Hwamyeong-dong hitsumabushi with sansho pepper at 11:30am: Shunsaikubo

2026 Michelin Guide Busan hitsumabushi.

Three years running on Michelin, eight years running with a Blue Ribbon, and named among Busan's best — this is Shunsaikubo, a well-known spot in Hwamyeong-dong.

In this hot summer, when you need a boost, it's eel! Came here for hitsumabushi. Let's get into the review.

Shunsaikubo Hwamyeong hours and parking

Hours: Daily 11:30am–9pm

Break time: 3pm–5:30pm

Parking: Use the building's parking lot, or the Hwamyeong public parking lot. Orders over ₩50,000 get 1 hour of Hwamyeong public parking supported.

Parked at the Hwamyeong public parking lot and walked over.

There are seats to wait both indoors and outdoors, and since they use Catch Table, you can book ahead and just wait.

There's cool solomon's seal tea and a menu to look through on the waiting bench while you wait.

First in at 11:30am on a weekday: book ahead

Booked for 11:30am, and we were the first ones in.

The soft yellow lighting and clean, tidy interior felt comfortable.

There was one private room, and overall every seat had a screen or a partition. No eye contact with other tables and conversations were muffled — really nice for eating comfortably.

2019–2026: Blue Ribbon Survey / 2024–2026: Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand / 2020–2026: Siksin 1-Star Restaurant / 2025–2026: Busan City's 'Taste of Busan' / 2026: SBS Living Master

Wow, what an impressive résumé. On a weekday at 11:30am, we were the very first customers, but everyone who came in right after us had to wait. Wait, huh? All those seats look empty? — turned out they were all reserved already, ha. Definitely make a Naver reservation before you come!

Shunsaikubo Hwamyeong menu and the half-portion hitsumabushi set

Hitsu means wooden rice tub, mabushi means rice mixed in — that's hitsumabushi.

The signature dish is the Nagoya-style charcoal-grilled eel rice bowl, and there's also charcoal chicken rice bowl and salmon rice bowl.

Nice that there's a kids' menu too — minced cutlet and a kids' eel rice bowl.

Two half-portions of hitsumabushi. Hitsumabushi (half) + ochazuke + yakumi (chopped scallion, seaweed flakes, perilla leaf, wasabi) + side dishes (tsukemono, sunomono, julienned ginger).

There's tare sauce on the table along with instructions for how to eat hitsumabushi the tasty way.

Starter salad, tonjiru pork soup and vegetable tempura

First, a pre-meal salad and tonjiru (miso soup) come out. The salad is soft, dressed with a perilla oil soy sauce.

Three kinds of tempura — sweet pumpkin, lotus root, eggplant.

Really crispy and light, doesn't taste fried at all. The eggplant too — no oily taste, just moist and full of juice!

The hitsumabushi arrives, smoky from binchotan charcoal

The hitsumabushi arrived.

Brushed with tare sauce again and again while grilling over binchotan, giving off a gorgeous charcoal-grilled aroma — my mouth was watering.

The bowl was piping hot — the AC was blasting so it was cool in the room, but the bowl stayed warm the whole time we ate.

First way: a plain bite of eel and rice

The classic way to eat hitsumabushi, always explained at every hitsumabushi restaurant. First, take a plain bite of the delicious charcoal-grilled eel on its own.

They use Japonica eel, so I wondered if that meant smaller eel, thinner than other places? But there wasn't a single stray bone, and with the charcoal tare sauce it was crispy outside, moist inside, and went down so smoothly. The Michelin-recognized tare sauce was so good I poured more on and dipped in deep.

Second way: with dashimaki tamago and chawanmushi

A delicate rolled omelet that looks almost steamed. They said to mix the dashimaki tamago with the eel, but the omelet was so moist and soft that I just topped it with scallion and julienned ginger, mixed it into rice with tare sauce, and ate it plain — so good.

The soft chawanmushi had a deep bonito flake flavor, with shrimp and mushroom inside.

Third way: hitsumabushi as ochazuke

The third way to eat it deliciously.

Pour on the ochazuke broth and mix it with scallion, perilla leaf, seaweed flakes, and wasabi. The green tea dashi cleanly washes away the richness of the charcoal-grilled eel — so refreshing. With the tare sauce mixed in, it has a savory depth like a rice soup too.

Refreshed my palate in between with the perilla oil salad, and the tangy seaweed (sunomono) and pickles too — good, good.

Best with sansho pepper: is a half-portion enough?

Tried sprinkling on the sansho pepper we were told is delicious.

Sansho pepper with green onion and wasabi on top — tingly and aromatic, this was the tastiest combination!

It's a half-portion of hitsumabushi, but the amount wasn't lacking at all. I wondered if grilling the eel over charcoal — which renders out fat and firms up the flesh, shrinking it — might leave it too small, but it turned out to be just the right amount for a woman ☺️. For a light, delicious lunch, the hitsumabushi half-portion seems like a really great choice.

Dessert: matcha pudding

After finishing and pressing the call bell, they bring out house-made matcha pudding. Barely any bitterness, just sweet and soft — perfect for cleansing the palate after the meal.

Such a delicious lunch. What's with 40-degree heat at the start of autumn — got my energy boost for the hot summer, hope the rest of summer goes well for everyone. This was a Michelin, Blue Ribbon Busan Buk-gu review — hitsumabushi.

A summer-limited drink is given out for writing a review.