₩70,000 crab soup with sandtimer at Cheonan seaside blue crab spot

Crab soup and soy-marinated crab restaurants aren't easy to find in Cheonan~ Huni Gejang, which opened relatively recently, carries three generations of hand-cooked skill ★ starting from Suyeong Paldo Market in Busan in the 1980s and continuing to today — first-generation grandfather's recipe + second-generation mother choosing only the good ingredients + son Huni carrying on the flavor and running the place now, just so you know :-)

Location and parking for Huni Gejang in Yuryang-dong, Cheonan

Huni Gejang in Yuryang-dong is on the ground floor of a large building, and the parking lot is quite spacious too, so it seems like a comfortable place to visit even for family gatherings or work dinners without much worry haha. It's near Taejosan, so the scenery itself is pretty and a lot of people visit for some healing, making it a good place to grab a meal while you're out there anyway!

• 52-6 Taejosan-gil, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea, 1st floor
• Hours → Daily 10:50 – 21:00 / Last order 20:00
• May be closed during major holidays; check Naver Place

Restaurant atmosphere and where the crab comes from

Huni Gejang, this Cheonan soy-marinated crab and crab soup spot, is a fairly large place with plenty of tables, but they're not packed too tightly together, so the vibe is pleasant :-) Baby chairs are ready and the menu is nice and simple too haha. The blue crab they use is 100% domestic, from Yeonpyeong-do ★ they don't use imported crab or lower-quality cut crab, only carefully selecting fresh Yeonpyeong-do crab and Sinan shrimp, just so you know~

Which seat for how many people

The table marked as the group seating is for 6, so for a family of around 4 I'd recommend the window seats haha. The kitchen is slightly screened off but the lighting itself is bright, so the inside is clearly visible even from far away, which is reassuring hygiene-wise~~ It has floor-to-ceiling windows so the view outside is quite lovely, and even though it's an open space, there's a subtle wooden partition that blocks it just enough, so once you're actually seated it felt nicely private too!

Review event and table ordering

If you join the review event at Huni Gejang, this Cheonan soy-marinated crab and crab soup spot, you get a choice of 4 marinated shrimp, seasoned crab half, or a drink/alcohol as a service! Orders can be placed right at the table, and if you run low on side dishes there's usually the hassle of calling staff to go back and forth, but here you can just order extra side dishes directly, just so you know :-)

5 side dishes and stone-pot rice

Basically 5 side dishes come standard, and the spoon and chopsticks were handed out separately rather than tucked under the table, which felt a bit more polished~ While I was deciding between stone-pot rice and regular rice, the staff said the stone-pot rice would taste better since they use good rice, so I went with stone-pot rice haha. Since crab dishes, whether soy-marinated or crab soup, can get a bit messy while eating, they had several layers of plastic sheeting laid out so I could dig in without worrying about the mess, which made it taste even better :-)

The 5 side dishes they served weren't overly seasoned or intense in flavor, and they went well with the stone-pot rice and also worked well with the crab soup broth! The soft tofu was nice to eat like an appetizer, and personally the seaweed stem was just chewy enough and seasoned just right, exactly my style haha. The bracken fern was also tasty, but putting crab meat on rice topped with a bit of salted seafood was also a great combination, overall a very satisfying meal :-)

Traditional crab soup ₩70,000, the 5-minute sandtimer

Huni Gejang's traditional crab soup is said to be simmered with a secret method, and they explained that it's ready once the 5-minute sandtimer runs out~ It's packed with large crabs and they give you a set of 3 plastic gloves, and letting the soup cool a bit before picking the meat out by hand was definitely the easier way to go haha. The traditional crab soup costs ₩70,000, a portion meant for about 2-3 people to share! Prices vary by size, so adjust according to your headcount :-)

The broth flavor and spice level

Huni Gejang in Yuryang-dong, this Cheonan crab soup favorite, has a fairly spicy flavor that would pair well with drinks, and since I'm weak with spice I scooped off a bit of the chili powder on top, and I think that was the right call. There's a dedicated pair of scissors and a shell bin so you can eat comfortably and pick out all the meat without too much fuss haha. The broth was rich but not fishy and not overly seasoned, so overall very satisfying ♥

How to pick the crab meat

They said they only use quality crab, and it really was packed full of meat ★ Eating it straight from the shell is nice, but since the pieces are large, cutting off the hard parts with the scissors and scraping the inner meat onto the rice actually gets you a surprisingly big amount, and eating it all at once maximizes the crab flavor! Dipping it in the broth to get it moist is delicious too, but mixing some broth into the rice with the crab meat and topping it with a bit of salted seafood is also great :-) After finishing, a hot bowl of scorched rice tea wraps it all up nicely!

Takeout and nationwide delivery also available

I've been introducing this as a Cheonan crab soup spot, but as the name suggests, Huni Gejang also sells soy-marinated crab and spicy seasoned crab~ Given how good the crab soup is, the marinated crabs are probably just as good >.< Places near the coast selling these are fresh and nice, of course, but for landlocked... Cheonan, which has no sea nearby, to still be able to enjoy crab this delicious, I'd say Huni Gejang earns its place as a Cheonan crab soup favorite haha.

Huni Gejang in Yuryang-dong can also be shipped nationwide ★ Takeout is available too, so it's worth considering picking up soy-marinated crab + seasoned crab + marinated shrimp + roe-filled soy crab as side dishes to bring home! It's not something I eat often, but it's the kind of food you want to really enjoy well whenever you do have it, so personally I think I'll be back whenever I'm craving crab soup or marinated crab — next time I should try the soy-marinated or seasoned crab :-)