Seocho live fish restaurant course near Gangnam Station: Damiseon

A live fish restaurant near Gangnam Station

Damiseon Gangnam Station Branch (다미선 강남역점) is a three-minute walk from Gangnam Station on the Shinbundang Line. It is also well known as a place for Gangnam Station company dinners.

It has also been featured on Ttogan-jip and Meokgildong. There are lots of aged-sashimi places around Gangnam Station, but surprisingly few live fish restaurants, so this is a great find.

Damiseon Gangnam Station Branch menu and atmosphere

Rather than the feel of the many chain sashimi restaurants around these days, it keeps a dark, classic Korean sashimi restaurant atmosphere. It is comfortable, and above all, the high ceiling gives it a cool, open feel.

Basic Full Table live fish set for two

We ordered the Basic Full Table live fish set. In the past, you had to choose things like olive flounder or sea bream, but now it comes automatically mixed with red sea bream, large olive flounder, and seasonal fish. The seasonal fish at the time was dodari (Korean flounder). The set for two is ₩80,000, and it is seriously abundant.

It includes steamed egg, clam soup, sashimi, and cooked seafood, followed by fried shrimp, grilled Pacific saury, and seodeori-tang (fish bone soup) as a course. For meals, there are also sushi, mulhoe noodles, grilled mackerel, Spanish mackerel, Atka mackerel, and flatfish, plus spicy fish roe soup, yellow croaker soup, and cod soup, so it looked like a nice lunch spot too. The side dishes were quite good as well.

There are yakitori items too, and grilled mero fish is available in the evening. Fried foods and soups can also be ordered à la carte. The fried dishes here are pretty excellent. If you come as a large Gangnam Station dinner group, these would be good extra orders.

Here are the drinks. There is draft beer by brand, sparkling water, and several kinds of fizzy drinks. Of course, we went with soju.

A course that continues from the first side dishes

This was the baek-kimchi (mild white kimchi) served as a side dish, and it was loaded with garlic. That kind of detail felt so thoughtful. Warm corn salad and cabbage salad came out too.

The fluffy steamed egg was perfect for warming up my stomach before the sashimi. So soft.

The clear clam soup topped with chopped scallions was delicious. It warms you right up, making it the perfect soju snack before properly getting into the sashimi and soju. It was a clear broth full of savory depth.

Wow, sashimi sliced to just the right thickness. You can tell at a glance from the cross-section how large the fish was.

There were soy-marinated shrimp, sea snails, abalone, and sea squirts too. It looked wonderful, and the wasabi was high quality as well.

Dodari, red sea bream, dodari, and olive flounder, all sitting there with such a shine. Look at that sea squirt! Its fragrance was so fresh, it felt like being right in the middle of the ocean.

Perfectly steamed abalone and soft, springy sea snails. The meat had all been cleanly removed, and every bit of it was great with drinks.

There was octopus with radish sprouts and lemon too. The chew was great, and those soy-marinated shrimp had such a satisfyingly sticky seasoning that went incredibly well with chili peppers—I wanted to order them separately.

The dodari, red sea bream, and olive flounder were all from large fish. The dodari was chewy, the red sea bream was nutty and tender, and the olive flounder had just the right springy bite.

Grilled fish and fried shrimp served at our pace

As you eat the sashimi, they watch your pace and bring out grilled Pacific saury. It is nutty and there is nothing better as a drinking snack. It is really delicious eaten straight away while hot.

You get four pieces of fried shrimp. These did not come out at the start either; the staff watched our pace and brought them right when we needed them. They even brought separate dipping sauces, one for tempura and one sweet soy sauce—this is a place that takes its fried food seriously. Delicious and crisp.

When we were nearly done, they asked us and brought out the soup. Wow, one sip of this was magic: it made us restart the drinking session we had been about to wrap up. We immediately added another bottle of soju, haha.

Lastly, flying fish roe maki. After all that protein and sashimi, you crave carbs at exactly that point—how do they have the perfect thing ready just when you need it? Another truly delicious meal at Damiseon Gangnam Station Branch, a Gangnam Station sashimi restaurant.