Jongno sushi restaurant with a pay-later tablet: Choe Uyeong Sushiya

How to find Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch from Jongak Station

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch is a sushi restaurant on the basement floor of the TOWER 8 building at 7 Jongno 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul. My close friend living in China had been going on and on about wanting sushi the moment she got back to Korea, and as luck would have it, I was in Jongno recently and stumbled on a genuinely delicious sushi place. That was Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch.

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch is about a 5-minute walk from Exit 1 of Jongak Station, and since it's right in the basement of the TOWER 8 building, it wasn't hard to find at all haha. I really liked that it's such a convenient spot to meet up when you already have plans in Jongno.

Bar seats for solo diners and lunch for Jongno office workers

The interior of Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch was cleaner and more organized than I expected. Every table has partitions, and there are bar-style seats too, so it looked totally fine to eat alone here, and also great for a group. Sure enough, a lot of office workers came in while we were eating!? There's clearly a reason Jongno office workers keep coming back for lunch or dinner after work.

Table ordering at Choe Uyeong Sushiya: prepaid by default, pay-later on request

Orders go through a table-order system, so you can comfortably pick your menu right from your seat, and it's prepaid by default. But when I mentioned I wanted to pay afterward instead, staff brought over a separate tablet set up for postpaid orders. That was a surprisingly nice touch haha.

Corkage is only 3,000 won?

While we were eating, I noticed some office workers seemed to be bringing their own drinks. Turns out Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch allows corkage, and it's only ₩3,000..! Man, if I'd known that, we would've brought our own drinks too, ha.

We settled for ordering beer instead, and they even gave us such a pretty glass for it. We poured the beer into the glass first and got ready to really dig in haha.

What comes in the choesang and geukssang sushi sets

Finally, the sushi we ordered came out. At Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch we ordered the choesang (premium) sushi and geukssang (top-tier) sushi, plus shrimp tempura udon on top of that. Is this spread even real for this price? Lol.

Every piece of sushi looked great and there was such a wide variety that it was mouth-watering just to look at...! I genuinely had trouble deciding what to pick up first lol.

The balance of rice and fish was great, and it basically disappeared the moment it hit my mouth... it's seriously, seriously good!!!

One piece of sushi, one sip of beer, another piece, another sip — it was the kind of combo that made the drinks go down way too smoothly.

Shrimp tempura udon: a generous portion to share

And the shrimp tempura udon we ordered together! Why is the portion so huge lol. There was plenty of udon noodles and the broth was warm and delicious, so it went really well alongside the sushi. With fried shrimp piled on top too, we came in planning to just eat sushi and ended up enjoying the udon just as much.

Would I go back to Choe Uyeong Sushiya in Jongno?

For anyone who lives or works in Jongno... I'm honestly jealous you have a sushi place like this nearby. Above all, the sushi was genuinely delicious, so I'd say 100% I'll be back. If you're looking for Jongak Station sushi or a Jongno sushi favorite, I think Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch is well worth a visit :)