Goyang Korean restaurant with wood-fired mackerel and tteokbokki

These days, lots of restaurants are popping up with grilled mackerel plus self-serve side dishes. Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo has branches all over the country, too. This was my first visit to Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch (화덕으로간고등어 식사점). I already love grilled fish, and I really wanted to come because it has a self-serve bar with such a variety of food!

Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch: location and hours

Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch is in Siksa-dong, Ilsandong-gu. It is near Dongguk University Ilsan Hospital~ There are several good places to eat around Siksa-dong, so I visit this area from time to time! The restaurant is on the second floor of the building~

• Hours: 11:00 AM–9:00 PM
• Open daily
• Parking available (2 hours)

A spacious, spotless restaurant with a playroom

The interior of Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch was incredibly spacious. Maybe because it has not been open long, the restaurant looked very clean, too. The tables were roomy as well. We visited on a weekday evening~ There were quite a few diners eating.

I liked the upscale interior. Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch has a playroom~~ It looked like a great place for a family meal. It can be hard to eat out with kids, so a playroom is such a plus~~ It looked clean, probably because it was new.

The country-of-origin sign. Norwegian mackerel is the tastiest, right? Haha. The Spanish mackerel and hairtail are domestic.

A generous self-serve bar, from bibimbap to dessert

Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch, a great Siksa-dong restaurant!

Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch has a bibimbap station~~ Wow, I love this haha.

There was tofu ssamjang (fermented soybean dipping paste), cho-gochujang (sweet-tangy red chili sauce), and sesame oil, plus vegetables for bibimbap—bracken fern, shredded radish, and bean sprouts.

The chonggak kimchi (young radish kimchi) was crunchy and delicious.

Doenjang-seasoned peppers. These were not salty and so good that I had them several times.

Crunchy cabbage pickles, lotus-root salad, and seasoned cucumber.

There were hot dishes at the back.

Tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes). “Don’t just scoop up the fish cakes~~” hahaha. It was even better than tteokbokki from a tteokbokki shop, so I ate loads of it. This place is seriously a tteokbokki gem. Hahaha. Both of us were genuinely moved while eating it. You have to try it—it was so, so delicious.

Kimchi pancake. I liked that it was kept warm. The small size made it easy to eat. There was japchae (stir-fried glass noodles) and seaweed soup, too, along with maesil tea and sikhye (sweet rice drink).

You can have instant coffee, too. The dessert options are solid.

A place that really grills fish in a wood-fired oven

There really was a wood-fired oven, like the ones I had only seen at pizza places. Wow, so fascinating~ A staff member kept checking the fish as it grilled, and it looked so hot ㅠ They really work hard.

I went up to the oven to take photos, and the heat was seriously intense ㅠㅠ I think the staff deserve a big paycheck. Now I know why grilled fish at home never tastes like this.

We ordered grilled mackerel and stir-fried pork

You order on a tablet. We ordered one serving of grilled mackerel and one serving of stir-fried pork.

Six basic side dishes came out. Ohhh, every one of them was good~

The pot rice arrived. The rice was fluffier and had more crispy scorched rice at the bottom than pot rice at other places, which I loved. Perfect for making nurungji (scorched-rice soup). I did not make nurungji; I simply mixed water into the rice instead. Fish with rice and water mixed in is so delicious. The salad dressing was nicely fresh, too.

Lotus root can be too hard at some places, but here it was cooked just right and tasty. The seasoned deodeok (bellflower root) was delicious too, so we polished it all off~

The japchae was not salty, and the pancakes were tasty, too. Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch totally earns its status as a Siksa-dong restaurant!! We cleared all the side dishes without leaving anything~~

The stir-fried pork arrived, too. It was tasty with no gamey meat smell. My companion actually said the pork was even better than the mackerel.

Crisp outside, moist inside: grilled mackerel

The grilled mackerel. Crispy outside and moist inside~ It looked a little burnt, but surprisingly it did not taste burnt at all~ The flesh was wonderfully moist and rich, absolutely made for rice~

Why I want to return for a Siksa-dong family meal

Mackerel really grilled in a wood-fired oven, all the side dishes delicious, a bibimbap station, and a generous self-serve bar. Above all, it is a tteokbokki gem! With its spacious dining room and playroom, it is also great for families. Parking was convenient and every staff member was kind. Hwadegeuro Gan Godeungeo Siksa Branch—what a Siksa-dong find~~ We had such a generous, satisfying meal~ I would visit again!^^