Gangnam Station eel grill: couple's lunch and noodles at Jangsuchon

The older I get, the more I feel I need to look after my body. Every now and then my husband and I go out for a restorative meal, and today we went to Jangsuchon Pungcheon Eel (장수촌풍천장어), near Yangjae Station in Gangnam, close to home, for grilled eel.

Jangsuchon Pungcheon Eel: location, hours and parking

Jangsuchon Pungcheon Eel is an eel grill restaurant at 6 Dogok-ro 4-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, roughly halfway between Gangnam Station and Yangjae Station. It's open 11:00-22:00, with a break from 14:30 to 16:30, and closed on Sundays.

This Yangjae Station-area favorite sits between Gangnam and Yangjae stations. There's a parking lot next to the restaurant, so parking was free too.

What is Jangsuchon Pungcheon Eel like for a weekday lunch or team dinner?

The restaurant was spacious and clean, and we went for an early weekday lunch. They sell plenty of lunch dishes for office workers nearby, and many people come for pork bulgogi (jeyuk) or kimchi jjageuli (a thick, stew-like kimchi dish) rather than eel.

At lunch it's mostly office workers ordering lunch dishes, while in the evening many people come for salt-grilled eel. Apparently lots of Yangjae-area office workers come here for team dinners. The place is big with plenty of tables, so it looked great for a company dinner. They also say the eel comes directly from farms (yangmanjang), so it's fresh.

Salt-grilled eel at Jangsuchon: book by phone to save time

Salt-grilled eel can take a while, so we booked by phone before going, and they brought out neatly prepped eel right away. We were going to have the salt-grilled eel and worried it would take long, so we reserved, and maybe that's why everything was ready so quickly.

They grill the cleanly deboned eel over charcoal. We don't eat eel often and didn't really know how to grill it, but the staff did all the grilling for us from start to finish, which was so convenient.

Eel grilled with Gochang black raspberry salt

It was clear this wasn't their first time grilling eel. They did all four sides, front, back and both edges, golden brown without burning, so it tasted great. The salt for the salt-grilled eel isn't ordinary salt either; they use Gochang black raspberry (bokbunja) salt. It had a purplish tint from the berries, which was fascinating, and somehow knowing there's black raspberry in it made it feel even healthier.

The well-deboned eel, without a single bone, cooked gently over the charcoal. The sizzling sound and the nutty aroma were the best.

Is one order of eel enough for a couple?

The eel was plump and thick, and the portion was generous. Even just my husband and I were able to eat until we were full. Because the eel is fresh, there was no fishy smell, which was great.

Maybe because it's an eel specialist, they gave us a free pouch of eel juice each. They sell eel juice separately too. I took mine home to drink later. I'm planning to have it when I'm feeling run down, haha.

What to eat with grilled eel: ginger, soy sauce and a self-serve greens bar

Of course you eat golden grilled eel with thinly shredded ginger and soy sauce, right? The ginger masks any gamey smell and keeps it from feeling heavy. The soy sauce was sweet and salty, a perfect match for the eel.

Several kinds of kimchi and plenty of wrap vegetables come as side dishes by default, so I was happy to try the eel in all sorts of combinations.

Normally if I eat a lot of salt-grilled eel it gets too rich and I can't finish much, but maybe because the eel was fresh, or because I ate it with all those side dishes and wrap vegetables, I didn't even notice the richness and finished it all, haha.

I also liked that if you run out of side dishes, kimchi or wrap vegetables, you can take as much as you want from the self-serve bar. It's hard to eat lots of wrap vegetables at home, so I got plenty of greens thanks to this.

Free grilled mushrooms and rice cakes, plus the eel tail

After grilling the eel, they also gave us grilled mushrooms and rice cake as a freebie. They said these are normally an add-on menu item but they were giving them to us for free. The mushrooms and rice cake were grilled golden brown and were a treat of their own.

The eel tail came long, not cut up. It's supposedly great for virility, so of course I gave it to my husband, hahaha.

₩3,000 jangchu-tang and ₩7,000 janchi-guksu: add-ons after the eel

At Jangsuchon Pungcheon Eel, if you order salt-grilled eel you can add their signature jangchu-tang (eel and loach soup) for ₩3,000. Eating just grilled eel felt like something was missing, so I ordered it. Total bargain, isn't it? Haha.

Eating the jangchu-tang really felt like a proper restorative meal. The spicy, rich broth had dried radish greens (siraegi) in it, a gukbap (soup with rice) totally my style.

Jangchu-tang alone felt like not enough, so I also ordered the janchi-guksu (banquet noodles in anchovy broth). If you've had the grilled eel you can order it for ₩7,000, and it turned out to be a treat too, haha. The deep, rich anchovy broth has kimchi in it, so it's spicy with a lot of depth. It would be great as a hangover soup, and just as good as a regular lunch.

As you get older, the most important thing really is looking after your health. I'm going to eat grilled eel, great for stamina and restoring the body, and work hard with the energy, haha.