Curry-fried fish over nurungji at a Yangsan restaurant: Deodo Gejang

Hours: Daily 11:00–20:00 Last order: 19:30

Deodo Gejang, a marinated crab restaurant near Tongdosa in Yangsan

Today I found a really, really tasty and great-value meal near Tongdosa in Habuk-myeon, Yangsan, Gyeongnam — a place where you can enjoy delicious crab, bulgogi, and grilled fish all on one table. The place is spotless, the parking lot is spacious, and there are cafés nearby, so it's a great Yangsan crab restaurant to visit with kids. I went to Deodo Gejang (더도게장).

Where do you park at Deodo Gejang?

The parking lot for Deodo Gejang, a Yangsan crab restaurant, is right next to the building. Several restaurants share one building here, so you can park in front of the shop, and there's also a separate parking area alongside.

This is the menu board you can see outside the restaurant. Everything comes as a full table spread! Crab jang (marinated crab) is the main dish here.

The nutrition stone pot rice comes out as soon as you order, haha! Really nice touch.

What the restaurant is like on a weekend evening

Here's the interior. Spotless, through and through! Quite clean, and there are plenty of tables! I visited on a weekend evening and it was genuinely packed. Group gatherings, family dinners, meals with friends — nearly every seat was taken, haha. The prices are good and the menu composition is really solid, so it's a restaurant that draws a lot of people.

Deodo Gejang set menus and prices

Here's the menu board at Deodo Gejang, a Yangsan crab restaurant. It's a bit pricey for eating alone, but for two or more it's a fantastic setup. The dishes come out filling the whole table, so it's a hearty meal. You choose between assorted jang, ajju (monkfish and baby octopus), or grilled fish.

This is the takeout menu. The dishes themselves are great as side dishes for rice, so it's nice to take some home too, haha — they're total rice thieves.

Today's order at Deodo Gejang, a spot near Tongdosa, was the 3-kind grilled fish + yellow crab jang + nutrition pot rice set for two at ₩48,000. Three kinds of grilled fish come out, which is great for eating with a baby, so ordering just the two-adult set was enough for three people to eat until stuffed.

What side dishes come with the set?

With the set, you get a full spread of side dishes: cucumber salad, corn salad, seaweed, mung bean sprout salad, aged kimchi, fried tofu, kimchi pancake, blue crab doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew), and soy-marinated bulgogi. There's enough here to finish a whole bowl of rice on the sides alone.

A doenjang jjigae packed with meaty blue crab and tofu, plus the bulgogi, haha.

Yellow crab jang, half soy and half spicy

The yellow crab jang comes as part of the set! I ordered it half and half — soy-marinated and spicy-marinated crab!

This is the soy crab jang. You get about two crabs. The meat is soft, with no fishy taste, and the soy sauce flavor isn't too salty either — great. There's good meat yield packed between the legs too!

Once you squeeze out the soy crab meat and wrap it with seaweed, it's absolute honey!

Personally I like spicy marinated crab even more than soy crab, and this one isn't overly spicy — it's sweet and delicious.

Piling the spicy crab meat on top of the delicious nutrition pot rice — pure honey!

Three grilled fish: the kid-friendly part of the meal

Three kinds of fish came out — flatfish, yellow corvina, and a red fish. They looked coated in curry powder before frying, which made them extra crispy and tasty. Grilled fish is something kids eat well too, so it's a solid dish for a family outing.

For the finish, laying the leftover fish over the nurungji (scorched rice tea) from the stone pot is honestly amazing, haha. It's a bit like the way people enjoy bogul-jobi (dried yellow corvina) — laying meaty fillets over cool nurungji — and this was exactly that flavor, haha. Genuinely delicious!

Is Deodo Gejang worth a visit?

Today I visited Deodo Gejang, a fantastic-value Korean restaurant near Tongdosa in Yangsan, Gyeongnam, for a hearty and delicious dinner of crab jang and grilled fish. The crab was seasoned just right, made with fresh, meaty yellow crab, and the array of side dishes on the table was generous and good. Best of all, the fish was fried so crispy and delicious that I ate it down to just the bones.

Deodo Gejang uses fresh yellow crab from Jeju Island to make its delicious crab jang, and it's conveniently close to Tongdosa, Hwangsan Park, and Pusan National University Hospital. Plus, the owner has run a seafood business for over 10 years, hand-picking only fresh ingredients — which makes it a place you can trust even more.