Mapo eel restaurant for egg eel rice bowls: Ryeok

An eel rice bowl I’d been craving for a month! I really wanted a delicious one, and there was an eel rice bowl place right near my husband’s office, so we had to go ~ Ryeok Minmul Jangeogui Jeonmunjeom, with its neat, tidy Japanese home-style set meal, ta-da!

Location and visitor information for Ryeok Minmul Jangeogui Jeonmunjeom in Sangam-dong

• 37 Seongam-ro 15-gil, 1st floor, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea (서울 마포구 성암로15길 37 1층)
• Break time Monday–Saturday, 14:00–16:00; Saturday hours, 11:00–22:00
• Regularly closed every Sunday
• Groups, delivery, and takeout available
• They say they prepare and sell eel caught that day on the same day, using top-grade domestic Japanese eel.
• They say prices may vary according to the market price of eel.

Even just arriving out front, I could catch the delicious charcoal smell(?) wafting over. The sign says Ryeok! It looks intense too, haha. Since grilling eel takes time, it really seems like you need to make a reservation.

Just hit the reservation button, choose the number of people and time, and reserve. They said it would be good to write down the menu in advance, so I put our menu in the request notes and made the reservation :)

It was weekday lunchtime, but there were already tables that had finished eating, presumably because they had reservations, and people who looked like office workers were having their meals too. There was lots of charcoal smell outside, so I wondered if our clothes would absorb it…? But the ventilation inside must be good, because it didn’t smell much at all, which was nice.

If you didn’t get a reservation, it might take a little while… but you can order from the kiosk too.

The eel rice bowl menu we reserved in advance

The special eel rice bowl (hitsumabushi) was ₩27,000, and the egg eel rice bowl was ₩18,000. We reserved both in advance, so we could eat as soon as we arrived—yay!

Besides eel dishes, they also had things like yuringi (fried chicken with tangy sauce), cream shrimp, and soboro eggplant rice bowls, so it looked like a good place for drinks with coworkers too.

After trying it, the eel-grilling method must be quite refined, because the charcoal aroma was so good and delicious. @@ said they wanted to try the grilled dishes next time too. Salt-grilled eel is ₩27,000, while soy sauce-grilled and spicy sauce-grilled eel are ₩28,000.

The visuals were crazy… There were so many colors and so many kinds of side dishes, which I loved. And even the staff serving us were kind, so I was sooo satisfied ~

Tender egg eel rice bowl

My husband arrived a little late, so I started with the egg eel rice bowl first, haha. First, I warmed up my stomach with seaweed soup, and it was perfectly seasoned; the seaweed was incredibly tender too. I inhaled the salad as well!

True to its name, the egg eel rice bowl had soft egg underneath, with eel—presumably grilled after being brushed with soy sauce—lying right on top, haha. Rice and onion were at the very bottom, and there were little portions of ginger, chili seasoning?, and wasabi on top, which was great because you could add them however you liked. @

They give you tongs and scissors to cut the eel, but it was so tender that a spoon broke it apart just fine. Rice, egg, onion, and eel all together—waaah!

When you lifted the eel slightly, there was mayo sauce? on top of the egg too, and it was even tastier piled together. Such a filling dish: very tender, with a slight sweetness.

Special eel rice bowl with a great charcoal aroma

This is the special eel rice bowl, hitsumabushi! Unlike the egg eel rice bowl, the special eel rice bowl either didn’t have soy sauce seasoning or only had a light coating, so the charcoal aroma came through more strongly than the soy flavor—and this was more my style. Such a clean taste!!

I looked it up, and apparently it is flavored with handmade eel tare sauce, then steamed and grilled repeatedly in the traditional Nagoya style to keep the eel tender. It also comes with warm broth so you can make ochazuke (rice with tea or broth).

This ridiculously soft steamed egg was amazing too. The pickles, kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi), and something like a dried-radish-greens side dish? were perfect to eat alongside when it started to feel lightly seasoned.

There was even a small whole ginseng root on top, and the eel was piled on so generously—it truly felt restorative! We each ate ours, then swapped with each other, but I ended up eating more of this one, haha. Love that charcoal aroma.

Be sure to add eel to the ochazuke

We finished with ochazuke too, and you absolutely have to put the eel on top for the real deal ~~ haha. The mild broth and charcoal-scented eel made the flavor pop!

Sweet marinated tomatoes(?) plus a mini chocolate cake and yogurt came with it, so dessert was taken care of too at Ryeok Minmul Jangeogui Jeonmunjeom >< If you’re looking for a good restaurant around DMC, I recommend it for lunch~ or a work dinner~!