Yeoksam eel restaurant for two by Chunghyun Church: Chisot

Where is Chisot Yeoksam Main Branch?

Chisot

Chisot

📍Address 669 Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

⏰Hours Closed regularly (every Sunday) 11:00 - 21:30 15:00 - 17:00 break time 14:30, 21:00 last order

Chisot, right in front of Chunghyun Church in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam! It gets pretty crowded during lunch. Since I was curious after work, here's my honest review!

Inside Chisot: seating and whether solo diners fit in

The place is cozy and cute, so a lot of solo diners seemed to be there too. If you book in advance, it seems they'll set aside a reserved seat. After you sit down, they bring water first, and on the table there's sansho pepper and furikake to add!

Chisot menu and prices: Hitsumabushi Sang at 37,000 won

Nagoya-style hitsumabushi (charcoal-grilled eel rice bowl) in Yeoksam-dong. Chisot says it uses domestic grade-1 japonica freshwater eel, grilled over charcoal with a special tare sauce. Looking at the menu, you can choose hitsumabushi by size from mini to sang (large), and besides eel there's also salmon, chashu, and chicken nanban. But since we came all this way, the main event has to be hitsumabushi haha. ✅We ordered Hitsumabushi Sang ₩37,000 x2.

The self-serve rice and ochazuke corner at Chisot

On one side of the store there's a corner set up so you can add warm rice and ochazuke🍚🍵. As in the photo, there's a separate rice cooker there, which is handy if you have leftover eel but not enough rice, or if you want a bit more ochazuke.

How does Chisot's Hitsumabushi Sang taste?

The eel rice bowl looked delicious just from looking at it — plenty of eel piled on top of the red lacquer box, with the surface glossily coated in tare sauce, so it looked appetizing even while taking the photo. What I especially liked was the charcoal smokiness🔥. Rather than an eel bowl where only the sauce is strong, this style has a subtle smoky flavor coming through when you bite in, and it paired quite well with the sweet, salty tare sauce!

Chawanmushi (savory egg custard) with a whole shrimp inside!🦐 I had a bite first, wondering how it was made so smooth.

Clear soup and side dishes, plus green onion, wasabi, and gim (seaweed) to make the eel rice bowl even tastier!

Four ways to eat hitsumabushi at Chisot

✅Don't just eat it plain — try the 4 methods! There was even a guide on the table for how to enjoy hitsumabushi deliciously. Instead of pouring the broth over from the start, you eat it in stages like this.

• First, eel and rice as is
• Second, with gim, wasabi, and green onion
• Third, poured with ochazuke broth
• Last, whichever way you liked best!

By the way, isn't the fish-shaped rice paddle so cute..🐟 haha. The moment I picked it up to divide the eel, it was cute enough to make me take a photo.

The best combination: wasabi and chopped green onion

Personally, the combo of wasabi and green onion was my favorite⭐️. Eel is naturally an oily food, so adding wasabi cuts through the richness and completely changes the flavor!

So mixing it with green onion, wasabi, and gim was pretty great too!🥄 I also had some soybean paste soup in between to cut the richness.

Finally eating it as ochazuke🍵 felt like a completely different dish, and I think that's the charm of hitsumabushi — one bowl, enjoyed in several different ways. Especially since I prefer this style with clear smoky flavor over an eel rice bowl that's just sweet, I really liked that part.

Looking for an eel rice bowl in Yeoksam-dong?

An eel rice bowl in Yeoksam that's fun to eat through. Hitsumabushi is on the pricier side, but it's not just eating eel and being done — eating the eel and rice as is, then adding wasabi and gim, and finishing with ochazuke made it feel like a pretty proper meal. If you're craving something a bit more substantial than an ordinary lunch in Yeoksam-dong, or if you like eel, this seems like a good place to visit! Especially if you like eel rice bowls with charcoal smokiness, Chisot's style should suit you well. That day I finished it off properly all the way to the last ochazuke haha. If you've been looking for an eel rice bowl or hitsumabushi near Yeoksam Station, give this a try :)