Gwacheon duck BBQ and self-fried rice at Deo Chadol

Deo Chadol, close to Seonbawi Station

Exterior

It’s roughly two minutes from Exit 3 of Seonbawi Station! It’s a standalone building, so it’s easy to find ✨ It’s close to Seoul Racecourse Park, Seoul Grand Park, Seoul Land, and the Gwacheon National Science Museum, so it’s great after a day out nearby 🩵 It’s already famous as a Gwacheon and Seoul Land restaurant, too.

Parking lot

The parking lot is fairly spacious too. Around 10 cars can fit. Please use the photos as a reference!

Entrance and waiting

We arrived around 6:30 on Sunday evening, and there were four parties ahead of us. There are seats right by the door for waiting, plus the waiting area is heated and air-conditioned, which was nice 🥹 People moved through quickly, so our actual wait was maybe 15 minutes?

It even won a Gwacheon City restaurant competition award... I’d visited a few times before, and the interior is tidy and the menu is well put together, so it’s such an easy place to bring anyone!

Private rooms and interior

There’s one private room by the entrance. I couldn’t photograph it because there were guests inside, but it’s quite large (four tables for four, maybe?), so it looked like it could hold up to about 16 people.

As you can see, the interior is very tidy. The tables are very wide, and the chairs are comfy too ~_~ Lots of families seemed to come here to eat! It looked good for bringing a baby as well. There’s another room farther inside, which looked like it could fit around eight people!

The Couple Set and side dishes

Menu

We ordered the Couple Set (grilled brisket, marinated meat, doenjang stew, and fried rice), plus perilla-oil makguksu (buckwheat noodles) 🤭

Side dishes and self-service bar

The basic side dishes + salad. The pickled perilla leaves were sweet and tangy, and with the meat, there was no chance of getting tired of it ☺️

Green-onion kimchi. This really cut through the richness. It was fermented just right, so we kept getting refills.

Lettuce and kale wraps. Lettuce wraps are the familiar classic, of course, but it was my first time trying kale wraps, and they were crunchier than other wraps—such a treat?

You can refill the basic side dishes at the self-service bar! They also have pickled radish wraps, which don’t come as standard, so pick some up if you’re a fan..

• The staff kindly explain how to eat everything before grilling.
• The brisket should be cooked a little more than beef brisket.
• After finishing the brisket, ask a staff member for the marinated duck.
• The fried rice is self-service.

Tender, odor-free grilled duck brisket

Grilled duck brisket, 200 g

The grilled brisket comes arranged like this. It’s 200 g of duck brisket. It’s thinly sliced, so it cooks quickly—so nice! You can tell the meat quality looks good just from the color, right..? 🥺 If you usually eat a lot, though, the amount included in the set may feel a little short. Of course, the marinated duck and fried rice come later. (We thought it might not be enough and added one serving, but after the marinated duck and fried rice, we were extremely full anyway ^^,,) They’re generous with the minari (water dropwort), too. Let the mushrooms and onions soak up the duck fat as they grill—so good. Those who know food know!

Lay it out prettily like this and let it sizzle away. As the staff said, it tasted best cooked moderately like beef rather than grilled too dry! The duck had no smell, so it was easy to enjoy, and the thin slices made it tender.

At every table there’s pink salt (not just salt—pink salt!) and a special meat sauce; put some on your small plate and dip the meat in. Eat it with minari and you get that fragrant minari flavor from grilling in duck fat too.. Extra minari is ₩3,000 per plate, by the way. Personally... because duck itself is quite fatty, I recommend eating it with pickled radish, green-onion kimchi, or pickled perilla leaves rather than on its own!

Doenjang stew

Doenjang stew is included in the Couple Set too. It arrives bubbling away. Nothing especially distinctive—just the ordinary kind of doenjang stew you get at a barbecue restaurant! But it is packed with tofu and vegetables.

Marinated duck and heart-shaped fried rice

Marinated duck, 300 g

After finishing the grilled brisket, we moved on to the marinated duck. You stir-fry this one yourself too. It has duck, cabbage, rice cakes, and sweet potato, and it’s a little like dakgalbi (spicy stir-fried chicken). Eat it once the sweet potato is cooked through! The heat level is milder than Shin Ramyun...? It tastes just like dakgalbi, really... except the meat is duck. Have it with the rice cakes and meat. The seasoning wasn’t overly sweet and had a savory saltiness—totally my style 😘

Wrapped with pickled radish and kale, it totally brought my appetite back. Meat really needs vegetables like these so you don’t get tired of it, right?

Self-fried rice

The long-awaited self-fried rice. I love frying it myself. That way I can throw in all sorts of extra ingredients however I want. First, chop up the little bit of duck left over. I chopped in more green-onion kimchi too and fried it up. If you need more sesame oil, it’s at the self-service bar. My dining companion’s feelings for me. Actually, I asked them to make a heart. I was even coaching them because that bit was crooked.. (In the GIF, I’m pointing with my finger and coaching.) Fried rice tastes best when it’s shaped like a heart. Fried rice that looks good tastes good too haha.

Perilla-oil makguksu that needed more seasoning

Perilla-oil makguksu

I was full, but my dining companion still seemed to have plenty of room, so we ordered the perilla-oil makguksu! It was a little under-seasoned for my taste... It definitely had generous amounts of perilla oil, ground perilla seeds, and seaweed flakes, but... it just felt like noodles tossed in perilla oil with perilla-seed powder. A little more salty seasoning would improve it!!

But a staff member quietly took the makguksu plate in front of my dining companion (we had finished it, but still) without saying anything, which caught us off guard.. Suddenly they were the person whose bowl got taken away.. Next time, I’d appreciate being asked first whether it’s okay to clear it, please ,,