Yeouido gyukatsu restaurant, after-work window seat: Izawa momil soba

Where is Izawa Yeouido Direct Store, and what are its hours?

• ⏱️ Hours 11:00-15:00, 17:00-21:00
• 🚇 Transit 1 minute walk from Yeouido Station Exit 5
• 🚘 Parking 1 hour free at the building's ground-floor lot
• 📍 Location 2F Yeouido Jonghap Sangga, 42 Yeouinaru-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Today's post is about a visit to Izawa Yeouido Direct Store, a well-loved gyukatsu spot in Yeouido.

The exterior on the 2nd floor of Yeouido Jonghap Sangga

Izawa sits on the 2nd floor of Yeouido Jonghap Sangga, the building right in front of Yeouido Station Exit 5. Accessibility, top tier! Weekday lunches can have a wait, and the whole party needs to be present before you're seated, so keep that in mind. I went straight after work, and while there wasn't a wait, the place was pretty packed inside.

Inside Izawa: window seats made for solo diners

There's quite a lot of seating inside. Mostly made up of 2-seat and 4-person tables.

There are also seats like this dedicated to solo dining, and being right by the window meant I got a view of Yeouido, which was nice haha.

TMI: I was sitting there thinking, ah peaceful, everyone's off work now, when suddenly smoke appeared and fire trucks showed up and I was so confused... Turns out there was a fire at Yeouido Station Exit 5 that day.

Order the gyukatsu and they'll bring you a mini charcoal grill.

Gyukatsu set with sirloin, 18,000 won

Gyukatsu set (sirloin), ₩18,000 — a beef katsu made from carefully selected fresh beef, a menu item you can grill to your own liking on the mini charcoal grill. The set includes cabbage salad, pickled side dishes, and miso soup.

As you can see, the portion of meat is generous!

Plus: I don't usually eat cabbage salad, but the dressing here wasn't a heavy yogurt dressing, so the salad was actually tasty and I finished the whole thing.

The color of the meat is seriously so holy 💗 Made from sirloin, so the flavor of the gyukatsu was obviously guaranteed, and it was every bit as tender as it looked. The batter was crisp just the right amount too, giving it a really great texture.

The thickness was just right too — not too thin, and I felt it was perfect for trapping in the juices.

How the mini charcoal grill works at Izawa

The best part of gyukatsu 😆 Grilling it myself on the charcoal grill meant I could keep eating it warm the whole way through. The staff were sharp too, keeping an eagle eye (?) on things — whenever the fire went out, they came over and relit it before I even had to say anything.

Four dipping sauces: salt and wasabi were the picks

You get two sauces, plus diced radish kimchi and other accompaniments, four items in total to pair with the meat.

But maybe because the meat itself was so good, I ended up liking it best just dipped in salt, or with a wasabi and salt combo.

Momil M cold soba, 9,500 won, and a huge portion for the price

Momil M (cold soba), ₩9,500 — I somehow hadn't eaten soba once all summer, so I finally ordered it here at Izawa, a bit late in the season, and the portion for the price is huge...!

The noodles came out thicker than I expected, which actually gave them a nice texture too :)

Another nice touch: they give you a bowl with just ice so you can pour the broth yourself 🤍 Thanks to that I got to enjoy it cold all the way to the last bite. Warm gyukatsu + cold soba combo, top tier 💓 The soba's flavor had this savory umami running through it, so delicious! I'm usually the type to dump in so much wasabi you can't tell if it's soba or wasabi soup, but here it was delicious even eaten plain!

Is Izawa Yeouido worth it after work? Final verdict

Izawa, the gyukatsu spot in Yeouido that's worth the wait — great accessibility, friendly staff, and top-tier food, so I'd definitely recommend it. When you're craving meat and Japanese food at the same time, this is the place!