Hyehwa izakaya for a 5-piece oden set and single skewers: Hanamato

I heard there was an oden and skewer izakaya where you could build your own combo any way you liked, so I went and checked it out.

Where Hanamato Daehangno Hyehwa is and when it opens

Hanamato Daehangno Hyehwa is about a 3-minute walk from Hyehwa Station Exit 4. Walk into the alley and you'll spot it right away haha. It was my first visit, but this seemed to be a chain with quite a few branches around.

• Hanamato Hyehwa Japanese izakaya hours: 4 PM – 3 AM

The exterior that catches your eye

Even the standing signboard listing the menu

Seating on the 1st and 2nd floors, plus outdoor tables

The interior of Hanamato Daehangno Hyehwa is split across the 1st and 2nd floors, and we ate on the 1st floor! There's a range of seating — seats where you can watch the skewers being grilled, inner seats, and outdoor seats — so if you want a patio-bar vibe, you can drink outside too.

They also sell a small selection of Japanese snacks along the wall, and the stickers were cute lol. I didn't take a photo of the full menu, but skewers are sold in units of 2 plus sets, and oden is sold individually plus sets.

Events running at Hanamato right now

• Free highball per person with Naver reservation + reviewer review on Naver
• Free heart skewer with a receipt review

There's an event running where you get a free canned drink if you order 2 bottles of soju. I've been seeing this drink-service-with-alcohol event at quite a few places lately — interesting..

What two people ordered at Hanamato

• Oden 5-piece set
• Chicken thigh skewer x2
• Chicken neck meat skewer x2
• Tsukune x2
• Wagyu tataki

5 pieces of oden, 6 skewers, and tataki — for two people, that portion was just right!!! You can order skewers individually, and there are a lot of ₩10,000-range dishes, so feel free to add more casually!

On the left side of Hanamato Hyehwa izakaya there's a booth where they grill the skewers, so you can watch your order being cooked.

Once you order, the draft beer comes out fast with great foam — and the price was cheap too!

The 5-piece oden set, simmered on a tabletop induction burner

The first thing to arrive was the fish cake set!! Probably a bit cheaper than ordering individually. There's also a ₩2,000 discount on a fish-cake-skewer set, but we ordered individually so we could pick our own skewer combo.

It said 5 kinds on the menu but 6 kinds actually came out — I think one of them was the fried tofu rice-cake pouch, counted separately. It looks small in photos but each piece is actually fairly sized.

They bring oden broth on an induction burner, and once it boils, you add the fish cake (though it already comes cooked).

We cut the fish cake in half and ate a few first — this long one doesn't really have much flavor on its own, it's more about texture, but the portion was pretty generous lol.

Already sliced up.... this one's on the firmer side, and next to it was a small, long cheese oden, which was also delicious.

The fried tofu pouch has rice cake inside ~

This is the spicy fish cake, split in half (cut on purpose!!!!). There were bits of chili pepper inside — a mildly spicy fish cake that even a spice wimp can handle lol.

And the rest of the fish cakes were also halved — the white one is marshmallow fish cake. Not sure if there's actual marshmallow in it, but it's light and fluffy, so I'd definitely recommend trying this one. The one below is corn fish cake, which is also a little sweet and seems like something almost everyone would like. The set lineup of fish cakes is great, so it's totally fine to just eat them as they are!!

Wagyu tataki at Hanamato

To fill up a bit more without getting too full, we added wagyu tataki.

Tataki with the surface torched just right. The portion and quality both seemed reasonable for the price.

Just put some wasabi on it — since it's not served hot, you can dig right in.

Tsukune over chicken skewers: how to order

The two kinds of skewers we ordered individually. They look similar lol — the top is neck meat, the bottom is chicken thigh.

The skewers are just meant to be eaten as-is — nothing particularly unique about them, really just the chicken skewers they look like.

Remembering how good tsukune was at another skewer place before, we ordered one per person.... !!!! I'd strongly recommend tsukune over the chicken skewers. We got 2 chicken + 1 tsukune, but if you're only having 3 total... please get 1 meat skewer and 2 tsukune instead ~ lol

They give you a beaten egg yolk to dip into, which can taste a bit plain on its own, so mixing in a little soy sauce makes it much better. It looked firm on the outside but was actually a bit fluffy, with a decent amount of teriyaki-ish sauce on it, and the seasoning was restrained in a way that was exactly to my taste — really good. We mixed the leftover egg sauce with soy sauce and dipped the tataki in it too, and that pairing worked really well.

I went to Hanamato Hyehwa Japanese izakaya and the staff were so cute... lol, the atmosphere was great too, so it was a really tasty visit!