#live octopus

Recall from last post: my brother & I are at the Noryangjin Fish Market. It was near brunch time; we walked around the main floor/ground level & saw many different types of seafood. On the 2nd floor (where we arrived, once we got there) had a long hallway of restaurants that will either cook something you’d like or you can order off their menu.

To get the most out of our visit, we decided to find a place that will cook our selected seafood for us (the way we’d like) bcos we can order seafood off a menu any time. At the vendor that we bought our seafood from, there was a nearby “restaurant” that did this. Below is the photo of the restaurant. It was more like a kitchen stall with 3 small round tables & a bunch of plastic chairs.

The restaurant kitchen =P with a fridge full of soju & beer! I suggest not coming here (esp for food) if you are a germophobe.

An opening next to us that was a storage room, feat. an old & dusty folded carpet.

Here’s the rest of the restaurant’s dining area lol. On the other side of the plastic curtain is a space that contained some freezers/fridges/seafood tanks. Not sure who uses them.. . vendors? Restaurant ppl? Maybe there are some frozen seafood for ppl who’d like to purchase pre-packaged frozen seafood? Anyways, the dining space was TINY!

Selca. All the chairs were the plastic 4-legged circular ones, like the regular ones you see at street food stands. My back was against a mini fridge (beside it, a water machine with self-serve water on top), on which a rice cooker & self-serve bowls were kept.

Selca. This place was pretty cozy, tbh. It was “outdoors” but it was warm. Probably bcos it was right next to the kitchen & a bunch of strangers haha oh yeah, let me tell you about the kitchen! The place itself had 3 staff members from what I can see. Lady in purple was the cashier-server. 2 kitchen staff: did prepping, cooking, & “plating” simultaneously. They pretty much ran the whole show in that tiny kitchen, which had 2 stove-tops. The guy in red vest was like a “runner”; during our time there, he occasionally brought back bagged fresh seafood from outside & handed it over to the kitchen.

Alright, let’s eat!

Live octopus! We got 4 octopuses that were about 6inches long in length from head to toe =P The kitchen cut them up for us into 1.5inch-long pieces, seasoned them with sesame oil & sesame seeds. Still squirming on the plate!

Look! They stick onto the plate =D I have been waiting for this day for yrs! Saw a bunch of YouTube videos of ppl’s reactions on eating live octopus in South Korea & without a doubt, I added it to my bucket list!

Are those eyes???

MY personal experience: my chopstick skills are really good & I had some trouble picking up the octopus pieces off the plate bcos of their suction lol it was quite challenging! I hesitated when I looked at it, thinking, “it’s movingggg! I know it’s their muscle spasm.. .but they’re moving!” Then I put the piece into my mouth & felt it moving! Yes, inside my mouth! & then I bit into it.. wow! I cannot describe it. It was so good! Very sesame-y, & salty, the texture most closely resembled lychee jelly. It was very crisp but very fresh. So yeah. . imagine salty lychee jelly in a linear form & moving? haha

The mystery “tunicate” that we got for free. This was served to us raw cos we had no idea how to eat it. .. this was NOT good. The texture was ok, very slimy but it was tolerable. It was soft. .. but the issue about it was the flavour. It was not seasoned with anything; which was ok, but it was bitter! A very hit-your-nose type of bitter A bad one, perhaps? Or maybe it’s normally like this? We don’t know. We each tried 1 piece & that was it.

10 steamed oysters~ YUMMYYY!!! The oysters were very. .. grainy, but ZERO sand! I’m always scared of oysters bcos of the sand. That moment when you bite an oyster & you hear that *crunch* is one of the most goosebump moments ever.

2 grilled abalones. Not the biggest fan. I think they’ve over-grille them bcos the abalones were very chewy. They were only alright for me. This definitely needed a sauce (which was available, also self-served).

Selca with our finished seafood brunch feat. our self-made sauces haha one was a simple salt +sesame oil + sesame seeds, & the other was a garlic + green (chili) pepper + ssam/gochujang sauce.

All done~

My favourites (in order): live octopus > oysters > abalone > tunicate.

Takoyaki + Rice (octopus or taco or squid)

Korea traditional food. very special. Crispy Rice

【ChewingBrother】channel

 Live octopus. Jumping. Fresh seafood. sashimi 

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CdpzfSPHrw)

WHO DARES TO EAT LIVE OCTOPUS!!???? HAHA #Throwback to such a tasteful experience of eating really FRESH seafood! 

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