Baby-friendly gyukatsu restaurant in Cheonan Sinbu-dong: Izawa

Izawa gyukatsu, a Cheonan Terminal favorite A dinner recommendation for dining out with a baby!

I moved away from Cheonan after living there quite a while since getting married, but I still have ties there, so I end up going back once or twice a month.

Why Izawa for an early dinner after shopping at Shinsegae

This time too, my husband, our daughter and I stopped by Shinsegae Department Store, did a ton of fall clothes shopping for our little princess, and then decided to have an early dinner. While we were debating what to eat, I remembered our daughter had eaten gyukatsu so well last time at Izawa Cheonan Sinbu-dong Branch, so the three of us headed there again haha. Since it's not a regular grilled meat place, I felt a lot less worried about open flames or lingering smells.

Izawa Cheonan Sinbu-dong hours and parking

• Tue–Sun 11:30–21:00
• Break time 14:40–16:30
• Last order 19:50
• Closed every Monday
• Parking at Sinbu Public Parking Lots No. 4 & 5: 30 minutes free plus a free 1-hour parking voucher, good for 1.5 hours total

What three people ordered: two gyukatsu and one gyudon

We ordered two of the main dish, gyukatsu, and since our daughter can eat quite a bit more these days, we added a gyudon on top, for three dishes in total. It might sound a bit unusual to recommend gyukatsu as a dinner dish to share with a baby, but if you cut it up and grill it well, the meat is much softer and less chewy than a regular pork cutlet, so she ate it happily and loved it!

Setting aside gyudon for the baby before the raw egg

The gyudon (beef rice bowl) came out first. Since it's better not to feed babies raw egg, it's best to scoop some out into the baby's bowl before mixing it in, and only mix the raw egg into the portion the adults will eat. The sauce base is a bit sweet, and the beef in the gyudon is thin and easy to chew, so she ate quite a lot of it! If the meat is even a little tough or thick and dry, she tends not to want to eat it. She has an uncanny knack for spotting what's actually tasty...

Once the gyukatsu arrives, she might only want to eat that, so I try to feed her as much of the gyudon as possible before it comes out haha. Of course I also put rice and gyukatsu together on the spoon sometimes, but whether it's an adult or a kid, everyone's hand can't help but reach for the tastier thing... haha. I think once she's a bit older we'll need to order extra meat too.

The gyukatsu we ate as a couple, now shared with our daughter

And then the star of the show arrived! Izawa was actually the very first gyukatsu place my husband and I ate at together when we came to Cheonan, back when we were dating. To think we got married, had a baby, watched her grow, and now the three of us are eating here together — it's a place full of memories that only the two of us know about.

How to grill gyukatsu on the mini brazier

There's a mini charcoal grill at the table, so my husband and I split the meat and took turns grilling it. I put on small portions at a time so I could share with our daughter. Personally, I think gyukatsu tastes best when it's still a little tender rather than cooked too long haha, so I control the amount I put on to avoid overcooking, while my husband likes to load the grill completely full. He doesn't like breaks in the flow, apparently...

The first piece that came out perfectly grilled, I cut into small pieces with scissors onto our daughter's plate. Meanwhile, the next piece I quickly rescued onto my own rice bowl before it could overcook haha. And of course, whatever our daughter was going to eat, I cut it up and turned it around on the grill to get it nicely golden all over!!!

Crispy outside, tender inside, with a dab of wasabi

You've got to add wasabi to really bring out the flavor haha. It cuts the richness, and dipped in the sauce it just melts in your mouth — crispy outside, tender inside gyukatsu perfection! Honestly I think it tastes even better now than it did back when we were dating years ago, so it keeps coming to mind, and that's probably why it's become our go-to Cheonan Terminal restaurant whenever we're in town.

Free mini curry for a receipt review at Izawa

If you write a Naver receipt review, you can also get a free mini curry! We had three dishes so we were already full, plus with a baby to keep an eye on things got a bit chaotic, so we just left this time — but I'm planning to try the review event next time~

Our little troublemaker princess, in a great mood after a delicious dinner haha. These days there are so many more menus we can all eat together, which makes it much more fun to take her out, and she's just so unbearably cute, hoho. Let's go eat something delicious again next time~~