Fried and original jokbal split order near Bucheon Station: Kkalkkali

Location and parking at Kkalkkali Jokbal Bucheon Branch

📍51 Bucheon-ro 29beon-gil, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, 1st floor 🚇520m from Line 1 Bucheon Station Exit 3 🕐Daily 16:00 – 2:00 (next day) 🔖Naver reservations available, groups welcome, takeout, delivery, reservations, wifi, separate men's/women's restrooms 🚘 No parking

There's no dedicated parking lot, so I used the nearby Chanuri paid parking lot and walked about 5 minutes to the restaurant!

With the weather cooling down lately, they've started running outdoor seating too! Right now there's an opening event serving a sweet-and-tangy fruit makguksu (buckwheat noodles) as a free side dish!

They have disposable aprons ready to use!

The dining room and 8-table seating

The place is clean and pleasant, with about 8 tables!

Drinks and alcohol are self-serve, and you pay when you leave!

There's currently a review event running too — if you write a Naver review and turn on alerts, and spend over ₩50,000, you get ₩2,000 off with card payment or ₩3,000 off with cash!

Menu and how to order

There's a menu set up right on the table too!

You order by scanning the QR code!

What we ordered: - Kkalkkali half fried + half original jokbal, medium size ₩42,000 - 1 drink ₩2,000!

The basic side dishes and bean sprout soup

The basic spread includes lettuce and perilla leaves for wraps, plus garlic, cheongyang chili peppers, and a lettuce-and-chive salad! You can ask staff for refills anytime!

They also give ssamjang (dipping sauce), salted shrimp, pickled onion, and seasoned radish!

The basic soup is a clear bean sprout soup, but one sip and it's actually quite spicy and punchy — totally perfect as a soju side dish!

Half fried, half original jokbal — how does it taste?

Our half original, half fried jokbal arrived!

I usually love jokbal (braised pig's trotters), but sticking to just one style can feel like something's missing — ordering half-and-half let me try two styles at once, which was great. It was my first time trying fried jokbal, so I was excited!

We started with the original jokbal first! It had a glossy, appetizing look, the meat was packed in, and with the herbal medicine ingredients it was incredibly tender! No gamey smell, just sweet and delicious!

The fried jokbal had crispy skin and such an appealing texture that I kept reaching for more without ever getting tired of it! My husband especially raved about it, haha — it really lived up to being a fried jokbal specialty spot 😆😆

The free fruit makguksu was seriously a standout

The complimentary fruit makguksu (buckwheat noodles) arrived! This was genuinely a standout dish! 🍎🍐 The sweet-and-tangy sauce combined with the fresh fruit really woke up my appetite. Eating it alongside the jokbal completely cut through the richness, so I devoured it!

Above all, the noodles were chewy and the seasoning was so good that it might be the best makguksu I've ever had — a true life-changing bowl! 😂 It was a free menu item, but it was so much better than expected that I fully recommend it! The sweet-tangy flavor with fresh fruit pairs perfectly with jokbal, and it was good enough that I'd want to order again just for the makguksu 💓

How to wrap it in lettuce, and final thoughts

Of course you need a lettuce wrap with jokbal! Put jokbal on lettuce, add salted shrimp and ssamjang, and eat it in one big bite — pure bliss! The fried jokbal actually tastes best eaten plain, without the wrap!

This was the first jokbal I've had in a while now that my morning sickness has eased up, and getting to enjoy both flavors with the half-and-half option was great — highly recommend! If you usually like jokbal, the fried version is worth trying at least once! Getting the chewiness of the original plus the savory crispiness of the fried version all in one meal made for a very satisfying dinner!