On our third day in Seoul, we visited Noryagjin Fish Market (鷺梁津水産市場/노량진수산시장), the city’s largest market for marine products. This 66,000 square meter facility houses over 700 shops selling fresh and dried fish and other seafood from 15 fishing ports around Korea. It was quite disorienting to face so many stalls selling so many different types of seafood (many of which I do not recognize), but I only had one goal to complete that day – eat octopus, alive.
Enough with chic cafes, it’s time to get local.
Noryangjin Fish Market
Noryangjin Fish Market
Seafood!
Scallops
Fish fish fish
Squid
Mentaiko etc.
Sea acorn
Sole fish
Ok maybe this giant right here is too big to eat live.
Giant octopus
But these little ones look about right.
Tiny octopus
After making some purchases at the fish market, we were led downstairs to a restaurant where our lunch will be cooked.
Restaurant
Condiments
To clarify – the octopus isn’t actually alive by the time it’s brought to your table as it’s already chopped up, but its nerves are still there and hence the squirming and sucking motions. It’s quite likely that your chopped up octopus will climb out of its plate and yes, you will feel the tentacles sucking to the inside of your cheek, your tongue, or your teeth…
“Live” octopus
What to do: pick up a piece of octopus (harder than it sounds, the tentacles will firmly cling themselves to the plate!), dip it in some sesame oil, and into the mouth it goes. Chew! Chew! Chew! I swallowed a piece too quickly and could feel it sucking to my throat, and I thought – oh no, please don’t let me be one of the few people who die from eating live octopus each year. Fortunately that sensation went away after ten agonizing minutes or so, during which I downed plenty of rice and soup in hope of pushing the sucking octopus down. And how did it taste? Yum, though I’d say eating live octopus is more about the sensation than the actual flavor and texture.
Still wriggling
We also tried sole fish sashimi, a very crunchy fish that can be a bit hard to chew, but still delicious with perilla leaves and a dab of gochujang.
Sole fish sashimi
Fresh oysters.
Oysters
Fresh mentaiko over rice, one of my all time favorites.
Mentaiko over rice
The feast
Finally, the fish bones were added to a broth and cooked into a huge pot of soup – a very satisfying ending. I don’t know exactly how much we spent, but it’s approximately 20,000 won/person for the seafood itself (this will of course vary depending on what you buy), and 10,000/person at the restaurant. A worthwhile experience for those who want to see the more local side of Seoul.
Fish soup
oh!.. I wanted to try this when I went to seoul, but chickened out with the thought of getting killed by the tentacles. eekk..
a worthwhile experience! just make sure u chew enough before swallowing :)
Interesting post. Did you have to go in the middle of the night for this fish/seafood market? I am imagining it’s like Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, but I could never make it for the 4am recommended arrival time to get the freshest stuff. Is the the same or different?
If you are going for the auction you need to get there early, but we just went there for lunch so we got there at 11:00am. Still plenty of seafood left, I think it’s open till late afternoon.
what a interesting posting. So much miss my hometown.. miss all foods from seoul.