Soju and scallion kimchi with grilled eel in Nowon: Cheonsanga

Today I want to introduce Cheonsanga Jangeoga Hagae Branch, a well-known spot in Hagae-dong. It's a restaurant where you can eat domestic japonica eel grilled over domestic charcoal, and with the upscale atmosphere plus staff grilling the eel for you, it was a really comfortable place to eat. Shall we go together?

An eel restaurant in the Hagae-dong food alley

Cheonsanga Jangeoga is located in the Hagae-dong food alley, where there are plenty of other good restaurants nearby, making for naturally fierce competition. Right in front of the restaurant there's space for about 4–5 cars to park.

There's a weekday lunch special too

On weekdays there's also a lunch special menu, where you can enjoy some items at a more reasonable price. If you want to enjoy eel with better value for money, lunchtime might be worth trying.

An upscale atmosphere good for gatherings

Eel is a dish that suits family gatherings or hosting guests well. Cheonsanga Jangeoga's interior is decorated to fit that kind of occasion — quite upscale, actually. The wood-toned interior and soft lighting gave the whole place a warm, cozy feeling. What I especially liked was that each table has its own ventilation system, so the smoke from grilling the eel gets pulled out right away, which cuts down on your clothes smelling like smoke afterward.

A spacious restaurant good for group gatherings

We made a Naver reservation in advance, and the table was neatly set for us, with a seat by the window that made the meal even more comfortable. The restaurant space is roomy too, so it seemed like a good spot for a family meal out or a group gathering.

Missing a side dish? There's a self-serve bar

There's a self-serve bar set up on one side of the restaurant where you can freely help yourself to side dishes. We barely needed to use it, though, since the staff kept refilling things before we even ran out. That kind of attentive service was satisfying too.

A cleanly managed restaurant

The restrooms are located near the entrance and are separated by gender, and the place was cleanly maintained overall. We also spotted a serving robot bringing food and side dishes around, which felt oddly novel at an eel restaurant. Will there come a day when robots grill the eel too, haha?

Eel grilled over domestic charcoal

There's a space on one side of the restaurant where the charcoal is prepared. Looking inside, red-hot domestic charcoal was being readied. Watching the staff pull well-heated charcoal from the large hearth to grill the eel already got me excited. Eel really does taste best grilled over a strong charcoal fire.

The eel finally hits the grill

At last, today's star arrived. The grill plate was quite large, but the eel was so big they had to fold it in half to fit it on.

Cheonsanga Jangeoga uses domestic japonica eel, and the neatly trimmed, large eel began sizzling on the red-hot charcoal.

Grilling technique really matters with eel

Eel is a food where the taste can differ quite a lot depending on how it's grilled. Here, the staff grill it for you from start to finish, so all we had to do was wait comfortably.

They alternated cooking the skin and the flesh, and carefully trimmed even the small bones and the dorsal fin. Having someone handle grilling eel — which is hard to do well — meant we could just focus on eating.

Plump japonica eel

They crisped up the skin side first, then flipped it over to cook the flesh through as well. They lightly seasoned the white flesh with coarse salt.

Once it was cooked through, they cut it into even pieces and stood them up to finish.

I've grilled eel myself before at a self-serve eel place, and the charcoal fire is so strong it's harder than it looks. So I really appreciated a place where they grill it well for you, haha.

Stone sushi and deodeok salad on the side

While the eel was grilling, doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew), stone sushi, and deodeok salad came out too. With the set menu you can choose between deodeok salad or salted seasoned oysters, and we went with the deodeok. The fragrantly seasoned deodeok was tender and went well with the eel too. Apparently the stone sushi is also good topped with eel later, or with the deodeok salad on top.

The first bite, finally!

Finally, everything was cooked through. The staff plated the first piece nicely with sauce and ginger on top. The moment I bit in, I felt the crispy skin first, then soft eel flesh and savory juices spread through my mouth. With the sharp bite of ginger and the savoriness of the sauce added in, eel really is eel. And honestly... it tastes better when someone else grills it for you, lol.

Such a good side dish calls for a drink!

With such a good side dish, drinks were a must. Once again a fresh glass of soju cleaned my palate. Seeing the eel neatly stacked on one side was reassuring just to look at. The outside was crispy and the inside was really tender. Among the side dishes, scallion kimchi personally went best with it — a piece of well-cooked eel topped with scallion kimchi, and a shot of soju just disappeared.

There's still eel left!

Eating piece by piece, the eel disappeared little by little, but we kept eating right to the end, haha.

The eel stone sushi is also delicious

I tried topping the stone sushi with eel and wrapping it with pickled perilla leaf, and that combo was really good too. But personally, to taste the eel's own flavor, dipping it lightly in salt was still the best way.

Ah, forget it — one more eel!

After some deliberation, we ended up ordering another whole eel. It arrived at just the right timing, before we'd finished the first batch, so the flow of the meal wasn't broken. The added eel was similar in size and thickness to the first one, which gave me the impression that quality is well managed overall.

Scallion kimchi really is the best combo

I tried eating it various ways, but if I had to pick the tastiest combo, it's eel plus scallion kimchi! The savoriness of well-fermented scallion kimchi paired really well with the savory eel. I kept reaching for this combo the whole meal.

Finishing with nurungji

A meal's got to end with carbs, haha! At Cheonsanga Jangeoga, they finish things off with warm nurungji (scorched rice). The savory, soft nurungji felt like it cleanly reset the palate after the richness of the eel.

Wrapping up

If you're near Hagae-dong looking for a spot for a family meal, a gathering with good people, or a place to treat guests, Cheonsanga Jangeoga Hagae Branch is worth considering. They grill domestic japonica eel over a strong domestic charcoal fire, and best of all, the staff grill the eel for you from start to finish, so you can just relax and enjoy the conversation while you eat. With the upscale, clean atmosphere on top of that, it's a great place to visit on a day when you want to enjoy eel properly. If you're looking for a good eel restaurant in Hagae-dong, give the charcoal-grilled eel at Cheonsanga Jangeoga a try!