Jongno3-ga Korean BBQ: straw-smoke pork neck vs belly, Cham Dwaejitgan

Places I've revisited: the number of stars = the number of visits :)

My restaurant reviews work like this. Every time I revisit, I add a star. Three stars or more means it's worth going, five stars or more means it's genuinely delicious.

Where is Cham Dwaejitgan Jongno Main Branch? One minute from Jongno3-ga Station Exit 2

Cham Dwaejitgan Jongno Main Branch, a great Jongno3-ga pork belly spot, sits on the first floor of the CGV Piccadilly theater, one minute from Jongno3-ga Station Exit 2 or 2-1, and about 2-3 minutes' walk from Ikseon-dong.

I was meeting a friend in Jongno! I wanted charcoal-grilled pork, so we went looking for a BBQ spot. It's not far from Jongno3-ga Station! The place we found was so good it easily earns the title of a top Jongno pork belly restaurant!

Cham Dwaejitgan hours and what two servings of Jirisan black pork cost

They open at 11:30, and stay open until 23:30 Monday through Saturday, and until 22:30 on Sundays. They're open as normal on Lunar New Year's Day.

• Jirisan black pork ogeopsal ₩19,000 for 2 servings
• Jirisan black pork neck ₩18,000 for 2 servings
• Fried rice ₩3,000
• Lots of beer

I booked ahead through CatchTable. You can also join the waitlist remotely through CatchTable. When we left, there was actually a line, haha.

These days everyone orders by tablet, right? This place was the same — a tablet ordering system! And there was a sauce guide too!

Grilled potato slices are so nutty and delicious

We ordered beer and they gave us liver supplements, haha

Thanks to that, we drank a lot of beer. This would be a great spot for a company dinner haha, I recommend it

The self-serve bar, plus minari, bean sprouts and kimchi on the grill

I love places with a self-bar. I prefer scooping out as much as I want myself rather than calling someone over to order

Maybe because we had a reservation, minari (water dropwort), bean sprouts, and kimchi were already neatly arranged on the grill when we got there. Ah, I want to eat already

They also set up sauces for us. From top left: spicy sauce, wasabi, mushroom wasabi, salt, garlic, ssamjang (dipping sauce). The mushroom wasabi didn't taste much like wasabi though. Still tasty.

Two servings seemed to be quite a lot of meat

Staff grill the pork for you: how strong is the rice-husk straw smoke?

What I loved here was that the staff grill the meat for you

It's so convenient, really

They say they serve their belly and ogeopsal on a handmade grill that doesn't splatter oil, infused with the natural aroma of domestic rice husk and top-grade charcoal, giving the juiciest results possible — aiming to be the best Jongno3-ga pork restaurant and company-dinner destination.

There's domestic rice husk underneath, which gave the meat a bit of a straw-smoke flavor. What's interesting is that the neck had a lot of it, while the ogeopsal barely had any. I'm personally not a fan of that straw-smoke taste, so I'd recommend the ogeopsal!!!

Ah... doesn't this look so good

Black pork neck wrapped in thin potato slices

They pile it on top of the kimchi like this, and you can also grill up shishito peppers to eat alongside. Wrap it with minari too. I asked them to grill the potatoes first so I could wrap the meat in them!

We also ordered the ogeopsal. I like ogeopsal with the skin still on

The thin potato slices are all grilled through

I try wrapping a potato slice with garlic scapes, pork neck, mushroom wasabi, and wasabi on top. Nutty and delicious

They cut up and grill the ogeopsal for you too

Rows of ogeopsal lined up neatly — the most beautiful lineup in the world, haha

Finishing with 3,000-won fried rice at Cham Dwaejitgan

Fried rice is 3,000 won! They mix in egg too. Normally they don't mix in the kimchi and bean sprouts, but we asked them to mix everything together. The seasoning is a bit mild on its own, but it's still nutty and tasty even without extra sauce. Since we wanted something more intense though, we mixed in everything. Fried rice is a must!

Parking and grill setup: is Cham Dwaejitgan good for a group dinner?

No parking available! But since it's in the CGV building, you could probably use paid parking there.

The grill is huge, so it's great for piling on lots of different things. And since there are two separate burners, you can control the heat for the meat side and the kimchi side independently — really handy so you're not stuck with the flame blazing the whole time on a hot summer day! If you're looking for a company-dinner spot or a Korean BBQ restaurant in Jongno, I recommend this place!