Gangnam Station seafood bowl with crab cream croquette: Ilpum Gangnam

Hi~ it's Poki 🎶 Today I visited Ilpum, a kaisendon (seafood rice bowl) restaurant in Gangnam. I've always loved seafood, and this place is known for its premium kaisendon topped with all kinds of seafood! It's also known as the kaisendon spot that Lee Young-ja visited, so I was curious and went to see for myself 👀

It wasn't just the kaisendon — chawanmushi, cold udon, and dessert all came out one by one like a course, which made it even more satisfying. So let me leave a detailed review of Ilpum Gangnam Branch~ 🤍

Where is Ilpum Gangnam Branch, and when is it open?

• 📍 Ilpum Gangnam Branch
• 🧭 Address: 23 Seocho-daero 74-gil, B1 106, Seocho-gu, Seoul (5-minute walk from Gangnam Station Exit 6)
• 🕖 Hours: Mon-Sat 11:00-21:30 / Break time 15:00-17:30 / Last order 14:00, 20:00 / Closed Sundays
• 🚗 Parking: available (free for up to 1 hour)
• ✔️ Group visits, takeout, reservations, delivery, corkage available (1 free corkage bottle with Naver reservation event request)

The basement entrance and how the waiting list works

Here's what the storefront looks like! Ilpum Gangnam Branch is on the basement floor of the building, so after heading down you turn right to find it~ Posters of TV appearances line the way down — the marks of a famous restaurant, indeed ❤︎ꔛ❜

There's also a menu board set up outside, so you can check the menu before going in! And if you visit without a reservation and there's a wait, you can write your name on the waiting list out front. I visited after a Naver reservation on a weekday Tuesday at 7pm! Since it was dinner time there were quite a few guests, and as expected, for a popular place it's more reassuring to come with a reservation, haha.

Bar seats or table seats: can you eat alone at Ilpum?

The interior felt clean overall. True to a Japanese-style restaurant, there was a long row of bar seats, and further inside there were table seats where multiple people could sit together ☺︎ From the bar seats you can watch the food being prepared right in front of you at the open kitchen, so it didn't feel awkward at all to visit alone, haha. There were actually solo diners there, as well as people on dates or eating with friends!

Near the entrance there were a lot of celebrity signatures on the wall, and Lee Young-ja's signature especially caught my eye 👀 Since it's a place featured on TV, looking through the signatures was fun too, haha.

What's on the menu at Ilpum Gangnam Branch

Here's the full menu~ Centered around their signature kaisendon, there was a range from the regular version to the premium kaisendon. I heard the premium kaisendon is packed with a more substantial, higher-grade selection of seafood than the basic version, so as a seafood lover my eyes went straight to it ‼️ There were also other options like unagi-don or sake-don to choose from depending on your taste, plus side dishes that go well with the meal~

What we ordered 🧾

• Premium kaisendon x 2
• Crab cream croquette (2 pieces)

There were two of us, so this is what we ordered. I originally wanted the scallop cream croquette, but unfortunately it was sold out by dinner time 🥹 So instead, we ordered the crab cream croquette.

How to order, and the side dishes that come first

Once you sit down, you order via QR code! Payment is made on your way out, and water comes out automatically, which was convenient 👍🏻 Not having to ask staff for water each time felt like a nice thoughtful touch..✔️

Before the main dish arrives, clear broth, white kimchi, seaweed, and chawanmushi (savory egg custard) come out first. At the bar seats, the staff places the food up on the counter and you reach over and grab it yourself 🙌🏻 The chawanmushi had a soft, jiggly texture 🥚 and as I ate through it there was a plump shrimp hidden inside!

On top there was a bit of gamtae (seaweed laver) laid on, and eating it together with the egg custard added a nice seaweed aroma — so good ෆ

Eating the warm chawanmushi before the cold kaisendon made my stomach feel settled and ready ꔛ

What's on the premium kaisendon?

Today's main dish, the premium kaisendon ✨ As soon as the bowl came out, the visuals alone were stunning. There was so much seafood piled on top you couldn't even see the rice! The lineup included uni, sweet shrimp, tuna, salmon, abalone, flounder, squid, scallop, salmon roe, and ankimo (monkfish liver) — quite the variety to enjoy.

From familiar sashimi like tuna and salmon to ingredients you don't often see on a rice bowl like abalone or ankimo, it was fun picking each one out and figuring out what it was !.! 𖦹

I wrapped rice, sashimi, and a bit of wasabi in the seaweed and gamtae that came alongside 🤤 It felt totally different from just eating sashimi on top of rice versus wrapping it in seaweed or gamtae?! I kept switching up the combinations and ate my way through it happily.

I made a real effort to wrap rice, sashimi, and wasabi all together in the seaweed (•̀ᴗ•́)൬༉ Taking a big bite like that dipped lightly in soy sauce was seriously delicious, ㅜㅜ

The sweet shrimp was firm and sweet, while the abalone was fresh and plump, with a chewy texture through and through..

Two pieces of crab cream croquette

The crab cream croquette comes as 2 pieces. The outside was fried up crispy, but when I split it in half there was a ton of cream packed inside.

Can you see how much cream is in the croquette? 🙀 It was full of soft, savory cream, and dipping it in the sauce made it really delicious. (If you make a Naver reservation and turn on notifications, they give you a free croquette coupon! Worth keeping in mind if you plan to visit~ 😉)

The karaage and cold udon served midway

As you work your way through the kaisendon, they bring out karaage cold udon partway through 🍜 After eating kaisendon for a while, taking a bite of the cold udon felt like a whole new dish had arrived.

Being cold udon, the noodles were extra firm and chewy. The broth was slightly sweet and tangy, very refreshing.. And with crispy fried karaage on top, chewy noodles paired with crunchy fried chicken made a great combo! If you only ate kaisendon the whole time it might get a little rich, but having the cold udon in between felt like a reset 𖤐

Dessert at the end of the course

At the end they even brought out dessert! It was a soft, sweet milk-tofu style dessert (?), perfect for finishing off a filling meal ❕

Going from the main kaisendon to chawanmushi, cold udon, and dessert made it feel less like eating a single seafood rice bowl and more like enjoying a small course, one dish at a time — I loved that ო̤̫

Final verdict on Ilpum Gangnam Branch 📔

If you want to eat seafood or enjoy kaisendon near Gangnam Station, I highly recommend Ilpum Gangnam Branch ✨ The premium kaisendon in particular is generously loaded with uni, sweet shrimp, tuna, salmon, abalone, ankimo, and more, so as a seafood lover the visuals alone won me over!

On top of that, you also get soft chawanmushi, karaage cold udon midway through, and dessert at the end, making it a pretty substantial meal overall, haha. With bar seats good for solo dining and table seats good for dates or small gatherings, it seemed like a place that works well no matter the occasion ˃̵͈̑ᴗ˂̵͈̑

If you want to have proper kaisendon near Gangnam Station or enjoy many kinds of seafood at once, I recommend visiting Ilpum Gangnam Branch 🤍 Chance of a return visit: 100,000,000%