Donggok eel restaurant with onion wrap and ginger refill: Yuil Jangeo

Yuil Jangeo 343 Donggok-ro, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, South Korea Open 11:00, Close 21:00

A weekday lunch date at Yuil Jangeo to recharge

I went to Yuil Jangeo on Donggok-ro in Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju with my husband on a weekday afternoon, just the two of us. I'd been walking the exhausting path of parenting and working mom life for a while... so my husband and I went to Yuil Jangeo for a bit of a body-boosting date, our first in ages 🥹❣️

The parking lot is nice and roomy, so it'd be great for group gatherings too.

How do you order? Pick your eel at the counter, then grill it yourself

At Yuil Jangeo, you first choose your eel at the fish counter and pay there. The eel is pre-seared and brought to your table, and you grill it yourself from there.

Peeking around, the restaurant was pretty spacious and the tables had a fair amount of room between them, so it looked good for family meals as well as a great fit for group gatherings or work dinners.

Fresh, plump Korean freshwater eel at a reasonable price — that's Yuil Jangeo!

With Chuseok (Korean harvest holiday) coming up, they also sell hearty, reasonably priced holiday gift sets that are perfect for gifting, right here in the store.

Once you pick your eel and pay here, a staff member brings it to your table. Sets are recommended by party size from 2 up to 6 people, so it's easy to choose.

During busy hours I'd recommend using the table-waiting app!! We came on a weekday afternoon and got lucky, seated without any wait 😝

Baby chairs and other family-friendly amenities

Yuil Jangeo has a self-serve bar, aprons, and baby chairs all set up ✔️

Preventing arteriosclerosis and stroke, boosting stamina, good for skin and anti-aging, preventing high blood pressure and obesity — the endless benefits of eel ^-^

They say it even helps prevent night blindness and has antioxidant effects, so what a filial-duty kind of food this is 👀

This is what we picked — you can tell just by the color how fresh it looks.

What comes with the meal: the side dish spread

Yuil Jangeo's basic side dish lineup includes cold cucumber soup, kimchi, pickled radish wraps, lettuce, onion salad, gungchae namul, wood ear mushroom salad, pickled perilla leaves, and green onion kimchi.

Before the eel was even done, we started eating rice with the side dishes, and maybe because it was our first meal of the day haha, it was so, so good.

After being cleaned and pre-seared, the eel came out plump and generously sized ..💛

There's also a unique eel tteokgalbi (grilled eel patty) on the menu — if you're curious, give it a try sometime.

How to grill eel well on the charcoal

They set it up like this only for the first round, and after that you grill it yourself. Since the flesh can stick to the grill, make sure to stand it on its side while grilling.

I nearly got dizzy from waiting, but the charcoal fire was strong enough that it grilled up tasty and golden brown in no time.

How did it taste? The first bite with no sauce

Yuil Jangeo's charcoal-grilled eel, eaten on its own without sauce, really lets you feel its natural savoriness and cleanness — the fat drips away below, so it clung to my mouth without any greasiness at all.

Let me pass on my eel-grilling tips! > . < Flip it gently every so often over the charcoal and it cooks up golden on the outside, moist inside. Pick up a well-grilled piece and your mouth fills with a savory yet clean flavor, the soft texture unique to eel is great too, it's good with rice, and it pairs perfectly with ginger or the side dishes.

Piling on a generous scoop of onion salad, dipping it in sauce, and wrapping it up is a real delicacy too.

I don't like ginger so I skipped it, but my husband kept refilling his ginger and ate it up so enthusiastically haha.

The lunch special eel set meal at Yuil Jangeo

And one more bit of info to share..! There's a lunch special eel set meal — seasoned grilled eel plus eel soup — that's hearty and just right. If you want warm soup alongside the grilled eel rather than just grilled eel on its own, this combo might be a good call ㅎㅅㅎ

I was very satisfied here, so next time I want to bring my son along haha.

Yuil Jangeo, an eel restaurant in Donggok, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, also close to Naju Innovation City — great for gatherings and dates, and I'd call it a genuine hotspot for golden, plump grilled eel.