Live Octopus I was pleasantly surprised when I went to Guro Digital Complex Exit 3. Here I found a vast array of great restaurants including this gem, Hae Hyun. We ordered the medium sized full course meal (around 80,000 won). This was easily enough for 3 or 4 people.They started us out with a number of side dishes and live octopus. The one we had was a very lively fellow and it was very difficult to get him off the plate because he kept sucking to the plate. Then we also had some Gaebul (the red thing below). It was so fresh that it was still moving (but not sucking to your tongue like the live octopus). This is much better than seasquirt (not shown here, but it's an orange, yellow color). I think seasquirt tastes like cologne. Raw Gaebul Gaebul up close Eventually, the main course came: the sliced fish. The way that I check the skill of the chef is by looking closely at the cut of the fish. If the fish has a shiny sheen and relatively dry then the chef has used...

Noryangjin Fish Market: Fish Mongers at Work Noryangjin Fish Market: Shot from above Noryangjin Fish Market: Octopus in Waiting Noryangjin Fish Market: Shellfish of Doom Noryangjin Fish Market: Bright-eyed Snapper Noryangjin Fish Market: Miso Skate Noryangjin Fish Market: Jelly Fish Noodles Noryanjin Fish Market: Mackerel: Ready for Grilling Noryangjin Fish Market: Byeong-oh or Butterfish, by either name, delicious Noryangjin Fish Market: Swordfish sans Sword Noryangjin Fish Market: Fresh catch by the man wearing eye shadow Noryangjin Fish Market: Alive Breakfast  This post is part of my "Seoul Tourist" articles written for visitors to Korea. If you are looking to visit Seoul on vacation and are interested in exploring the city. If you are looking to do a tour of the market, feel free to contact me at seouleats at gmail dot com. This is of the Old Fish Market, the new fish market will open in August 2015. The Noryangin Fish...

Chef Hyejin If you don't like salmon then you should leave my blog. Please just go, I don't care who you might be or why you dislike it, just disconnect your computer and go. I love salmon. I love it even more when I can get a lot of it. The other day after a fish market tour, I stopped over to talk with a vendor and enquired about buying some. So after some haggling, I got a whole half of a salmon - enough to make about 6 good fillets. The good thing was that they already deboned it and put it on a nice fake plank (it's faux styrofoam) for taking it back home. But I didn't go home. I went to my cooking school where Chef Hyejin lovingly prepared it for lunch. The first day we just had some sashimi with sliced onions and lemon. The next day we pan-fried some with some orange miso sauce. The rest we froze for another day. The salmon came out to be about 60,000 won but some times you have to splurge, right? Dan Salmon Salmon Belly Sashimi

Cactus Liquor with a Tuna Eye Ball at Lee Chun Bok Cham Chi I have a confession. I don't list all of the best restaurants on this website because there are some restaurants I would like to keep to myself. These places are very much for the locals, so don't go in there being all loud with your "English" and requests for forks and French-style service.^^ Go in and try to act like a local. So if I introduce this place to you, I hope that you'll be on your best behavior. Ok? Good. Korean Tuna Buffets are some of the best eats in Seoul. You get as much white tuna, red tuna, and tuna belly as you can eat- along with tempura, sushi, salads, and kimchi. The one problem is that often the tuna is cooked semi-frozen. Now you can be patient and wait till it thaws or...I recommend you go to Lee Chun Bok Cham Chi (Lee Chun Bok Tuna). The place is always busy, but don't worry, the wait is never long and it is always worth it. The place is boisterous and loud and ful...

Recession my ass. For 5,000 won you can usually go into any Korean restaurant and get a feast. This place is called 전남회수산 and it is right down the street from the Institute for Korean Traditional Foods  . If you want to find it just go to Jongno 3-ga (Lines #3,5) exit 7. Walk straight for a block and cross the street. You'll see tanks with fish out frong. The food is good. For lunch I just had the 알 탕 (Al Tang). This is a spicy fish soup that has fish eggs in it. It's great for cold days. Now accompanying this main dish came a plethora of side dishes. We had some grilled mackerel, fried fish cake noodles, kimchi, two pieces of sushi, a spicy turnip kimchi. It's just amazing you can get all this for so little. 영진수산 (Yeong Jin Su San) 02 747 1868 서울시 종로구 묘동 139-1