Sabbatical Day 54 (7.1.16) - Noryangin Fish Market

I've heard that the fish market in Seoul was awesome. James and I were skeptical because we've both been to Tsukiji in Tokyo and thought that experience was the best. I loved it because that was where I fell in love with uni. The seafood was so fresh and delicious! The seafood was definitely better in Japan but the experience was much better in Korea.

First of all, the Noryangin market was HUGE. The most impressive thing was that the market was unbelievably clean. There were rows of vendors selling seafood which were clean and the whole building barely smelled like seafood. I'm still not sure how that was possible. We walked around looking at the different options at each stall. We saw a lot of giant shrimp, crab, lobsters and fish. We finally decided on a rock fish which the vendor fished out of the tank and quickly sashimi'ed. We chose it because the vendor told us it was a good fish for stew. They then led us upstairs with the fish bones in a bag (they use the bones for a spicy stew).

Upstairs were a bunch of restaurants with folks happily dining on their purchases. We devoured our sashimi plate and patiently waited for our stew. While I love sashimi, I am more used to soft fish. The rock fish was very chewy but James told me that's the Korean style of sashimi. The stew they made was bomb. We even threw in some pieces of sashimi and that was delicious! James and I devoured the stew as well which turned out to be a bad idea. Once we made it home, we both passed out for several hours and really didn't want to get up!