Eel soup ordered separately at Gwangju eel restaurant Deokeun Jangeo

Whenever I get an eel craving, I go looking for a good spot. This time I went back to Deokeun Jangeo (더큰장어), a place I'd visited once before and enjoyed. You pick and pay for your own eel before eating, so you can see the freshness with your own eyes, and between the self-serve bar, the eel soup, and the post-meal ice cream and coffee, it's a Gwangju eel spot that has it all in one place :)

How Deokeun Jangeo works: picking your own eel in the basement

If it's your first visit, the system at Deokeun Jangeo might feel a bit unusual. First, head to the basement floor and pick the eel you want, then pay. We looked through several packs and picked the one with 3 eels. Being able to see and choose the eel yourself makes it easy to check the portion, and it's convenient for matching the amount to your group size.

After paying, you head up to the first floor, where staff show you to a table. First-timers just need to remember this order: pick and pay for eel in the basement, then eat on the first floor. Simple enough.

What comes with the meal: Deokeun Jangeo's basic table setting

Once seated, they set the table with basic side dishes that pair well with eel. Since eel itself is rich and savory, switching between the different sides kept things from feeling repetitive all the way through.

What I especially liked about Deokeun Jangeo is that it doesn't stop at the basic sides — there's also a separate self-serve bar. If you run low on a side dish while eating, you can grab more whenever you need it without having to keep calling a staff member over. It felt like a good Yangsan-dong, Gwangju spot to visit when you want to eat plenty of eel.

Grilling the 3-eel pack golden brown at the table

They put the eel on the grill and got started in earnest. As the thick eel cooked, the surface turned golden brown and a savory smell rose up — from that point on, it was genuinely hard to hold back 😂

Well-grilled eel was golden on the outside and soft and moist inside. Eaten plain, you really taste the eel's own savory flavor, and with a side wrapped in, it's a different flavor again — I kept reaching for more.

Tasting it again this time, I understood why I'd come back. Even though we picked just 3 eels, mixing and matching different bites made it disappear faster than expected.

Ordering a full bowl of eel soup, not the dessert-size one

There was one more thing at Deokeun Jangeo I was looking forward to as much as the eel itself: eel soup! I actually remembered enjoying the eel soup on my last visit, so this time, instead of the small dessert-size soup that comes with the meal, I went ahead and ordered a full bowl of regular eel soup separately.

It's a dish that suited my taste well enough that I ordered it again after trying it once. With the rich, savory broth paired with rice, I kept eating even after already filling up on grilled eel. In the end, I cleaned out the whole bowl again haha.

If you want to properly finish off your grilled eel with a warm broth and rice, ordering the eel soup alongside it seems like a good idea. Personally, if I go back to Deokeun Jangeo, it's the dish I'd want to order again!

The self-serve side dish bar at Deokeun Jangeo

I used the self-serve bar throughout the meal too. When eating eel, you tend to reach for certain sides much more than others, so being able to grab as much as needed myself was convenient. It's also nice that you can take just as much as you'll actually eat.

For a meal like grilled eel that tends to run long, having a self-serve bar like this felt like a bigger convenience than I expected. It seemed like a solid Buk-gu, Gwangju spot for a family eel dinner too.

After the meal: free ice cream and brewed coffee

After finishing up a filling meal, there was still a little something extra waiting. We wrote a receipt review and each got an ice cream 🍦 Finishing off eel and eel soup with a cool ice cream really felt like the end of a proper course.

On top of that, we could have coffee too — not just instant coffee, but a bean coffee machine as well, so we could brew a cup right there. Being able to enjoy a coffee without heading to a separate café afterward was a nice touch.

Why Deokeun Jangeo in Yangsan-dong was worth a second visit

This visit wasn't my first — I came back because I remembered how good it was, and it was worth the return. Picking and paying for the eel I wanted in the basement, then eating comfortably upstairs, plus the self-serve bar, the eel soup, and the post-meal ice cream and brewed coffee — the whole package worked for me. Above all, the main event, the eel, has to be good for me to come back, and this time too, I enjoyed 3 eels' worth.

If you're like me and love eel soup, I'd especially recommend not stopping at the dessert-size version — order a proper full bowl of eel soup on the side. It was good last time so I ordered it separately again this time, and once again I cleaned the bowl completely :)

If you're in Yangsan-dong looking for a family meal out or a hearty tonic-food option, Deokeun Jangeo is a Gwangju eel spot worth visiting again.