Busan seafood restaurant for a full course: Gwanganda Jjji

The ₩55,000-per-person dajji course

A top-tier Busan seafood restaurant. The value is insane, but putting price aside, the food lineup is genuinely ridiculous in the best way—and so delicious. There’s a huge range of seafood, including abalone sashimi, raw shrimp sashimi, live octopus, and soy-marinated crab, plus creamy shrimp and grilled eel for those of us with kid-like tastes. Then come flounder, red sea bream, olive flounder, and sea bass sashimi, crab soup, steamed rockfish, and abalone porridge. I recommend it for a day when you want to eat seriously delicious food until you burst.

• Part 1: salad, mulhoe (cold raw-fish soup), cheese-grilled scallops, grilled eel, ginseng, soy-marinated crab, dressed pufferfish, seasoned cockles, shrimp roll sushi, abalone sashimi, butter-grilled abalone, chive pancake, raw shrimp sashimi, sea squirt, horned turban shell, live octopus, creamy shrimp
• Part 2: flounder sashimi, red sea bream sashimi, olive flounder sashimi, sea bass sashimi, crab soup, fried shrimp, steamed rockfish, abalone porridge, yakgwa (honey pastry)

Seriously, the fact that this is ₩55,000 per person is legendary. It makes no sense. More comes out than at omakase, and this place has the price, the ocean view, and the flavor—there’s no reason not to go. A friend is visiting Busan? This is where I take them when I say, “I’ll show you the full Busan course, haha.” This is Busan, for real^^

Floor-to-ceiling views of Gwangan Bridge

It is on the seventh floor, so the view is completely open.

Floor-to-ceiling windows surround the place, so you can see Gwangan Bridge at a glance. It is on the Suyeon Park side, so think of it as the view from the left of Gwangan Bridge?

Every dish was so nicely put together. And warm, too... Even at this point, I was like, “Whoa, how much food is this?”

My favorite Part 1 dishes: grilled eel and live octopus

Grilled eel was my favorite dish in Part 1. The flesh was incredibly tender and perfectly seasoned, like eel from a restaurant that specializes in eel rice bowls. No tough, chewy eel texture at all—just soft pieces that cut apart with chopsticks. The fact that this was one of the first dishes out already told me this meal was going to be something else.

This is mulhoe!! It is insanely good with the sashimi that comes in Part 2 later.

Salad!! It had an Oriental-style dressing base.

The cheese-grilled scallops had absolutely no fishy smell, and the creamy cheese gave them such a clean finish. They get second place in Part 1.

Soy-marinated crab, well... seriously, what more is there to say? If you love it, it is the kind of flavor that immediately makes you want rice.

Ginseng. It is good for you, you know~

The roll sushi was also way better than expected. I kept picking them up one by one, and suddenly they were gone. Not like a ready-made supermarket shrimp roll—more like the shrimp roll you get at a Japanese restaurant.

The seasoned cockles and soy-marinated crab are on the salty side, though, so I recommend eating them with rice!!! Or wait a little and have them with the abalone porridge that comes later.

More than half of the Part 1 table had been filled... and I was already half full.

Raw shrimp, sea squirt, and horned turban shell!!! This alone would easily cost more than ₩30,000. These were truly raw shrimp. They arrived fully peeled and prepped, but they kept jumping around... It felt like they had just prepared live shrimp for us, so I asked for scissors and cut them into easy bites. The springy, chewy texture was seriously insane.

And the creamy shrimp was delicious too. Third place in Part 1!! The outside was shatteringly crisp, while the inside was chewy and creamy—the kind of bite that keeps your hand reaching back.

The horned turban shell was springy and chewy, and so was the abalone sashimi. Then live octopus comes out too. It was wriggling, and I felt bad enough to cry in my mouth ㅠ (nom nom) Usually, plenty of sashimi restaurants charge ₩50,000 for a lineup like this, but here everything together is in the ₩50,000 range. Wait, the live octopus was so good—I am changing my Part 1 number one to the live octopus!!!

Part 2 white-fish sashimi and fiery wasabi

Part 2 begins!!!! Honestly, I had already reached full status by the end of Part 1. Definitely bring digestive medicine... Flounder, red sea bream, olive flounder, and sea bass sashimi come out, mostly white fish. One warning here: the wasabi is legendarily spicy.

Red sea bream sashimi was my favorite here. It had the firmest, springiest chew. My friend said the flounder sashimi was the best, and honestly, it was among the springiest flounder sashimi I have ever had.

I do not know whether they had just caught it or whether the flounder was especially good that day, but its texture was notably fresh and springy.

Crab soup, abalone porridge, and steamed rockfish

And here is what I really loved about this place: crab soup comes out. I basically have the palate of a little kid, so I cannot really eat spicy fish stew. I dislike the distinctive seasoning and aroma, so even at sashimi restaurants I usually do not drink the broth. But this place serves crab soup? Approved. Haha.

Abalone porridge comes out too. It is delicious—nutty, soft, and so easy to slurp down. My friend was so full that I ended up eating their portion of abalone porridge too. The fried shrimp was not ordinary fried food either; it was Japanese-style, with a wonderfully delicate, crackly crust. There was even soft-shell crab tempura!!! This was my favorite among the fried dishes. It reminded me of Thai food and was crazy delicious.

Then steamed rockfish comes out too. This was seriously delicious as well. It did not fall short at all compared with the steamed rockfish I had in Jeju before. The bouncy flesh slipped right off the bones as soon as I touched it with chopsticks. The seasoning was not too strong, so you could really taste the fish itself.

And finally, yakgwa. They feed you right through to the end.

A full seafood course I want to show visiting Busan friends

This is where I would absolutely take friends visiting Busan. I want to recommend it whenever you think, “I want a proper full spread in Busan.” Especially when a friend comes to town, it is a great place to say, “I’ll show you all the delicious things Busan has.” It is not just sashimi: abalone, shrimp, live octopus, eel, and soy-marinated crab lead into crab soup, steamed rockfish, and abalone porridge, so it really feels like a complete Busan seafood course.

Above all, this entire spread is ₩55,000 per person. That price was what surprised me most. With an ocean view, this much variety, and food that tastes this good, honestly, there is no reason not to go. If today is the day you want to eat until you are legendary-level stuffed, go. For me, this was truly Busan’s number-one sashimi restaurant. I will be coming back here whenever I want proper sashimi in Busan. 💓💓