could go get more yourself haha.

Further inside the restaurant there's a self-serve bar, and on the right there's even a spot to fry your own eggs. They also had a baby chair plus baby-sized spoons and forks ready, so it looked comfortable to visit with a child too.

The self-serve bar has such a variety it's basically a buffet! Haha. There was tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), fried items, dried gray eel-catfish stew, and even fall gizzard shad. There was kimchi jeon and squash jeon, plus assorted side dishes, salted golden croaker, salted squid, and even cabbage and kelp wraps — really a huge range of dishes 😆

The self-serve bar apparently runs until 13:30 for lunch and 19:30 for dinner. It also said leftovers can't be packed to go and there's an environmental fee if you leave food uneaten. With so many options it's tempting to grab a bit of everything, but I'd say it's best to just take what you'll actually eat haha.

The restroom is right beside the entrance — walk out and look left and it's right there. Men's and women's restrooms are separate, which was convenient.

Menu lineup and how to order

The menu has grilled fish sets, ganjang gejang sets, and even a dried yellow croaker set, plus a combo where you can have grilled fish and ganjang gejang together. There were also all-you-can-eat options — ganjang gejang all-you-can-eat, and a full-course all-you-can-eat with ganjang gejang, spicy marinated crab, and grilled fish all together 🦀🐟 There were separate sets and all-you-can-eat menus for kids under elementary-school age too, so it looked like a great spot for a family meal. We kept it simple and ordered the grilled fish set 😋

Ordering is basically one menu item per person, and after the meal you can also get beondegi cream — order the dessert beondegi cream on the T Order tablet and they bring it after you finish eating. There was also a review event running, where writing a Naver review gets you a wild-caught prawn jang, so we ordered, wrote the review, and got to try the prawn jang too haha.

What the grilled fish set for two looks like

Our order arrived, and of course the first thing to do with hot pot rice is pour water in for the scorched rice tea (sungnyung) right away haha.

Hot pot rice, grilled fish, the basic side dishes, seaweed soup, plus the banchan we scooped from the self-serve bar and the prawn jang from the review event — laid out together it made a really hearty spread haha.

Look how well-grilled the fish is!! It's a set for two, and the fish looks plentiful and delicious haha. Grilling fish at home makes the whole place smell and it's not as easy as it looks, so eating it out like this felt like properly enjoying grilled fish for the first time in a while.

Wow… my husband is really good at deboning fish haha. There were disposable gloves on the table, and more available at the self-serve bar if you need them 🙂 With gloves on, picking apart the fish by hand was easy, and the flesh was tender so the bones came off cleanly.

Flounder, golden croaker, mackerel and hairtail compared

Time to actually eat haha. We tried the deboned fish one by one.

• The flounder flaked apart smoothly along its grain, with a clean, mild flavor and just the right seasoning — nothing overpowering, easy to eat
• The golden croaker was moister, with a subtle aroma that built up the more you chewed, and a slightly stronger flavor than the flounder — a different experience
• The mackerel, with its natural oiliness, had a rich flavor and thicker flesh, so even one bite filled your mouth with a savory taste
• The hairtail's flesh came off the bone easily, making it simple to debone, with a clean flavor and a hint of sweetness that went well with the rice

Each fish had a slightly different texture and flavor, so eating several kinds together was better than sticking to just one haha.

Wild prawn jang from the Naver review event

The complimentary wild-caught prawn jang you get for a Naver review haha. I expected the jang (soy marinade) to be salty, but it turned out not salty at all — perfectly seasoned — and the prawns were plump with plenty of meat. It was tasty just on its own, but dipping a piece of fish lightly into the prawn jang sauce turned out to be a surprisingly good combo haha.

After finishing the rice, we also drank the sungnyung we'd poured earlier. It was savory on its own, but topping the scorched rice with the leftover grilled fish and eating them together let the salty fish flavor blend with the nutty sungnyung haha — eating even the last bits of fish with the scorched rice felt like we used every last bit of the meal 🤭

Dessert: ppeong-scream and puffed rice crackers

We also ordered the beondegi cream for dessert — ice cream tucked inside puffed rice, cut into quarters for easy eating. The ice cream tasted familiar the first bite haha, and thinking about it, it seemed like a strawberry-vanilla blend, similar to Double Bianco ice cream. Having ice cream sandwiched in crunchy puffed rice made for a nice sweet finish.

The beondegi is also sold separately for ₩3,000, so after enjoying it, picking some up on its own to take home wouldn't be a bad idea haha.

I went here craving grilled fish during our Geoje trip, and with such a variety of fish plus a generous spread from the side dishes to the self-serve bar, it was a satisfying, filling meal haha. Finishing with the scorched rice tea and beondegi cream left us stuffed to the very end haha. If you're looking for all-you-can-eat ganjang gejang in Geoje, or a good restaurant in Gohyeon, or a hearty grilled fish spread near Gohyeon Terminal, Geojedo Grilled Fish & Ganjang Gejang is worth a visit 🫶