Gwangju sashimi restaurant, endless free sides: Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha

Why Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha is Wolsan-dong's best-value sashimi restaurant

I really love raw fish, so I've been to plenty of sashimi restaurants haha. But Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha Wolsan Branch in Wolsan-dong is amazing value. Everything was so fresh and chewy and delicious, and the portions were overflowing—I was genuinely moved. Definitely coming back! Five stars! is what I shouted here!

Where is Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha? Address, hours and parking

• 104 Gunbun-ro, Nam-gu, Gwangju, South Korea (Wolsan-dong 996-65)
• Open 12:00–23:00
• No baby chairs, parking available (beside the building)

Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha menu: sashimi for 1.5 servings plus a seafood platter

Here's the menu at Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha Wolsan Branch! We love both sashimi and seafood, so having a smaller sashimi option for 1.5 people plus a side mixed seafood platter meant we could try a bit of everything—loved that!

How many free side dishes do you actually get?

We ordered the mixed sashimi platter (1.5 servings) for ₩45,000, the mixed seafood platter for ₩20,000, rice, and soju! The table was so loaded it practically broke haha.

I was shocked that the basic side dishes alone were this generous—first time seeing this haha, the owner ran out of table space. The basics included seaweed soup, lettuce wraps, chili, garlic, ssamjang, sushi rice, seaweed sheets, wasabi, white kimchi, corn salad, makjang, chojang, and soy sauce.

And then there's this salty, flavorful grilled herring packed with roe. Clean and nutty and delicious, and the plate is so cute too haha!

Tip: add your sashimi to the mul-hoe and mak-hoe

These two side dishes—mul-hoe and mak-hoe—also came as sides! Of course you can eat them as is, but here's a tip, take note haha.

Adding your ordered seafood or sashimi into them turns them into a whole other hearty dish—amazing mul-hoe and mak-hoe. We added our ordered seafood and sashimi in, and boom, a main dish was born...! Eating it this different way made it go down even easier, I thought I was going to burst ㅠㅠㅠ

Grill-your-own pancakes we cooked twice

And it didn't stop there! There was a self-serve pancake among the basic side dishes. Usually these self-cooked pancakes aren't that great and you give up after a couple bites, but Wolsan-dong's Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha... isn't this supposed to be a sashimi place? Is it secretly a pancake place too haha?

Nutty, salty, crispy—so good haha. The kind of taste that makes you want to steal the batter to eat with makgeolli on a rainy day...!! We ended up eating it twice haha.

What's in the 20,000 won seafood platter: sea squirt, sea cucumber, whelk, abalone

Now for the main event—owner, you deserve to be showered with money! Of course a seafood specialist restaurant is going to be fresh and delicious! But the portions here go beyond generous, they overflow! This is the ₩20,000 mixed seafood platter.

Owner, shouldn't you be charging more? Fresh, glossy, with the ocean scent wafting off—gorgeous sea squirt, sea cucumber, whelk, and abalone set for ₩20,000!! This is a problem, if I lived nearby I'd come drink soju here every single day haha.

The sea squirt was plump and salty with full ocean flavor, the sea cucumber had an amazing crunchy texture, the whelk was soft and mild, and the abalone was chewy and springy—plus the rich, thick abalone innards!

The 45,000 won mixed sashimi platter: conger eel, flounder and halibut

Next up, the mixed sashimi for 1.5 people. Some places give you cheap fish or scrap cuts when you order a mixed platter, right? Here, absolutely zero disappointment—never, no no no.

Three kinds of sashimi came out, all fish I love! Especially the ones in season lately I eat a lot—eel, flounder, and halibut. I really felt like ordering the mixed platter to try a variety was the right call!

Since the fish was so fresh, the texture was wonderfully chewy and springy, with a nutty ocean flavor. And it wasn't just eating the sashimi plain—there were so many ways to pair it: wrapped in lettuce with chili and garlic, on sweet-tangy sushi rice, wrapped in nutty seaweed and crunchy white kimchi, in the refreshing cold mul-hoe, or mixed into the mak-hoe sauce with vegetables.

Could two people finish it all? We did

Eating it so many different ways meant it never got boring or heavy, it just kept going down smoothly haha. The table was so loaded I wondered if we could really finish it, but we ate the pancakes twice, mixed rice into the seaweed soup, and cleared every bit of sashimi and seafood...

Haha, ah, will there ever be a day my food-clearing skills fail me... Owner, we ate ourselves full on fresh, precious sashimi and seafood, soaking in that ocean flavor to the fullest! Thank you for the meal. Wishing you great business!