Yeouido gyukatsu restaurant that refills your grill charcoal: Izawa

Why a weekend in Yeouido ended at Izawa Yeouido Direct Store

Lately it feels like every weekend I'm in Yeouido. There's IFC Mall, The Hyundai, Yeouido Park, and the Han River Park all right there — perfect for hitting multiple spots in one day. (Honestly, I used to avoid it because parking was so expensive haha.) But once I discovered that buying a parking ticket through the Modu's Parking app gets you a spot for just ₩6,000 after 2pm, I started coming to Yeouido way more often.

That day we did the IFC and The Hyundai shopping tour, but The Hyundai was way too crowded, so we headed back out to Yeouido Station to grab lunch instead. And that's how we ended up at Izawa Yeouido Direct Store!!!

Where is Izawa? 2nd floor of Yeouido Jonghap Sangga, by Yeouido Station Exit 5

Izawa Yeouido Direct Store is located in Yeouido Jonghap Sangga (Yeouido General Shopping Center). It's the building you see right as you come out of Exit 5 at Yeouido Station. It's a pretty old building, but it's packed with genuinely great restaurants.

Back when I was interning in Yeouido, I ate at a lot of these building restaurants.

Izawa is on the 2nd floor, and once you go up the stairs, the sign is easy to spot, so you'll find it quickly.

Looks like Lim Young-woong and Hibab have been here too.

There's a lot of signage out front about waiting, so it seems like weekday lunch gets really packed. Since we went on a weekend, we got in without any wait.

What we ordered at Izawa: the gyukatsu set with sirloin

You've gotta get gyukatsu (breaded beef cutlet) when you come to Izawa, right? We went with the classic — the gyukatsu set (sirloin). Apparently Izawa is Korea's original, first-ever gyukatsu restaurant. When I went to another gyukatsu place recently, it felt like they were trying too hard with fancy touches, but Izawa really feels clean and fundamental.

What comes with Izawa's gyukatsu set, and the charcoal refill

The gyukatsu set arrived neatly plated.

The meat came cut into perfect one-bite pieces.

The rice was served in a kind of heaping-mound style, so I'd totally recommend it for guys who eat a lot of rice. Mine was so much I ended up giving some to my partner.

They gave us one charcoal grill for the two of us. As we kept eating, the charcoal ran low, but when we asked, they refilled it right away.

Isn't that cross-section gorgeous?!? I honestly think gyukatsu beats mediocre beef any day. The marbling is just so good.

We put it on the grill and cooked it up diligently.

Maillard reaction. They cooked it so beautifully golden.

We sprinkled on some salt and dipped it right in.

The side dishes also came in bite-sized portions, and besides the salt there was a soy-based sauce and a garlic-sesame(?) sauce I'd never tried before — that one was honestly my favorite.

We kept the grill going nonstop and cleared every last piece of meat.

The salad portion was also pretty generous, and the dressing on top wasn't overly sweet, pairing well with the gyukatsu. Eating a bit of salad when you start to get full lets you clear the whole plate.

Inside Izawa: mostly tables for two, and solo dining works too

The interior was mostly tables for two. There were also some bar seats, so solo dining looks doable too.

Of course, there are 4-person tables too.

Parking at Izawa and the verdict on this Yeouido gyukatsu restaurant

Parking gets you 1 hour supported at the ground-floor lot. Worth noting it's the ground-floor lot, not the basement one. The Hyundai and IFC Mall are always way too crowded on weekends, so getting jostled around is basically guaranteed — but stepping out to this building right by the station for a quiet, delicious meal was just perfect. If you're looking for a proper original gyukatsu spot in Yeouido, I'd recommend giving Izawa Yeouido Direct Store a try!

• Address: 203-204, 42 Yeouinaru-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: 11:00 - 21:00 (last order 20:30)
• Break time: 15:00 - 17:00
• Closed: None
• Parking: 1 hour supported, ground-floor lot (spacious)