Saturday lunch jjuksam and fried rice at Gwangju buffet: Sin Jjukkumi

This is Hyessaem, aiming for honest reviews as always. Here's my visit to Sin Jjukkumi Unlimited Refill Duam Branch, an all-you-can-eat buffet in Duam-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju. It's the place I go when I want jjukkumi (spicy webfoot octopus), and the store is spacious enough to work well for group visits.

There's no dedicated parking lot, but you can park in the alley above or nearby, so it's not too inconvenient. I grilled jjukkumi and pork belly and finished it off with a proper fried rice — let's get into my review of Sin Jjukkumi Unlimited Refill Duam Branch, a jjukkumi buffet in Gwangju.

Where to park at Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch

Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch doesn't have its own parking lot, so you'll want to use nearby public lots. Here are the options.

• Duam 3-dong Community Center public parking lot — 25 Samjeong-ro 3beon-gil, Buk-gu, Gwangju (Duam-dong)
• Duam 3-dong pocket public parking lot — 304-54 Duam-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju, parking around the restaurant

Sin Jjukkumi Unlimited Refill Duam Branch, an all-you-can-eat buffet in Duam-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju

There's a Sin Jjukkumi in my own neighborhood too, but the reason I specifically come out to Duam-dong is because you can get unlimited pork belly, thin-sliced pork belly, and jjukkumi on the all-you-can-eat plan~~ This time I noticed you can also just order 2 servings à la carte without doing the buffet! I saw the table next to us doing that haha.

What Sin Jjukkumi looks like early on a Saturday

I visited Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch early on a Saturday, and most of the customers were families. There are baby chairs ready, and there's backrest seating along the inner wall, so it looked like a good spot to bring kids too.

Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch has plenty of tables and can handle group customers — every other time I've come there's been a group here, but this time it was quieter. If you're visiting as a group, I'd recommend booking ahead.

What's on the self-serve bar

The all-you-can-eat self-serve bar at Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch has sauces to go with the jjukkumi, side dishes, wrap vegetables, and plenty of boiled eggs prepared too. The scissors and tongs were also neatly organized, making for a clean and pleasant experience at this Gwangju all-you-can-eat buffet.

You can scoop your own pork belly, jjukkumi, and thin-sliced pork belly — use the black bowl above the self-serve corner for jjukkumi, and the square bowl behind the thin-sliced pork belly section for the pork cuts. Personally I love eating jjukkumi with the thin-sliced pork belly here haha 🥰

The restroom at Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch

The restroom inside the store is separated by gender, single-occupancy.

Setting the split grill pan and what to cook first

Once they bring the grill pan, you just fill it up yourself with side dishes and meat from the self-serve bar and grill away! Jjukkumi puts out a lot of liquid, so you need to pour it carefully — otherwise it overflows haha.

We started with the basics — hefty jjukkumi, pork belly, and thin-sliced pork belly. We didn't add the bean sprouts right away — we grilled the meat and jjukkumi separately first and ate them wrapped in vegetables, then added more jjukkumi and ate it together with the grilled pork belly as jjuksam.

When oil pooled up in the middle of grilling, we wiped it away with the kitchen towels provided nearby, and there's a trash bin by the self-serve bar — we'd pile the oil-soaked tissues on the meat tray and toss them whenever we went to get more meat, which kept the table cleaner.

How do the jjukkumi and pork belly taste?

The grill pan at Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch in Gwangju is split in half, so you can grill without mixing the sauced side with the plain side — a plus. Since I grill things separately and then dip them into the jjukkumi myself, this setup was really convenient haha. When meat's mixed with sauce, you have to worry about whether it's cooked through, and I also like my meat crispy, which is hard to achieve when it's sitting in sauce and moisture — so honestly, this split-pan method lets me enjoy it more!

Wrap some perilla leaf with bean sprouts, jjukkumi, a bit of ssamjang (dipping sauce), plus onion and sweet corn, and the popping texture with the seasoning is genuinely delicious! If wrapping veggies feels like too much effort, just eating the meat with jjukkumi and mayo corn is great too.

Frying the self-serve fried rice in the leftover jjukkumi sauce

At Sin Jjukkumi in Duam-dong, Gwangju, you really have to finish with the fried rice — I was full, so I only ordered 1 serving! Before ordering, we grilled a bit more jjukkumi and pork belly specifically for the fried rice haha.

The provided sauce felt a bit lacking, so I added in more of the jjukkumi sauce I'd set aside earlier while frying, and it came out perfectly seasoned haha. Since it's self-serve fried rice, I loved being able to adjust the seasoning exactly to my taste.

I chopped up the jjukkumi and pork belly and mixed some in while frying, but also kept some aside in a separate bowl to top the rice with — and topping the rice with jjukkumi and pork belly made it even better. Wrapping this in lettuce is also great, great.

I'd recommend Sin Jjukkumi Duam Branch as a hearty all-you-can-eat spot in Duam-dong, Gwangju!