Okay, it’s been more than two weeks since my last report from Korea. That was of a very pleasant morning spent at Mangwon Market in Seoul. Today’s report takes us out of Seoul for the second time (the first was of a meal near the DMZ), all the way to Busan. We took a fast train down to Busan at the end of February and spent a couple of nights there. It was a pretty hit-and-run trip and we didn’t really get a good feel for the city but enough to know that we’d like to come back again (and we almost certainly will in the spring of 2026). All our meals in the city were affairs of convenience and so rather than posting about each of them separately, I’m putting up a combo post that covers our first three meals out (breakfast was eaten at our somewhat functional hotel). The only solo report will be of our last meal in the city, which was eaten at the Jagalchi fish market. That’ll go up next week, probably, with a prolonged look at the market as well.

One of our first ports of call in Busan was BIFF Square, home to the Busan International Film Festival. There are a number of streets around there that are lined with restaurants and we wandered around to take a look. It was cold and wet and so our primary goal was to be indoors and warm. We ended up picking a sushi restaurant: Seol Sushi. We got there just as they opened for dinner and were among the first to be seated. It’s a small, cosy restaurant with a welcoming vibe. We elected to sit at a table as we were going to get a mix of sushi and other dishes. The ordering is done via a tablet. The boys and the missus shared one large combo for two which came with salad, 20 pieces of nigiri, four pieces of anshim katsu, miso soup and two bowls of udon. I got the deluxe sushi combo (it may not have been actually called “deluxe” on the menu) which also comprised 10 pcs of nigiri, albeit some fancier pieces than on the big combo. As is often the way with restaurants in Korea, they threw in a complimentary “service” item: two pieces of broiled salmon. The fish was good and all the cooked food was tasty as well. My 10 pc nigiri combo included uni and chutoro and cost less than $20…The whole meal cost just over $50.

The next day we visited a number of sites in the morning and for lunch, for reasons best known to the company that organized our outing, ended up in the food hall of the fancy Shinsegae department store. The food hall is vast and was completely jammed. Finding a table to sit at was a bloody competitor sport but we finally managed a four-top right opposite a counter serving exactly what we were looking for: milmyeon. Milmyeon is a variant of the more familiar naengmyeon and is a Busan specialty. It involves not buckwheat noodles but wheat noodles. You can read more about its history here. The missus and I shared an order each of the mul milmyeon and the bibim milmyeon. Both were very good. The older boy got an order of galbitang from another counter. I’m sure we fed the younger boy as well but I don’t seem to have a photographic record of what he ate. Prices were what you’d expect at the food hall of a fancy department store in Korea: much higher than the equivalent at a public market but very reasonable relative to the US.

At dinner we took a few of the students who were too tired to adventure away from the hotel out to dinner with us. Our hotel was by the Seomyeon neighbourhood, and not far from it was a veritable warren of restaurants, bars, norebangs, photobooths and clubs. We walked around a bit and picked a small place called 1978 Seomyeon (I suspect the number may indicate the address, but don’t quote me). It’s a small restaurant, specializing in foods to be consumed with alcohol. All the accompanying students being above drinking age in Korea, we ordered some soju and then some food to go with it. Another of Busan’s specialties is odengtang or fishcake soup and so we got two orders of that (kalkal ggochi odengtang, to be precise). Also on the table were two orders each of their Euljiro golbangi muchim (a spicy moon snail salad), ahrang satae sooyok (boil beef heel meat with chives) and maeun galbijjim (a spicy pork rib stew). Several. bowls of rice rounded out our order. All of it was very good indeedl; my favourites were the golbangi muchim and the ahrang satae sooyok. The total for all of this came to 227,000 won or just about $166. That’s for nine people.

To take a look at all of this food, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next.

As I say, we’ll be back in Busan for another few days when my program goes again in 2026. Next time I might put a little more effort into picking restaurants ahead of time—though all of these meals were perfectly fine. I might look in particular for a slightly higher-end sushi place.

Alright, my next restaurant report will be from the Twin Cities: of recent dinner at Kim’s in Minneapolis. Next week will also see a New York report and at least one more Korea report.