Yeoksam eel rice bowl with scallion and wasabi hitsumabushi: Unagiwa

What is hitsumabushi at Unagiwa?

Unagiwa's hitsumabushi is a Nagoya-style eel rice bowl — you eat the eel and rice plain at first, then add toppings like scallion and wasabi, and finish by pouring broth over it to enjoy it like ochazuke!

Unagiwa location and opening hours near Yeoksam Station

Unagiwa is an eel rice bowl restaurant at 71 Bongeunsa-ro 30-gil, 2nd floor, Yeoksam-dong 669-8, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. It's open daily from 11am to 9pm with a break time from 15:00-17:00, last order is at 8pm, and it's closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

• Address: Yeoksam-dong 669-8, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
• Hours: Daily 11:00-21:00 (break time 15:00-17:00)
• Last order: 20:00
• Closed: Saturdays, Sundays
• Group friendly, Wi-Fi, separate restrooms, reservations available

Ever since they did the interior, I thought the wooden sign looked really cool. Seeing the polished exterior and clean interior while passing by, I thought, ah, this has to be good.

Unagiwa's interior and private room: good for a date?

The inside of Unagiwa is white and wood-toned with soft lighting, so it seemed good for a date, and they also have a group room bookable for 6-12 people. The interior is really clean.

Personally, taste matters at a restaurant but so does not feeling cramped or chaotic while eating. Here, with the white wood interior, plants, and an overall tidy feel, I thought it'd work not just for lunch in Yeoksam but for a date or a meal with parents too!

I also noticed they'd set up curtains above to block off the front and back tables! A nice touch that lets you eat more privately, fitting for a Gangnam hotspot.

Hitsumabushi (large) at 38,000 won: how much eel do you get?

Water and a wet towel come out first. What we ordered was the Nagoya-style eel rice bowl, hitsumabushi (large) with a whole eel, 38,000 won!

The moment the food arrived, my first thought was "there's really so much eel." The grilled eel was packed so densely on top that you could barely see the rice underneath — honestly the prettiest eel rice bowl I've seen, in Korea or Japan, the kind that makes you want to take photos. It looked so good I posted it on social media right away. The glossy sheen on the eel really is something.

For reference, Unagiwa's eel is raised at their own farm in Gangwon-do, certified as eco-friendly and antibiotic-free!

The eel's surface was grilled to a nice golden brown, so you could feel both the slightly crisp texture of the outside and the soft eel meat inside. The first bite, taking a big scoop of eel with rice, brought the sweet-savory sauce and the nutty eel flavor together at once, and I kept reaching for more.

Side dishes and toppings served with the eel bowl

Unagiwa's hitsumabushi comes with seaweed, perilla leaves, scallion and wasabi, along with other side dishes to eat alongside the eel. The whole spread is neat too — the classic setup you'd expect on a trip to Japan.

Rather than covering up the flavor of the main eel, they felt more like something to reset your palate, which I liked! Everything comes out neatly on an individual tray per person, so even in a group everyone can eat comfortably, and the overall table visual was pretty great too.

Four ways to eat hitsumabushi: which combination was best?

Eating it four different ways is what sets Unagiwa apart, I think — it keeps an eel rice bowl, which could easily turn greasy, from getting tiring, so you finish the whole bowl without a hitch.

Eel + rice + scallion + wasabi — I really want to recommend this combination!! The nutty eel flavor and the savory depth of the sauce stay intact, while the wasabi cuts through any greasiness, so this ended up being the way I ate the most of it.

How sweet is Unagiwa's eel sauce?

I really liked the sauce! With eel rice bowls, if the sauce is too sweet it can taste great for the first few bites but you get tired of it fast. At Unagiwa, the sauce coating the eel and the rice worked well together without feeling like two separate things.

Finishing the bowl as ochazuke

And there's one thing you absolutely have to try while eating hitsumabushi: ochazuke! Pouring warm broth over the leftover eel and rice turns it into a completely different dish from the eel bowl you started with!

As the eel sauce dissolves slightly into the broth, the rice also becomes much softer, and even though it's one order, the flavor keeps shifting from eel rice bowl, to eel rice bowl with toppings, to ochazuke — I think even first-timers with hitsumabushi would find it fun to work through!!

Wrap it up cleanly with Unagiwa's special bainiku (plum sauce)!

Unagiwa in Yeoksam: final verdict on the eel rice bowl

At first I thought one eel rice bowl would be pretty much like another, but what stuck with me most about Unagiwa's hitsumabushi was the generous amount of eel, the good balance between sauce and rice, and how the flavor kept changing depending on how you ate it.

The restaurant is also clean and tidy overall, so if you're looking for a lunch spot near Yeoksam, want a properly satisfying meal, or are searching for a good eel rice bowl restaurant in Yeoksam, it's worth trying the hitsumabushi at Unagiwa! I think next time I visit I'll order the hitsumabushi again and pile on plenty of scallion and wasabi. :)