Jongno sushi restaurant for Saturday dinner: Choe Uyeong Sushiya

I went to Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch, a great sushi spot around Jonggak and Gwanghwamun in Jongno, Seoul, for Saturday dinner over the weekend.

How do you get there between Gwanghwamun and Jonggak stations?

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch sits between Gwanghwamun Station and Jonggak Station. We came in through Tower 8!!

• About a 3–5-minute walk from Exit 1 of Jonggak Station
• About a 7-minute walk from Exit 2 of Gwanghwamun Station
• About a 2–3-minute walk from Tower 8
• About a 3-minute walk from Jongno Tower
• About a 5-minute walk from Gran Seoul
• About a 5-minute walk from Le Meilleur Jongno Town
• About a 7-minute walk from SK Seorin Building
• About a 7-minute walk from Centropolis

Head down to basement level 1 and there is a restaurant area—you can find it easily.

Hours and parking

Hours are daily from 11:00 to 21:30, with a break from 15:00 to 17:00 and last orders at 21:00. Takeout is available; groups and solo diners are welcome, but pets are not. Corkage is ₩3,000 per bottle, and parking is free for two hours.

The restaurant is quite spacious. I think it would handle the weekday lunch rush from office workers well, too.

Are the solo-dining tables good?

I especially loved how well set up these solo-dining tables are. Solo-dining difficulty: level 0. This place is optimized for eating alone.

A cute Shiba. And there is a cute kitty, too.

Each table has house-made soy sauce, ginger, and rakgyo (pickled scallion bulbs), so you can help yourself to as much as you want. They brought miso soup, wasabi soy sauce, and wasabi—careful, the wasabi is pretty spicy.

A conveyor-belt sushi specialist?.? But I only saw plated sushi. Maybe it used to be a conveyor-belt sushi place.

Menu and ordering

Sashimi, kaisendon (seafood rice bowl), and sushi are the main dishes, with fried sides, udon, and more. You can order from the tablet at each seat!!

We ordered two premium sushi sets, seared beef brisket sushi, and fried things, hehe. There are all kinds of drinks, too, and corkage is only ₩3,000, so it seems like a nice place for dinner and drinks with coworkers!!

How was the 16-piece premium sushi set?

Premium Sushi (16 pcs) — ₩27,000

We ordered the premium sushi set. First of all, it was soooo abundant and filling~

There was no separate explanation of the sushi, so I am not quite sure what all the fish were, but it seemed to have everything. Flounder, salmon, tuna, shrimp, scallop, spear squid, abalone, imitation crab, flounder fin, egg, eel, uni, and so on.

Also, I personally do not like ankimo (monkfish liver), so I was happy it was not in my assorted set. It feels like every expensive assorted sushi set has ankimo these days. Anyway, enough chatter—I am going to try it.

Sushi that I think was flounder; clean and tasty.

The classic salmon topped with onion and cream. How could this possibly be bad? Haha.

Was this sea bream? Anyway, I am a white-fish lover, so I liked it. The fish was generally quite thick, which gave it a nice chew.

A collection of red-fish sushi. It was not fishy and tasted good. Oh, and none of the sushi came with wasabi inside, so I could add it myself. I am not very good with wasabi, so I loved that, hehe.

Probably flounder fin: rich and nutty. The imitation crab was sweet and soft. Scallop!! I love it, so soft.

The abalone was pleasantly chewy, too. The squid-or-spear-squid kind of sushi was chewy and springy—an absolute favorite. The shrimp was bouncy, too; impossible for it to be bad. It is giant prawn season now, so I should go eat some soon.

Sweet, fluffy egg sushi... I want to eat ten. I see people on YouTube eating Buldak noodles with egg sushi and stuff. I should try that too. Like that.

The eel was nutty and delicious, too.

Uni gunkan sushi. I do not like uni all that much, though...

I do not know what these were, but there was a gunkan sushi topped with finely chopped fish and scallions, and another with something that looked like innards. A three-piece gunkan set! Nom nom nom.

Fried sides and seared beef brisket sushi

Fried king prawn, fried sweet potato, and fried glutinous rice cake — ₩1,500 each

Please spare a moment for our fried sides, too. First, the size of the fried sweet potato was legendary. Is this really ₩1,500? It felt like they fried half a sweet potato. Great value.

It was piping hot, and dipping it in soy sauce made it extra delicious.

Crispy fried shrimp. Chewy, bouncy fried mochi, so good.

Seared Beef Brisket Sushi (5 pcs) — ₩9,500

Meat would feel left out, so we had to eat that too. Ah, so delicious. How could beef brisket sushi not be good?

The sweet galbi marinade and crunchy onion were such a great combination. It had a smoky charred flavor too—good, good ㅜ I think I love land meat as much as fish.