Busan chicken stew pub, fried rice in leftover broth: Yetnal Tongdak

These days there are so many moments when you just want a simple beer, or you're off work and want chicken while watching a drama or YouTube at home haha! This time, instead of the usual franchise chicken, I wanted something with a bit more character, so I went to Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch. Let me introduce it right away~

• 📍41 Gobun-ro 31beon-gil, Yeonje-gu, Busan (within 10 min walk from Yeonsan Station Exit 12)
• 🕖Mon–Sat 17:30 – 06:00 next day
• 🕖Sun 17:30 – 05:00 next day

What Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch looks like inside

They say Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch is a local favorite loved by the neighborhood haha! It's a great spot to grab chicken and beer with friends, or to visit with a group and share both the dakdoritang and the whole fried chicken together.

I was curious about this place since it's been running in Yeonsan-dong for 15 years, and true to its name, it's a spot where you can enjoy old-style fried chicken and dakdoritang together. The walls were covered in traces left by past visitors, giving it a cozy old-school pub atmosphere.

Menu and prices: the N-Tang set at 32,000 won

Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch is a Korean restaurant specializing in dakdoritang, Andong-style braised chicken (jjimdak), and various fried chicken dishes. Being able to enjoy dakdoritang and fried chicken together as a set was such a great combo!!

They mentioned you can get fried potatoes or fried shrimp for writing a Naver review, so definitely give that a try too haha.

Once we sat down at the table, they first brought out shrimp chips, pickled radish, and cabbage salad. It reminded me of eating whole fried chicken with my family back in the day, and it was the perfect vibe for chicken and a beer!

• One dakdoritang + half old-style fried chicken (N-Tang): ₩32,000
• Fried rice for 3: ₩9,000

What we ordered was the N-Tang, made up of one dakdoritang and half an old-style fried chicken!! It's the perfect combo for when just chicken feels lacking, but ordering several separate dishes feels like too much haha.

The dakdoritang: wheat rice cakes and glass noodles, but no potatoes

The dakdoritang had wheat rice cakes (miltteok) and glass noodles inside, which went great with the broth.

That said, I was personally a little disappointed there weren't any potatoes in it! T_T Still, it came out generous, all in one big pot, so there was fun in a group picking through it together.

Half an old-style fried chicken: thin batter with sauce and salt

And the thing I was most looking forward to was the old-style fried chicken!! These days a lot of fried chicken comes with thick batter and all sorts of sauces and toppings, but old-style fried chicken definitely has a different charm from all that haha.

It's the style where thin, crispy batter meets clean-tasting chicken meat, so personally I actually liked the old-style fried chicken even more than the dakdoritang!! True to the classic old-style fried chicken formula, only two sauces come out as standard — seasoning sauce and salt.

What I especially loved was that the batter wasn't too thick, and the crispy bite to it was so good! haha

Finishing with fried rice in the broth, 9,000 won for three

As they say, Koreans run on rice power!! It felt like a shame to end things after just the dakdoritang, so we finished up by ordering fried rice too! ><

After we ordered, the staff took away the pot we'd been eating from, turned it into fried rice, and brought it back out to us. Finishing with fried rice cooked in the leftover dakdoritang broth was so satisfying and filling.

Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch was, just as its name suggests, a place where you can enjoy old-style fried chicken and dakdoritang together! If you want to enjoy delicious whole fried chicken and dakdoritang in that warm, nostalgic old-school chicken pub atmosphere, give Yetnal Tongdak & Tang Yeonsan Main Branch in Yeonsan-dong a visit~