Summer sea bass sashimi with labeled cuts in Songpa: Yeongjae Susan

Craving sashimi today? There's one place that always comes to mind for that — Garak Market. Summer means sea bass, and when the craving for seasonal sea bass hit me hard, I rushed straight over to Yeongjae Susan. Here's the review.

Where is Yeongjae Susan? Garak Mall unit C-10

Yeongjae Susan is at 932 Yangjae-daero, Garak Mall Sales Building 1F C-10, Songpa-gu, Seoul, in the C course of Garak Market. Open daily from 07:00 to 22:00.

Let me walk you through how to get to C-10 first.

How to get to Yeongjae Susan from Garak Market Station

To reach Yeongjae Susan, get off at Garak Market Station by subway or bus. I went by bus, and crossing the street, a huge building appeared right away. It's the big building that sells all the dried and fresh seafood at Garak Market, so it shouldn't be hard to find!

As you walk along, you'll see an entrance labeled 'Seafood 7 · Dried Goods' — you can go in there too, but if you move a bit further left, I recommend the entrance marked '6'. The Yeongjae Susan I'm recommending this time is right by entrance 6.

Arrived at Yeongjae Susan, and the young owner greeted me warmly. This is my second visit to Garak Market, but every time I come, the owners kind of stare at me — a little scary, haha, ㅠㅠ.

Yeongjae Susan openly shows the gram weights for small, medium and large sizes, and it's a KCIA-certified shop, which is why I chose it.

While deciding what to eat, I checked out how lively everyone looked — moving around actively, looking delicious... I mean, healthy, haha. The lobsters and king crabs looked plentiful, and I held back the urge to sneakily grab one.

This time we finished ordering summer's seasonal sea bass at Yeongjae Susan — the nong-gwang-cham-hoe combo! When ordering, they ask if you need fish stew ingredients, and if you say yes, they pack it all up carefully!

Yeongjae Susan's menu board and what's in the nong-gwang-cham-hoe combo

You can check Yeongjae Susan's menu board in the photo above — we ordered the nong-gwang-cham-hoe combo. That's large sea bass, large flounder, and large red seabream!

Review: summer sea bass combo (small) for 65,000 won at Garak Market

What we ate was the nong-gwang-cham-hoe (small) for ₩65,000.

Time for the nong-gwang-cham-hoe we picked up from Yeongjae Susan — unboxing time! Since we were walking around Garak Market, the owner carefully tucked in an ice pack. Thank you!

Inside were the sea bass-flounder-red seabream combo we ordered, fish stew ingredients, and various sauces.

Each cut of fish had its type labeled — so touching... in order it went cham, nong, gwang, cham, nong, gwang.

The fish stew we'll eat later, so let's hurry and look at the sashimi from this Garak Market fish shop I recommend, Yeongjae Susan. The color was just — the moment I saw it, my mouth watered, I was so hungry. Lately I've been doing one meal a day, so the whole time I was packing it up I was thinking, hurry, I want to eat this already, haha.

I usually eat sashimi with chojang (vinegar-chili sauce) as my base. I'm not great at eating fish plain, so it tastes better to me with chojang.

So at first I dipped every cut in chojang. What I'm eating now is the summer seasonal sea bass — people usually say sea bass tastes better with a bit of wasabi rather than chojang.

For the flounder, I did try it with chojang, but wasabi was still tastier, haha. Garak Market itself keeps its sashimi so well-preserved that eating it in summer was no problem at all, and my friend said flounder is delicious with a homemade ceviche sauce too.

Basically the slices are cut fairly thick, so if you prefer thinner cuts, it's a good idea to tell the owner in advance. From assorted sashimi platters to seasonal summer sea bass, they sell all sorts of things, which is why Garak Market itself is such a great place to pick sashimi.

I was really touched by how carefully Yeongjae Susan packages everything, and how they label each cut for people like me who don't know much about sashimi, plus the packaging itself was pretty — I was moved like 3 or 4 times, haha.

When sashimi alone isn't enough: gimbap and a cup rice bowl

Since I figured sashimi alone might leave us a bit hungry, we bought gimbap (seaweed rice roll) and a cup rice bowl to eat alongside it, and it was seriously a huge recommendation. Even at the small size, the sashimi is plenty for two, so if you order from this recommended Garak Market fish shop, Yeongjae Susan, it might feel like a lot — but paired with gimbap, it was incredibly delicious, haha.

It was summer so my stomach was a little full, but I couldn't bear to waste the sashimi, so I ate it all, carefully.

The fish stew kit, cooked by Dad the next day

Next up, the fish stew! We couldn't eat the stew right away — since my dad is a huge fish stew lover, and I'm not great at making it myself, I waited until he got home and tossed it his way.

While I was asleep, he apparently rushed to make the stew all by himself so he could eat it in secret, and he was enjoying it saying it was delicious, haha. I wish I'd taken more photos of him making it, ㅜㅠㅜ but anyway, he said he ate it up happily.

That's a quick wrap-up of my review of the summer seasonal sea bass nong-gwang-cham-hoe I ate at Yeongjae Susan, my recommended sashimi spot at Garak Market. Seasonal sashimi tastes best when you eat it in its season — how about a whole sea bass tomorrow?