Eunpyeong Seoul Korean BBQ with staff-grilled pork: Oktopbang

Oktopbang (옥탑방) was our family’s longtime regular spot! When we couldn’t settle on a meat restaurant in Eunpyeong, this incredibly delicious place finally made us settle down 🐽

Let me introduce Oktopbang, with its lovely rooftop-style atmosphere, great spread of side dishes, and excellent meat 🤭 It’s already sooo famous among Eunpyeong residents.. 🫧

Oktopbang between Gusan and Yeokchon Stations

Exterior

Oktopbang is located between Gusan Station and Yeokchon Station 🫧 It’s a little closer if you walk from Gusan Station.

Inside and reservations

It was set up with four-person tables, and I visited after reserving and sat at a table marked as reserved! Another four or five tables were reserved too, so I recommend booking ahead if you want to avoid an evening wait..!

Since Oktopbang is famous for minari (water parsley), there were boxes and boxes of Cheongdo minari stacked up 🤭

Oktopbang’s menu and the basic full spread

Each table has a tablet, so you can order from there.

✔️ You get free straw-fire grilled pork rind when you leave a receipt review, so you absolutely have to do it..! It’s so nutty and delicious haha. Looking at the other tables, lots of people were ordering the scorched-rice gimbap wrap set too! The salted baby oysters looked sooo good ✨

A generous full spread of various sauces and banchan (Korean side dishes) came out, and I was full just looking at it 🐽 They also give you bubbling kimchi stew as a basic side—so great…! It was packed with properly fermented sour kimchi, tofu, and meat, so I immediately ordered a bowl of rice 😆

I also loved that the rice was black rice! Mixing the kimchi stew into black rice tasted just like something my mom would make 😍

A place that grills Premium Jaksal Samgyeopsal for you

✔️ We ordered three servings of Premium Jaksal Samgyeopsal (pork belly). The meat is scented first over charcoal, then over straw fire. The straw-fire flavor wasn’t especially strong, but it seems they can adjust it if you let them know beforehand if that feels like too much!

The best thing about Oktopbang is that the staff grill the meat the most delicious way, from beginning to end 👏🏻 Honestly, restaurants that grill the meat for you are the best… 🤍

They cut off and grill the pork rind separately! Then they place it all nicely in soybean powder so it’s easy to eat. We just had to use our chopsticks and eat 😆

The fat drains off nicely too, which is reassuring… 🤭

Before I knew it, they had put kimchi, bracken fern, mushrooms, peppers, and cheese on the grill too 💗 Everything was nicely browned and cooked into easy-to-eat pieces.

Recommended pork belly combinations

The staff member grilling our meat told us about each tasty combination one by one! They were seriously so kind. As always, the first bite of pork is salt plus wasabi 💚

They had something unusual—pickled seaweed? They recommended having it with wasabi too, but it was a little challenging for my palate 🥲 But the aged kimchi plus salted hairtail innards combination was truly, truly amazing…! We kept going with that combination almost until the end 😆😆

There’s also a special sauce, and once the cheese melts, they even wrap it around the meat and place it on your small plate. What service 🤭👏🏻 Pork belly wrapped in cheese was so charming too!

It had been a while since I visited Oktopbang, which has been loved in Eunpyeong for such a long time, and all the old memories came rushing back. The staff were as kind as ever and the atmosphere was lovely too! Everyone, come eat some meat 💗