Baby-friendly grilled fish in Gwangmyeong: sofa seats at Todam Hwadok

Easing into first-birthday-party mom mode

...our baby is only 5 months old and we're already prepping for her first birthday? Not easy, not easy at all!

We picked Gwangmyeong for the venue since relatives would be coming up from out of town, and while we were out scouting first-birthday venues in Gwangmyeong, we went looking for somewhere to grab lunch — and found our beloved... grilled fish restaurant! S2

Doesn't grilled fish cooked in a clay oven sound amazing? Letting you in on Todam Hwadok Saengseongui, a great spot for taking your parents out or a family meal!

Where is Todam Hwadok Saengseongui, and where do you park?

Todam Hwadok Saengseongui is on the 3rd floor of a building at 459 Anyangcheon-ro, Gwangmyeong-si, Gyeonggi-do, and they'll valet your car on the 1st floor. We spotted Todam Hwadok Saengseongui's banner on the ground floor of a building packed with restaurants! The great thing about this place is they offer valet parking!!! It's probably hard to find parking during lunch rush, so they help out! We handed off our car and headed up to the 3rd floor~!

Sofa seats at Todam Hwadok Saengseongui that work with a baby

The first reason I'd recommend Todam Hwadok Saengseongui for a family meal is the seating. Every seat feels reasonably private, the chairs are comfortable, and the tables are wide! Places like this let you eat without any discomfort — that's the perk.

I brought Siwoon along too, and since he can't hold his head up yet, he can't sit in a baby chair — so this kind of sofa seat was such a relief. These days my restaurant criteria basically comes down to whether or not I can lay Siwoon down somewhere haha

This traditional vibe is really charming! Now let's get into the food~ We ordered the grilled mackerel and grilled croaker set menus >_< I eat mackerel often, but it had been a while since croaker, so I was super excited hehe

The self-serve banchan bar, pumpkin porridge included

Second thing I loved about Todam Hwadok Saengseongui — the generous self-serve corner!!! You get basic side dishes with your meal, but beyond that, if you head over to the self-serve bar, you can grab extra banchan (side dishes)!

Can you tell how generous it is? Swipe through the photos! What I especially loved was the pumpkin porridge — genuinely hard to find these days...!!! Both my husband and I had a ladle of it.

Here's our table set up with the extra banchan we grabbed! The basic spread alone is hearty, but once we added our own self-serve picks — honestly, we could've had a full meal without the grilled fish at all haha. Not many places this generous these days... genuinely touched

Mackerel and croaker straight from the clay oven

This is the clay oven where the fish get grilled golden brown...! This place is so popular the fish just keep going in and coming out! When's our fish coming, boss!!!!! I can't stand the smell of grilled fish, hurry up, I'm getting dizzy

The clay-oven grilled fish has arrived! haha The second it came out I was shocked at how big the mackerel was, and the croaker's golden-brown look was insane...

Not dried-out fish with all the fat cooked off — no way. This grilled fish is crispy outside, tender inside: the skin's crunchy and the flesh is springy and moist.

Doenjang stew, pot rice and sungnyung with every set

And the doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) was so good. It had that rich flavor somewhere between doenjang stew and cheonggukjang (fermented soybean stew). My roommate and I were genuinely making a fuss over how good it was. We scraped the pot clean by the end. I guess grilled fish and doenjang jjigae really are inseparable... every time you crave something soupy, one big spoonful settles your stomach right back down, and your chopsticks head straight back to the rich, fatty fish hehe

Even the rice comes as hot-pot rice, apparently? Is there a single Korean who doesn't love sungnyung (scorched-rice tea)? They scoop out the warm rice, then pour in hot broth to make it — we'll slurp that up at the end. But first, let's demolish the grilled fish

Grilled fish on top of rice — can you feel the moistness? Is there a method for resisting mackerel on top of fluffy white rice? I sure don't know one

Wrap rice and grilled fish in doenjang-pickled myeong-i namul (wild garlic leaves) and it's just heaven. The mackerel was so huge I thought we'd never finish it, but once we gave up on the rice and just dug into the fish, we cleared both the mackerel and the croaker...⭐️

Todam Hwadok Saengseongui: address, hours and parking

• 📍 459 Anyangcheon-ro, 3rd floor, Gwangmyeong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• ⏰ Daily 10:50–21:30 (last order 20:30)
• 🚗 Parking available on the building's 1st floor