Sokcho Beach Korean restaurant with table kiosk ordering: Geu Badaro

Sokcho Beach lunch spot, seafood jang, parking Sokcho Geu Badaro Written and photographed by Kim Jigu

Can't come to Sokcho without eating seafood! The moment we arrived on our Sokcho trip, the one thing my husband and I both wanted was hoe (raw fish)! We really wanted fresh seafood, but somehow a hoe restaurant didn't quite appeal — we wanted somewhere a bit cleaner and more put-together. After searching around, we found Sokcho Geu Badaro, a seafood jang restaurant near Sokcho Beach known for food that comes out pretty, delicious and tidy. Here's my honest review!

Where is Sokcho Geu Badaro, and is there parking?

The exact address of Sokcho Geu Badaro, our Sokcho Beach lunch spot, is 171 Expo-ro, 1st floor, Sokcho-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea.

Hours: 10:30–21:00 Break time: 16:00–17:00 Last order: 19:30

If you set your navigation to "Sokcho Geu Badaro," you'll have no trouble finding the roomy parking lot beside the building. After parking, there are two entrances — go in through the one on the left.

• Left entrance – restaurant
• Right entrance – gift/takeout shop

Inside Sokcho Geu Badaro: the space and group seating

The interior of Sokcho Geu Badaro is very spacious and clean. There's plenty of group seating — enough to seat several large parties at once — and the space is split into two separate areas, so it's great for focusing on each other while you eat.

Right through the left entrance of Sokcho Geu Badaro, you'll run into the takeout section. It's a restaurant known for seafood jang and seafood hot pot rice, but since they also sell takeout, it makes a nice gift too. Geu Badaro is near Sokcho Beach, so it's well known as a stop after swimming, but locals rave about it just as much for dates and blind dates since the food comes out so neat and pretty.

Abalone jang, shrimp jang, octopus jang and more are sold in compact, gift-friendly sizes. You could also try the seafood jang and hot pot rice in the restaurant first and decide from there, haha.

Sokcho Geu Badaro menu and prices

The signature menu item at Sokcho Geu Badaro, our Sokcho Beach lunch spot, is the assorted seafood jang, priced at ₩70,000. The hot pot rice isn't plain rice with scorched rice poured over it — it's Gangwon-do potato rice, with ginkgo nuts mixed in too.

The assorted seafood jang is the most popular signature dish, but there are also lighter options like abalone hot pot rice (₩22,000), scallop hot pot rice (₩22,000) and red snow crab hot pot rice (₩22,000). Ordering was done through the kiosk set up at each table!

How was the seafood jang set for two?

My husband and I visited together and ordered the set with the assorted seafood jang plus two potato hot pot rice bowls — the table came out so full I thought it might collapse.

It was so generous and plentiful that I wondered if the two of us could even finish it, and on top of being delicious, it was plated so prettily that it would make a great date-night or blind-date meal where you can eat cleanly and still feel fancy. The side dishes — stir-fried zucchini, stir-fried potato, seasoned greens, salad, jang, acorn jelly, cubed radish kimchi, garlic scapes and more — were set out neatly, the kind of banchan any Korean would love.

Finally, we dug into the seafood jang. True to the name "assorted seafood jang," it was set up with seafood so fresh and appetizing you could tell the sea's freshness instantly. Abalone, crab, octopus, salmon, shrimp and more were all served in generous enough amounts that we didn't have to fight over them.

Having so much to eat made it even better. A single dish would've been tasty too, of course, but happily picking through the assorted seafood jang and then moving on to the potato hot pot rice gave us two different styles to enjoy, which made the meal more fun. Even though we visited in the hot summer, the interior was comfortable and cool enough that we barely noticed the heat while eating. If you're looking for a good restaurant near Sokcho Beach, give Sokcho Geu Badaro a try~!