Jijok-dong, Daejeon eel all-you-can-eat early lunch: Songrimbok

Eel is one of my all-time favorite foods. Lately I've been craving it even more... grilled eel, that high-protein wonder! I went to Daejeon with my sister and stopped by a Yuseong, Daejeon favorite in Jijok-dong — "Songrimbok Jangeo Unlimited Eel Daejeon Direct Store."

Songrimbok in Jijok-dong, Daejeon: is the eel really unlimited?

As the name suggests, Songrimbok is a restaurant where you can eat eel all you can eat. Eel, unlimited refills?! Eel isn't exactly a cheap food, but here you can eat as much as you want, and for under ₩30,000 no less.

Every morning, live eel is brought in fresh from the direct wholesale market, so you get high-quality grilled eel. Even though it's unlimited, they're not cutting quality or using frozen eel. Fresh, just-caught live eel is served every day.

Songrimbok table charge and menu lineup

Songrimbok has a table charge of ₩3,000 per person. For a meal menu, there's eel soup, galbitang, and yukgaejang. You can also take eel to go, and it's quite cheap. Another strong point of Songrimbok — you can eat not just eel but also duck, pork belly, and grilled chicken thigh meat.

The restaurant is huge. It's the biggest eel restaurant I've ever been to.

Side dishes and the free bokbunja wine

Songrimbok brings out the first round of side dishes for you. The green onion kimchi was beautifully fermented and really tasty.

And then, a genuinely amazing extra!!! What is this!! Bokbunja (black raspberry) wine, a perfect match with eel. They give you Sejong bokbunja wine, which they also actually sell, as a free service.

Unfortunately, we couldn't drink the bokbunja wine. My sister had to drive, and I'm off alcohol these days.

How the self-service refill corner works

At first, they bring you eel and chicken thigh meat. They gave us a generous amount.

You can grab more side dishes yourself at the self-service corner. Eel and chicken thigh meat are there too. I liked this — even with unlimited refills, asking staff over and over can feel awkward. But being able to just grab more yourself without worrying about it was great. Unfortunately, since it was early lunch time, pork belly wasn't available.

How to grill the eel at Songrimbok

They lay the pale white eel flesh on the grill. There was salt and pepper on the table, so I seasoned it. First, they grill it skin-side down.

Once it's cooked enough, flip it over. The eel is so plump!!! Made my mouth water.

Now they cut it into bite-sized pieces and grill it until crisp. Getting the skin nice and crispy makes it even tastier.

Once both sides are well grilled, they stand the pieces on their side. The thickness of this eel is a work of art.

They put the chicken thigh meat on one side of the grill to cook.

Eel is eaten wrapped in perilla leaves. So good!! Eel is always delicious, no matter when you eat it.

One downside: no spicy sauce

One thing I found lacking was that there was no spicy sauce... instead there's teriyaki sauce. I just went with plain salt-and-pepper eel. At the end of the day, nothing beats the natural flavor!

Refilling for two: a whole eel on the second plate

They gave us so much food at the start that I wondered if the two of us could even finish it, but we ate it all and went for a refill. I just grabbed a portion, but somehow we ended up bringing back a whole eel.

While the refilled eel was grilling, we ate the finished chicken thigh meat! It was already seasoned with salt and pepper, so you can just eat it as is. Such tender grilled chicken thigh meat.

The refill eel was even fatter than the first round haha. Top-tier eel quality. This is Songrimbok, a Jijok-dong, Yuseong, Daejeon favorite where you can eat quality eel to your heart's content at a reasonable price. We ate so well.