Seongnam bar for red seafood gambas and strong highballs: Bacha Jeongja

After work, I wanted a quiet glass of wine or highball on my own, so here’s my weekday-evening visit to Bacha Jeongja, a good restaurant in Jeongja-dong! It’s known for seafood dishes, so it would be great for steamed seafood with a shot of soju too, but my goal that day was simply a light drink. Once I got there, it was comfortable for drinking alone, but the atmosphere was so nice that I’d personally recommend it as a Jeongja-dong date bar!

Bacha Jeongja is a five-minute walk from Jeongja Station Exit 3, making it an easy spot to reach by public transport.

A Jeongja-dong bar for a quiet drink

Turn off the main road toward the Time Bridge officetel, and you’ll see it on the first floor. For reference, you enter through an exterior entrance rather than from inside the building! (Inside the building is just retail...)

Bacha’s interior was dimly lit overall, with a calm atmosphere that was perfect for a quiet drink after work. The tables are nicely spaced apart, and there’s a semi-private area on one side, so it’s also a good place for two people to talk~

Pretzels come out as the complimentary snack, and they were nice to pick at one by one while waiting for the food~

• Bacha seafood steamed dish ₩37,000
• Beef brisket and tendon hot pot ₩30,000
• Red seafood gambas ₩25,000

The menu has quite a variety of seafood bar snacks, from gambas to steamed seafood. It’s fun choosing dishes to match your drink, whether that’s soju, beer, a highball, or wine!

For a light dinner and drink, I ordered the red seafood gambas for ₩25,000 and cheese jamón melon for ₩14,000.

Red seafood gambas with great quality

Personally, my favorite dish that day was the red seafood gambas at ₩25,000. It was loaded with seafood like shrimp, squid, and clams—far beyond the quality I’d expect from ordinary bar food.

The clams had been properly purged, so there was no gritty sandiness, and all the seafood was really fresh!

The shrimp were big and plump, while the scallop meat was substantial and had a great texture. Since it was red gambas, it had a slight kick, which made it less rich than regular oil gambas and kept it from becoming tiring through to the end.

Pile the oil and seafood onto baguette, and honestly, you just keep going back for more.

Cheese jamón melon, a light accompaniment

The second dish was cheese jamón melon! Salty jamón and cheese sit over sweet melon, making it an easy, light sweet-and-salty combination.

While the gambas was a warm, rich bar snack, the jamón melon was nice for cleansing the palate in between, so I liked ordering the two together~

White wine with seafood

A Sauvignon Blanc also paired well with the red seafood gambas. It was a fresh, clean white wine that seemed to reset the potentially heavy flavor of the gambas oil~

Recommended if you like a strong highball

And I also loved the Suntory highball! A slice of fresh lemon comes separately, and I liked that you can choose an extra 10 ml of whiskey for a stronger drink if you want. So many highballs these days are too sweet and weak, like soda, but this one lets you properly taste the whiskey!

With fresh seafood snacks including steamed seafood, gambas, pasta, and hot pot, this was a great place to have gambas and melon with a glass of wine or highball on your own. I’d recommend it for a quiet date, a casual second round, or a group of 9 to 12 in the semi-private space!