Busan Songjeong Korean restaurant: scallop minari salad, Songjeongok

A top-tier Korean restaurant in Songjeong, Busan, where you can taste the most refined table setting for treating someone special — Songjeongok.

This is Joy, hitting two great restaurants in one day! Let me introduce Songjeongok, a Songjeong, Busan Korean restaurant famous for its vitality set with a signature cream abalone-innards pot rice that was genuinely delicious.

Songjeongok hours, parking and location in Songjeong

Songjeongok Songjeong Main Branch is on Songjeonggwangeogol-ro in Haeundae-gu, Busan, and it's open 11:00–22:00 with a break time of 15:00–17:00. There's no break time on Saturdays and Sundays, and it's open every day.

It's close to the beach and there's parking right in front, so it's convenient if you're driving. Just note the lot isn't very big, so you'll need to double park.

If you're at Songjeong Beach, a must-visit spot in Busan, and want a proper meal, save this place and stop by.

Just looking at the jars makes my stomach feel at ease. When you're traveling, you tend to eat only spicy, heavy food, so a healthy Korean meal like this feels comforting and filling too, haha.

Inside Songjeongok: the dining room and the self-serve bar

Inside, Songjeongok has an overall clean, traditional Korean restaurant feel, with lots of group seating, so I saw many families eating together. And since the menu is healthy, there were a lot of older guests too — the tables are spaced wide apart, so it felt calm and unhurried.

Simple lettuce wraps, kimchi, ssamjang (dipping paste), garlic, and chili are set up at the self-serve bar.

What comes with Songjeongok's premium vitality set

Songjeongok's premium vitality set includes chewy abalone pot rice made every morning with freshly milled rice, gabrisal bossam (boiled pork wrap) with a soft, clean flavor, and seafood hinoki steam packed with nutritious fresh seafood, steamed with care — experience a healthy, varied feast fit for someone dear to you ✔️

A healthy table shared with someone precious — that's Songjeongok's slogan of serving with sincerity.

A refreshing salad comes out first — a nice appetite-opener with plump shrimp meat, a good appetizer 💙

Abalone pot rice in cream abalone-innards sauce

The dish everyone raved about!! The pot rice I was most excited for. It looked amazing just from the visuals. Loaded with sliced abalone, with soft scramble and creamy abalone-innards sauce mixed in. That sauce... I genuinely wanted the recipe, haha.

The renewed main spread and gabrisal bossam

Wow! The main set arrived. It's been renewed and upgraded even further — my satisfaction went up. So many side dishes! And the bossam uses gabrisal (pork jowl) too, haha.

The gabrisal was tender with no gamey smell at all! The fat and lean meat were mixed just right, giving it a great texture, and the portion was generous too.

For the gabrisal bossam, there's salted seafood, ssamjang, spicy radish salad, garlic, chili, and lettuce wraps to go with it.

There's also chive kimchi, so if you wrap the meat with chive kimchi and radish salad, wow... the seasoning is just right and the tender meat melts in your mouth!

Two kinds of hand-made tofu come out too, made with Baekdu and black soybeans. It felt like they'd put thought into even the small details, which was nice.

Scallop and minari salad, marinated raw crab and squid stir-fry

I thought it was cockle and minari (water celery) salad, but it was actually scallop. Getting this at this price in Songjeong, haha — the scallops were plump and the ingredients were clearly fresh.

And marinated soy crab comes out as a side dish too. Wow... Songjeongok really has great value for the price, haha. And all of this is refillable.

Squid stir-fry also comes out as a side dish. So many of the side dishes could pass as main dishes on their own. It's so generous that you keep hearing how good the value is, haha.

How to mix the abalone pot rice and finish with the scorched rice

I mixed the freshly cooked, fluffy rice thoroughly with the creamy special sauce, furikake, and abalone so everything blended well. Wow... is the chef psychic or something? Haha. It wasn't strong or overly spicy, but it was savory and salty with perfectly balanced seasoning!

You're supposed to leave a bit of rice and pour in water for scorched rice, but I scraped my bowl so clean I couldn't make any... haha. Make sure you all leave some for the scorched rice!

There's also a doenjang (soybean paste) stew that comes with the rice — not quite a thick ssamjang-style stew, not quite a regular one either, sort of like a countryside taste mixed with the doenjang flavor you get at a meat restaurant. This alone could get you through two bowls of rice, haha.

I was so full... but I kept eating anyway, haha. All the side dishes were delicious.

Who should eat at Songjeongok?

I wanted to come back just for this abalone pot rice alone. It was really, truly delicious, haha!!

A great Korean restaurant to visit in Songjeong when you want a proper set menu. Especially if you're bringing your parents to visit Songjeong, Busan — go look at the ocean, take a walk, and then stop by here when you're hungry for a filling, generous meal ^^