Gangnam eel restaurant with four-step hitsumabushi: Unagiwa

A full hitsumabushi set at Unagiwa in Yeoksam

My niece and I went out for an eel rice bowl for a little health-boosting meal, for the first time in ages. This is a place where you can enjoy authentic Nagoya-style hitsumabushi, the original Japanese eel rice bowl, just like the local version.

Unagiwa, a great eel rice bowl spot in Yeoksam, has a clean interior. It would be a nice place to host guests, too. They also sell sake and highballs that pair well with the eel bowls.

My niece and I ordered the same thing: the hitsumabushi set, with one whole eel rice bowl.

Our hitsumabushi set arrived, filling the entire table. There isn't an empty spot anywhere! The presentation alone is overwhelming.

The eel rice bowl was the first thing that caught my eye. It is made in the authentic Nagoya style. I fell in love with eel when I ate it in Nagoya last year, and here I am getting to have it again today :)

Should I call these side dishes, the things you eat with the eel bowl? They look modest, but once they meet the eel rice bowl, they really reach their full potential.

First, I settled my stomach with salad? No, apparently you should eat vegetables first if you don't want to gain weight. I saw it in a short video, haha.

The chawanmushi (steamed egg custard) was so soft. It is nice and warm for settling your stomach. Yes, short videos say to eat vegetables and then protein, haha. The chawanmushi had such a lovely mushroom aroma.

How to eat hitsumabushi in four steps

Now let's properly dig into the hitsumabushi. I tried it using the four-step method. First, portion out one quarter.

They say it is 100% antibiotic-free domestic Japanese eel, raised by Unagiwa itself. It is so, so substantial.

Step 1: Eel and rice only

The first step is the pure, original flavor: eat just the rice and eel. I fell for eel rice bowls in Nagoya last year, and this is exactly that flavor. The tender eel melts in your mouth, it really melts. So delicious—absolutely the best.

Step 2: Scallions and wasabi

For the second way, top the eel with scallions and wasabi. This is my kind of style.

Step 3: Ochazuke

The third way is ochazuke (rice with green tea broth). This is my favorite method—having hitsumabushi as ochazuke.

This flavor goes together strangely well! My niece must have liked it best this way too, because she poured all the green tea broth into her big bowl, hahaha. I think my niece and I have similar tastes. We both really know good food, haha.

Step 4: Sweet and spicy plum sauce

The final fourth step. I thought it was ketchup, but it was actually plum sauce. It is sweet and spicy. Dip the eel in the plum sauce once it starts to feel rich. Still, I liked the third-step hitsumabushi best. In the end, I poured it all in just like my niece did, haha.

Seeing how much my niece enjoyed it made me happy too 😍😍 For the two of us to have a healthy, restorative meal, nothing beats eel 👍👍

Eel raised directly by Unagiwa, made into a Nagoya-style hitsumabushi bowl. If I had never eaten it in Nagoya, I wouldn't know—but I have. It tastes exactly like Nagoya hitsumabushi. I was completely moved.

I have been keeping up with a demanding schedule preparing for the season, and my niece has been attending an English academy in Gangnam, so we are both in the middle of packed schedules. But after this eel rice bowl, our health-boosting mission was complete, hahaha.