Live shrimp seaweed wraps for four at Yeongjae Susan, Songpa fish shop

It's peak season for fresh live shrimp right now, so my friends and I decided to throw a proper sashimi and seafood party. We picked up sashimi and live shrimp from Garak Market — the portions were generous and the packing was neat at Yeongjae Susan. Here's our review from a party for four, plus how to eat live shrimp the tastiest way!

Where Yeongjae Susan is in Garak Market, and where to park

Yeongjae Susan is located on the 1st floor of the Garak Mall sales building, unit C-10, at Garak Market. From assorted sashimi platters to flounder and rockfish, plus seasonal seafood like blue crab, it's a great spot to pick and pack whatever suits your taste.

If you're driving, you can use the Garak Mall parking lot, which gives visitors 3 hours of free parking (500 won per 10 minutes after that).

What four people ordered: sashimi platter and 1kg of live shrimp

We ordered the jamgwangwoehoe (small) sashimi platter for 65,000 won and 1kg of live shrimp for 31,000 won at Yeongjae Susan. The platter came with red seabream, flounder, and rockfish, and even in the small size the portion was quite generous. They said 1kg of live shrimp is usually around 25–30 pieces, but ours came out to about 35 — plenty.

The shrimp were still wriggling around even after being packed, so freshness clearly wasn't an issue — that got me excited. They packed everything, sashimi and shrimp together, into one cooler bag, which made it easy to carry.

You can also place a takeout order in advance through Naver, and for us the whole thing took about 15 minutes to prepare.

Is the small jamgwangwoe platter enough for four?

Yeongjae Susan's small jamgwangwoehoe platter let us taste red seabream, flounder, and rockfish all at once. Even in the small size the portion was ample, and once we added the live shrimp, it really felt like a proper seafood party for four.

How to eat raw shrimp: seaweed, sushi rice and aged kimchi

What I was most looking forward to this time was the seasonal live shrimp! You have to clean the shrimp yourself before eating it raw, but luckily one of my friends who's great in the kitchen took care of the cleaning and prep, so we got the full live shrimp party experience. The cleaned shrimp were plump and delicious on their own, but the combo we ended up eating the most was this one!

Seaweed + sushi rice + live shrimp + aged kimchi

With the plump live shrimp, tangy vinegared sushi rice, and aged kimchi all together, our hands just kept reaching for more. And we didn't waste the leftover shrimp heads either — we pan-fried them in butter.

From live shrimp sashimi to the nutty butter-fried heads, we made full use of the whole 1kg, and finished it off with a pot of shrimp ramyeon at the end! Maybe because it was in season, the shrimp were big and fresh, and I've completely fallen for live shrimp sashimi now.

Next time: a Han River sashimi picnic

Even with just the small jamgwangwoehoe platter and 1kg of live shrimp for four people, we ate very well. You can also ask for spicy fish stew ingredients for free, and they gave us a generous amount of that too.

They pack the sashimi and seafood so neatly into a cooler bag that it would work perfectly for a sashimi picnic at Han River Park on a nice day. Since we properly enjoyed seasonal live shrimp this time, I'd love to come back during blue crab season or whenever other seasonal seafood is in.

Yeongjae Susan: hours, prices and parking

• Location: 932 Yangjaedaero, Garak Mall Sales Building C-10, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: 07:00 – 22:00
• Parking: available (3 hours free parking provided)
• Naver takeout available / corkage fee (paid) / dine-in possible after buying seafood (table fee separate)