Charcoal pork belly for a Gapyeong barbecue: Ari Chuksan butcher shop

Shopping for a Gapyeong pension barbecue at Ari Chuksan

When you take a pension trip to Gapyeong, barbecue is such a popular dinner choice, right? We decided to have an outdoor charcoal barbecue on this Gapyeong trip too, so we visited Ari Chuksan (아리축산), a butcher shop in Gapyeong, to buy meat.

Ari Chuksan sells vegetables and charcoal as well as meat, so it seemed like a great place to stop while preparing for a Gapyeong pension barbecue.

A butcher shop that is great for preparing meat for a Gapyeong pension barbecue. You can buy a range of beef, pork, chicken, duck, meal kits, vegetables, and charcoal all in one place.

Exterior and shop information

• Location: 1st floor, 23 Gangbyeon-ro, Cheongpyeong-myeon, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do (경기 가평군 청평면 강변로 23 1층)
• Hours: Daily 09:00–20:50
• Parking: Space for about 2–3 cars in front of the shop

Can you choose meat and barbecue ingredients together?

As soon as we walked in, the clean, hygienically maintained shop caught my eye. There was a wide variety of meat on display, and the owner welcomed us warmly too!

They have everything from popular grilling cuts to soup meat and marinated meat. Preparing all this separately can be surprisingly inconvenient, so being able to get everything needed for a barbecue in one place was a big plus.

Types of meat sold at Ari Chuksan

Ari Chuksan is a butcher shop that cuts and sells its meat directly every week! They sell a variety of meats, including Korean beef and other beef, Korean pork and other pork, duck, and chicken.

There was quite a variety of pork too, neatly arranged so it was easy to buy according to the thickness or purpose you wanted.

Prices may vary depending on when you visit and the type of meat, so please keep that in mind~!

There were lots of meal kits available, and they sell eggs too! 👀✨️

Best of all, they also sell vegetables, charcoal, and seasonings, so I thought it would be perfect for anyone stopping to shop before a Gapyeong pension trip!

The honeycomb pork belly and pork neck we bought

• Honeycomb pork belly, 574g ₩19,800
• Pork neck, 344g ₩9,560
• Scallion salad (with sauce) ₩500

For this barbecue, we chose pork belly and pork neck, plus a generous serving of scallion salad to have with the meat for just ₩500. They give you scallion sauce along with the scallion salad too~!

And the owner even included Korean beef tendon for soup and enoki mushrooms as a free extra! They told us that the beef tendon for soup should be boiled for about 15 minutes before using it. I loved that they kindly explained how to eat it too!

How the charcoal-grilled honeycomb pork belly tasted

We lit the charcoal outside and started our barbecue party for dinner! My husband got right to work grilling the honeycomb pork belly first.

The honeycomb pork belly looked like it had almost a 50:50 ratio of meat to fat. I think pork belly needs a suitably rich, fatty flavor to be delicious, so it was exactly my kind of style 🤍

Once it was grilled golden over the charcoal, savory fat began to glisten out, and I could really enjoy the signature tender texture of honeycomb pork belly. Especially, the fatty part was not at all mushy—it was wonderfully springy and chewy, so the texture was amazing.

The combination of meat and fat was great, and grilling it over charcoal added that smoky flavor. It really made me think that charcoal is the only way to do a Gapyeong pension barbecue, haha. Honestly, this is what we come for >_<

Tender pork neck and accompaniments

Next up was the pork neck! We grilled it with mushrooms, onion, and gabiri too.

The pork neck was neither too thin nor too thick—just the right thickness for grilling.

Pork neck can sometimes be dry or tough, but the pork neck we had this time was softer than I expected.

It was tender to chew without any toughness, and the meat itself had no unpleasant odor, so we really enjoyed it. It was delicious wrapped with perilla leaf, pickled radish slices, and scallion salad, or placed on grilled onion too! 🤤

Final thoughts on shopping for a Gapyeong pension barbecue

If you are planning to have a barbecue at a Gapyeong pension, deciding where to buy meat can be more of a dilemma than you might think. Ari Chuksan sells a range of beef, pork, chicken, and duck, making it easy to choose the cut you want, and it also sells meal kits, vegetables, and charcoal. It was a great Gapyeong butcher shop to stop by when preparing for a pension barbecue.

We were pleased with the honeycomb pork belly and pork neck we bought too—they were tender, tasty, and free of any unpleasant odor! Especially when grilled outside over charcoal, it really confirmed that meat is best over charcoal ✨️ If you are looking for somewhere to buy meat while preparing for a Gapyeong pension barbecue, I think Ari Chuksan would be worth a stop~!