Gwanghwamun sushi date with 19,000-won special kaisendon: Choe Uyeong

While on a date with my boyfriend in Jongno, we stopped by Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch (최우영스시야 종로점), a spot famous for sushi in the area...>< Sushi joa (love it)!

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch: hours and parking

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch is open daily from 11:00 to 21:30, with a break time from 15:00 to 17:00 and last order at 21:00. Free parking is available for 2 hours.

How to walk from Gwanghwamun and find the basement entrance

My boyfriend and I had our date near Gyeongbokgung Station and walked past Gwanghwamun toward Choe Uyeong Sushiya. This area has such a well-developed shopping district that it wasn't hard to find at all!! Pass Lemeilleur Jongno Town and enter the Tower8 building, and you'll spot the Choe Uyeong Sushiya sign like this.

If you can't spot the sign! Take the elevator across from Aslow Cafe down to the basement level!! Choe Uyeong Sushiya is on B1!!

The place looks like it hasn't been open long — clean overall.

There's a big menu board outside, so you can check the menu once more before going in!

Inside Choe Uyeong Sushiya: solo seats and table partitions

Given the location near Gwanghwamun, there are probably a lot of group meals, but what caught my eye was that there are solo seats set up for office workers eating alone.

Maybe because the space is large, there were a lot of tables too. There were even quite a few solo seats, so even if it gets crowded during lunch, the turnover should be really fast!!

Even with so many seats, there are near-walls between the tables on both sides, so even though it's an open space, you can eat with a decent amount of privacy — that's the advantage of the seating at Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch!

There's a separate kiosk just for takeout orders! Cash payment is possible..!!

A simple soup comes out once you order! The table is generously set with sushi side dishes. So good~~~ And the soy sauce is house-made soy sauce made for sushi!!

The menu: single-piece sushi from 1,000 won

The menu has everything from sashimi to rice bowls to sushi across a range of price points, so it's put together perfectly for office workers wanting a light lunch or people getting together for a simple meal after work!!

Single-piece sushi ranges from ₩1,000 to ₩3,000, so it's a place people who just want to eat exactly the pieces they want can come to without any burden!!

What we ordered: kaisendon and the deluxe sushi set

A generously set table — let me introduce what we ate!

My boyfriend and I really love sushi, so we ordered one kaisendon and one sushi menu item each, then decided to add on any single pieces we wanted.

Special kaisendon, 19,000 won

This was the first time we tried the special kaisendon, and there was so much variety of seafood I didn't know where to start haha. There was more sashimi than rice...!!

The sashimi wasn't sliced thin either — it was really thick, so the texture was great when wrapped with seaweed like this!!!

Even just from the photo you can tell it's a generous portion. The sea urchin was soft and nutty, and eating it together with tuna and salmon, which I love, made the flavor feel even richer!

Premium deluxe sushi, 17 pieces for 33,000 won

The premium deluxe sushi came with a total of 17 pieces, and the moment the plate arrived it was even more generous than I expected! It included crab meat, bluefin tuna, sea urchin gunkan, sea cucumber intestine gunkan, flounder, freshwater eel, tuna belly, egg, cuttlefish, red seabream, scallop, salmon, steamed abalone, flounder fin, and spot shrimp — such a wide variety. There were even types of sashimi I don't normally eat often, so it was fun picking through them one by one.

On top of that, the sushi wasn't just basic fish nigiri — ingredients with different flavors and textures like sea urchin, sea cucumber intestine, abalone, and eel were mixed in, so even through all 17 pieces I never got tired of it and enjoyed every bite until the end.

Can you tell how thick the sashimi is just from the photo..? Even looking at it now I want to eat it again... the visuals...

Single pieces we added: red seabream, tuna belly, ankimo cuttlefish

Red seabream sushi, tuna belly sushi, ankimo cuttlefish sushi. When you order individual pieces on top, they come out on a separate plate like this.

We also separately ordered 2 pieces of shrimp sushi. When you keep eating sushi, it's oddly nice to have a warm piece of tempura in between. And the sushi kept coming, endlessly....!!!

Bigeye tuna sushi and egg sushi, 1,000 won each

I love egg sushi so much that I ordered extra egg sushi! This place is a total egg sushi spot..? If you've eaten a lot of sushi, you'll know — a place that does egg sushi well is truly a great sushi restaurant haha.

Who should eat at Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch?

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch had great satisfaction thanks to its menu lineup and prices!! If you're looking for a sushi spot near Jongak Station, save Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch too! You'll get to properly experience the texture of thick, generous cuts of sashimi. It's also a good place to visit on a day when you want to eat a wide variety of sushi thanks to the great value for money.

• Anyone looking for a Jongno sushi or kaisendon spot
• Anyone who wants to try a wide variety of sushi
• Anyone looking for a good-value sushi restaurant
• Jongno office workers looking for a lunch spot

Had a delicious meal and came home happy!!