Ansan bar for grilled gizzard shad and a banchan spread: Banwolga

A cool weekend evening at Gojan-dong's outdoor tables

The weather has cooled down, and it really feels as if autumn has arrived now. Since a few days ago, the evening breeze has been quite cool—almost enough to make me wonder whether it was truly the magic of Ipchu, the Start of Autumn solar term.

I had a pre-wedding family meeting at lunchtime over the weekend, then had some free time in the evening. It felt like a shame to spend a precious weekend at home, so we went out for dinner. It had been a while since I came to the Gojan New Town area, and there were already so many outdoor-table spots! You know how seeing lots of them makes you excited for no reason.

Even though it is the same old meal, eating outdoors somehow makes it feel like you are on an outing and properly enjoying the weekend, which I love haha. So we took a seat outside too. The place we visited this time was Banwolga (반월가)!!!!

There were seats indoors too, but perhaps because the weather was cool, the outdoor tables were much more tempting.

I like places that serve tea such as barley tea rather than plain bottled water. It may seem like nothing, but little touches like this automatically win me over haha.

A bansang with added uni, plus grilled gizzard shad

As soon as we sat down, we started with a glass of draft beer each! Then we ordered the bansang with added uni, plus grilled gizzard shad and soju. For the basic snack, they brought pretzels sprinkled with what I think was cheese powder, and they were surprisingly addictive. I picked up one, then another... I kept reaching for them even before the drinks came out hahaha.

At first, I considered ordering the hansang, a full-table set, but it seemed like a little too much food for two people. We chose the bansang, a smaller shared spread, thinking we could try a little of several dishes.

In the end, we got to taste a nice variety of dishes, so I was glad we ordered the bansang.

There were also lots of sauces and ingredients to eat alongside everything, so it was fun combining them however we liked. The same food felt a little different depending on the sauce, making it perfect for picking at different bar snacks with drinks haha.

They also told us how to enjoy it even more deliciously, so we diligently ate it in the order they recommended haha. It was good on its own, but being shown how to eat it made it fun to keep changing up the combinations.

Plump grilled gizzard shad at the outdoor tables

Gizzard shad—the fish people say is so fragrant when grilled that it brings a daughter-in-law who has left home back again... I do not know exactly where that saying came from, but anyway, gizzard shad season is back hahaha.

Dipping the golden-brown grilled gizzard shad in wasabi sauce made the drinks go down so easily again. The fish was much plumper than I expected, with plenty of flesh. Having gizzard shad and a glass of soju in the cool breeze at an outdoor table made me think, ah, this must be autumn haha.

Seeing so many draft-beer kegs lined up, I wondered if this was a place that really sells a lot of draft beer hahaha. Maybe because it was a weekend evening, there were quite a few guests indoors too. So I could not take many photos of the interior.

And something that personally impressed me! They had the time the mungtigi, raw Korean beef slices, arrived written right there. Seeing the delivery time displayed like that somehow made it feel more trustworthy haha. Even in details like this, I could tell this was a place that values fresh ingredients.

If you want to enjoy the outdoor-table atmosphere and have a drink in Gojan-dong, I think it would be worth visiting at least once. Especially now that the weather is cooling down, eating outside rather than indoors feels more atmospheric and somehow much more delicious haha.

The final stop: a prize claw machine

And our final stop was, of course, the prize claw machine!! I meant to pay just ₩1,000, but I must have pressed something wrong because ₩10,000 was charged... total panic hahahahahahahahaha. Well... two prizes for ₩10,000... ₩5,000 each... hahahahahahahahaha. My younger sibling had listed the prizes they won from a claw machine cheaply on Karrot... and suddenly I feel bad for them... hahaha.

Still, we ate delicious food, had a drink 🍺, properly enjoyed the outdoor-table atmosphere, and even finished with a claw machine, so it was a very full weekend evening 💕