Wood-fired fish restaurant in Uiwang: Baegun Lake drive lunch with mom

Uiwang Baegun Lake restaurant: Hwadeogeuro Gan Godeungeo (화덕으로간고등어) Baegun Lake Branch

A Baegun Lake drive and lunch at Hwadeogeuro Gan Godeungeo

I went out for a drive around Baegun Lake with my mom and had a lovely lunch at the newly opened Hwadeogeuro Gan Godeungeo Baegun Lake Branch in Uiwang! Cooking grilled fish at home in the hot summer is such a pain, right? The smell, the sweat… T_T

Hwadeogeuro Gan Godeungeo grills its fish in a wood-fired oven at over 500℃, so you can easily enjoy a light, clean grilled fish meal. It's also close to the Lotte Outlet in Uiwang, so it makes a good date course: a drive, a tasty meal and some shopping.

Location, hours and parking

• 📍148 Neungan-gil, Uiwang-si, Gyeonggi-do
• ⏰Daily 11:00–21:00
• Break time 15:00–17:00, weekdays only
• Last order 20:20
• 🚙Parking available
• 🙅‍♂️No pets allowed
• 🙆🏻‍♀️Groups and reservations accepted

The interior had a hanok (traditional Korean house) feel, like a converted house! The parking lot was big, and there was a staff member managing it, so even a beginner driver like me parked with no trouble.

Hanok-style interior and the self-bar

Inside, it's all wood tones with a hanok vibe. There were tables for 2, for 4 and for larger groups, and the tables were big and wide, so eating was comfortable!

It was a weekday but there were quite a few customers, and given the menu, it seemed like a great place to take your parents out to eat.

There's also a self-bar in the middle of the restaurant where you can help yourself to a variety of side dishes.

The menu

The signature items are the wood-fired mackerel set meal and the Korean-style set meals of Atka mackerel, Spanish mackerel or cutlassfish, each carefully grilled in the oven to bring out its own flavor. Besides grilled fish, there are spicy pork dishes, seasoned raw crab and soy-marinated crab set meals, and a kids' set meal too. The rule is one order per person.

What's in the ₩45,000 Boyang Set for two

There were so many options that I agonized for a while, then went with the Boyang (stamina) Set for two: three wood-fired fish (domestic sea eel, flounder and Norwegian mackerel) plus a seasonal fish braise.

The standard side dishes were lotus root salad, seasoned cucumber and bellflower root, japchae (glass noodle stir-fry), gungchae pickles (stem lettuce pickles), seasoned crunchy peppers, chonggak kimchi (ponytail radish kimchi) and eoleongari cabbage doenjang soup (soybean paste soup)! Everything came out neat and tidy, and it all tasted good too.

Extra side dishes from the self-bar

The highlight is the self-bar! You can bring over extra side dishes, and it had things that weren't in the standard spread: seasoned bean sprouts, ssam (wrap) greens, acorn jelly, salad, jeon (pan-fried patties) and even tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), so I took just as much as I could eat ☺

How were the wood-fired sea eel, flounder and mackerel?

I started with the sea eel, cut into bite-size pieces and dipped in the sauce. It was crispy outside and chewy inside, with no fishy smell at all. So good.

The big flounder and the grilled mackerel were moist too, total rice thieves (dishes so good you keep eating more rice).

Seasonal fish braise: mackerel with radish and bracken

The seasonal fish braise was a mackerel braise loaded with radish and gosari (bracken fern). It came out warm in a ttukbaegi (earthenware pot), and honestly, as good as the grilled fish was, the braise was really spicy-sweet and so, so delicious. Mix the sauce into your rice and you'll polish off a bowl in no time.

I also grabbed ssam greens from the self-bar and made ssambap (rice wraps) like this. After a hearty, tasty meal, I finished with nurungji (scorched rice tea) from the water I'd poured in earlier, a clean and nutty way to end.

Overall verdict

Sometimes grilling fish at home in summer feels like too much. When that happens, this is a place for a filling, tidy grilled fish meal, and I'd especially recommend it if you're looking for somewhere to eat out with your parents. That was my review of Hwadeogeuro Gan Godeungeo Baegun Lake Branch!