I promised a Seoul meal report on Friday. Well, it’s still Friday for another 15 minutes in Minnesota and I do have a meal report for you—but it’s not from Seoul but from Busan. We once again took the students on my program down to the southern port city for a couple of nights. We visited a number of film industry venues while we were there and we also spent some time exploring the city. One of our favourite outings back in February 2024 had been to Jagalchi Market, the largest seafood market in South Korea and no one who knows me will be surprised to know that we went back there on this trip as well. Indeed, we first walked through the market on a walking tour of the general area and then the four of us went back to the market for lunch a couple of hours later, not long before our return to Seoul. Here’s what we ate.
In 2024 we had mostly explored the fancier indoor market that is now the official face of Jagalchi Market and eaten lunch at one of the many seafood restaurants in the food hall-like space on an upper floor. We’d selected fish and other seafood from a vendor in the market downstairs and it had been sent up to the market to be prepared to our specifications. On this occasion we ate at the outside market, which was once the original Jagalchi Market. Here too there are a number of restaurants specializing in various kinds of seafood dishes. We chose a place with grilled fish as that is what the boys were in the mood for. We didn’t have any intel guiding our choice: we looked for a place that had grilled fish and was busy and ended up at Hanweol Hoejip.

It’s a large restaurant with its own seafood tanks outside (I’m not sure if they sell fish at retail there as well) and dining rooms across two floors inside. All the tables downstairs were taken and so we were guided upstairs. We settled down at a large table and quickly went over the menu. There’s clearly a lot of tourist trade in the area as the menu had both pictures and rudimentary English translations/descriptions of the dishes. We made our choices and quickly got down to business.

First to arrive was grilled cod, the collar specifically. This was done quite well—simply seasoned and grilled—and was probably my favourite thing at the meal. I certainly liked it more than the haemul pajeon/seafood pancake that showed up next. This was mid at best. A large burner with a hotplate on top was then rolled up next to our table and cooked in it was what the older boy really wanted: eel. Lightly seasoned again, this was done quite nicely too. The last two dishes were more ho-hum: haemultang/mixed seafood stew and batter-fried shrimp. They weren’t bad, they were just kind of anonymous and the seafood not of a quality that I would have expected from a popular restaurant right on the water, right by the country’s largest seafood market.

For a look at everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. The slideshow also includes a few pics from our walk through the outdoor fish market. Scroll down to see how much this meal cost and to see what’s coming next.

The staff were friendly and helpful enough but you shouldn’t really have many expectations of service at casual restaurants in Korea. Cost? 171,000 won or $126 at the current exchange rate. $31.50/head for a seafood meal would be a very good deal in the US and it’s not bad in South Korea either. But the meal didn’t really get any of us very excited.

Alright, what’s next? A report on a South Indian meal in Delhi in March. That’ll go up on either Saturday or Sunday depending on how the weekend goes.