Cheonan grilled fish restaurant in Baekseok-dong: mackerel family meal

It had been a while since I craved grilled fish, so I went to Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo Cheonan Main Branch to satisfy that. I ordered grilled Spanish mackerel and grilled mackerel, and the side dishes came out so generously that I left feeling completely full and satisfied.

Where Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo Cheonan Main Branch is, and where to park

Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo Cheonan Main Branch is located at 46-5 Handeul 2-ro, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do — in Baekseok-dong, Cheonan. It's open from 11:00 AM to 9:30 PM, with a break time on weekdays from 3:30 PM to 4:50 PM, and it's closed September 24–25 for the Chuseok holiday. Parking is available, and there are baby chairs too.

The parking lot was nice and spacious, so parking was a breeze!

Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo is a famous grilled fish restaurant — if you're into grilled fish, you've probably heard of it, and it's even been on TV. This visit was to the Baekseok-dong location in Cheonan, which is the main branch.

Inside Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo: is it comfortable with family?

The inside of Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo Cheonan Main Branch was clean and spacious overall. There were quite a lot of tables, and the seating felt roomy, so it looked like a comfortable place for family visits. The bright, tidy vibe made it feel like a place you could easily bring kids to or hold a family gathering at without any hassle.

After sitting down and ordering, the basic side dishes started arriving one by one.

The self-serve side dish bar: refill as much as you want

In the middle of the restaurant there's a self bar where you can eat as many side dishes as you like. When there's a wide variety of side dishes to go with grilled fish, it's fun to mix and match with your rice, and here you could just go grab more of whatever you wanted — haha, loved that.

Menu at Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo — grilled fish plus stir-fried pork, bossam and pizza

Looking at the menu, there are set meals too, and besides grilled fish there's a huge range of options like stir-fried pork, bossam (boiled pork wraps), crab marinated in soy sauce, cuttlefish, and gorgonzola pizza — it looked like a great spot to visit with a group.

There are also kid-friendly dishes like tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), and you can make your own bibimbap (mixed rice bowl). My husband had the bibimbap and said it was so good that he demolished his whole bowl in no time, haha.

Grilled Spanish mackerel vs grilled mackerel: how they differed

And finally, our grilled Spanish mackerel and grilled mackerel arrived. They came out on a big plate, golden-brown and beautifully grilled — the presentation alone was mouthwatering.

As you can probably tell from the photos, the skin was perfectly seared golden — the kind of look that makes anyone who loves grilled fish start drooling!

Grilled Spanish mackerel

I started with the grilled Spanish mackerel. As I gently pulled off a piece with my chopsticks, the flesh flaked apart smoothly along its grain. One bite in, and it was genuinely soft and moist. Grilled fish can sometimes come out dry, but this Spanish mackerel was so moist and tender that 'melts in your mouth' was the perfect description. Piled generously onto warm rice, it had a clean, nutty flavor that really came through.

Grilled mackerel

Can't skip the grilled mackerel, haha. The skin looked delicious from the moment it was grilled golden, and once I picked apart the flesh, the inside was moist and tender too. The mackerel's signature nutty flavor really came through, and it paired wonderfully with rice.

With a spoonful of rice, a piece of fish, and a side dish here and there, the rice just kept disappearing, lol. And since you can go grab more rice from the self bar too, I basically ate to my heart's content, haha. Eating the grilled fish together with the side dishes felt cozy and filling, like eating a home-cooked meal.

Ending with sungnyung (toasted rice tea), then free coffee and snacks on the way out

I finished the meal with sungnyung (scorched rice tea), haha. That clean flavor really feels like it helps digest everything~

On the way out, I noticed they had not just coffee but snacks too, so I scooped them into a paper cup and munched on them in the car on the way home. What a thoughtful touch to send guests off with dessert!!

Eating the grilled Spanish mackerel and grilled mackerel side by side, I personally loved the Spanish mackerel for being soft and clean-tasting, while the mackerel had that proper nutty richness that went great with rice. On top of that, being able to eat as many of the varied side dishes as I wanted made it a really filling meal. Grilling fish at home means worrying about the smell and the cleanup afterward, but eating delicious grilled fish out with such a great spread of side dishes was so much easier and more enjoyable. Highly recommend Hwadeuro-ganggodeungeo, a grilled fish favorite in Baekseok-dong, Cheonan!