Yeonnam-dong bar with outdoor seats and Mildam pairing: Ijillirya

Looking for a bar with atmosphere in Yeonnam-dong?

My husband and I went on a Yeonnam-dong date after a while and checked out Ijillirya, a bar with great atmosphere. The weather had cooled down nicely, so the outdoor bar seats were perfect for eating comfortably. It's a famous date spot in Yeonnam-dong, so it's best to visit with a reservation. We went on a weekday evening, and by the time we left, the place was almost fully booked.

The free welcome drink: bamboo liquor (daenamuju)

First, the basic side dishes — pretzels and baek-kimchi (white kimchi) — arrive. Just from the baek-kimchi alone, you can tell this place is legit.

Ijillirya Yeonnam gives you bamboo rice wine as a welcome drink, and getting something like that for free just puts you in a good mood, right? We started off happily with the bamboo wine. It wasn't bitter, tasted clean, and was reasonably priced too — I actually considered buying a bottle to take home.

What to eat at Ijillirya Yeonnam: the food menu

There's a wide variety of side dishes on the menu, and we ordered the newly added dongpa pork belly and the always-reliable aged kimchi tuna rolls. The dishes came out pretty fast too, which is great for relaxing hungry office workers.

Can you see how gorgeous the aged kimchi tuna rolls look? The aged kimchi that came as a basic side was already delicious, so we figured the tuna roll version couldn't possibly be bad — and ordered it right away.

The dongpa pork belly was a menu item I'd never seen before, but the sauce was so good it went down smoothly.

If you're coming for a date, you know you have to grab an outdoor bar seat to fully soak in the Yeonnam-dong atmosphere too.

Ijillirya's aged kimchi tuna roll is packed with tuna and barely any rice, and the mayonnaise wasn't overdone, which made it just right. The white kimchi cut through any richness perfectly, so we kept eating it nonstop.

The bok choy that came with the dongpa pork belly was the real MVP — it was the first time I'd ever seen my husband eat bok choy. If you bring picky eaters here, you might actually get them to eat vegetables. He said the seasoning was great and the cooking level was just right, making it easy to eat.

My husband seemed a bit unsatisfied, so we added kal-bibim noodles. Mixed with the vegetables underneath, it had a spicy, tangy, refreshing flavor.

Mildam and dongpa pork belly: the pairing a traditional liquor sommelier picks

At Ijillirya, a traditional rice wine sommelier personally verifies the menu and wine pairings and recommends the best combinations. If you need a spot in Yeonnam-dong that delivers not just atmosphere but genuinely delicious food and drink, this is it. Until I've tried every type of traditional rice wine they have, I think Ijillirya will be my only Yeonnam-dong bar.

I've tried traditional rice wine several times before, and it hasn't always gone well. At regular bars it tends to be expensive and high in alcohol content, making it hard to try casually — but at Ijillirya, it's priced similarly to soju, so it's not a big commitment, and there are single-glass options to sample too. After some deliberation, I went with Mildam this time. I was tempted to just order the reliably good bamboo wine again, but I decided to try something new instead, and it was a huge success. The bitterness didn't linger and went down cleanly, so even though it had a high alcohol content, it was easy to drink. Coming to a great bar and already succeeding with two traditional rice wines in a row — there's no way we're not coming back.

The glasses are Ijillirya's own exclusive glassware, so it felt classy and put us in a great mood — very date-like. Traditional rice wine is honestly hard to buy as easily as soju unless you visit a place like this, but they sell a separate, affordably priced takeaway menu, so it would've been nice to stock up while we were there on our date. I was debating buying the bamboo wine that came as our welcome drink and didn't end up getting it — now I regret it.

Why Ijillirya Yeonnam is worth a second date night

Since we go on Yeonnam-dong dates often, we've been to plenty of bars with good atmosphere, but this was the first time I actually wanted to come back. It's also a great spot for food, so my husband said he wants to bring his friends and have everyone order one dish each. I keep thinking about the aged kimchi tuna rolls, and there are still so many menu items we haven't tried, so I think we'll be coming back often whenever we want a nice atmosphere. It's located near the Gyeongui Line Forest Trail, not far from Hongik University Station, so it's an easy, low-pressure place to visit.