Saturday dinner sashimi course near Sunae Station, Seongnam: Haeseon

2026.9.5

Haeseon, a sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station in Seongnam

Haeseon's business hours

Haeseon Mon–Fri 16:00–23:00 Sat 16:00–22:00 Closed every Sunday

I'd heard there was an amazingly good-value sashimi course in the neighborhood, so I went to check out Haeseon, a sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station.

From the entrance fish tank to the second-floor seating

What caught my eye right from the entrance was a fish tank so clear and clean it didn't have a speck of scale buildup! This isn't a newly opened place, so seeing a tank kept this spotless was really impressive — the first time I'd seen anything like it.

It looked cozy from outside, but they also use the second floor, and the open ceiling keeps it from feeling cramped.

The first-floor hall as seen from upstairs. Downstairs there are about three 4-person tables, one 6-person table, and one 2-person table,

and there's a fair amount of seating upstairs too, so I figured they'd have plenty of room... but we had a 7pm reservation, and after that customers kept pouring in steadily — by the time we left it was nearly full. Just so you know, that's what a Saturday evening here looks like.

They have Japanese sake, Ilpum Jinro, Chungha, and other drinks on hand,

₩40,000 assorted sashimi course, the only menu

There's only one menu here, so there's no need to order separately. The assorted sashimi course is ₩40,000 per person, and it starts with rice porridge (juk) and soybean paste soup (doenjang-guk).

Assorted sashimi and sea squirt (meongge) came out first.

I've been eating sashimi for quite a while now, but this sea squirt is one thing I still haven't been able to touch...

It has that distinctive slightly bitter, strongly ocean-scented flavor — I've tried it dressed in vinegar before, but my husband says it's the real deal eaten with sashimi, haha.

Sea squirt is also packed with nutrients like glycogen and taurine. Maybe someday I'll... work up the courage.

Assorted sashimi

The sashimi came as three kinds: rockfish, flounder, and red seabream. Flounder and red seabream are usually standard, and depending on the season, yellowtail sometimes replaces the rockfish, apparently.

The sashimi at Haeseon, a sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station, is served aged: fresh live fish prepared the same day is low-temperature aged, a process that's said to bring out even more of the fish's natural umami and flavor.

Flounder is the sashimi people eat most, but it never gets old — and the thickness of the slices here was striking,

while the red seabream's vivid red skin against the white flesh was beautiful — enjoyable to look at as much as to eat.

My husband insists you should only dip sashimi lightly in soy sauce to enjoy its true flavor, but

I can't resist pairing it with ssamjang (spicy dipping paste), haha. I expected aged sashimi to be soft, but it actually had more spring and a chewier texture than I thought.

There's no lettuce for wrapping, but plenty of baek-kimchi (white kimchi) comes out instead, and it's delicious eaten together like this.

Grilled fish head, corn cheese, and live octopus with beef tartare

By the time we were about halfway through the sashimi, the grilled fish head arrived. Everything doesn't come out at once — it's served course by course, which made it feel great for chatting slowly over the meal. Since we don't drink, every other table around us had a glass of something going, haha.

Fish head meat is a delicacy you can really only get at places like this — there isn't much of it, but it has a soft, chewy texture and a deep umami flavor. The cheek meat and area around the eyes especially, parts you don't usually get to taste, felt extra special.

Corn cheese on a hot plate

Corn cheese, the kind of dish that'll really hit the spot once the drinks are flowing. The sweet corn and cheese were fresh and clean-tasting — delicious.

Live octopus and beef tartare in a ₩40,000 course?! The beef tartare (yukhoe) had the soft texture of fresh beef mixed with a sweet, savory seasoning,

and while I couldn't handle the wriggling texture of the live octopus, my husband kept saying he couldn't believe this was the real deal for this price, haha. Eating the beef tartare and live octopus together seems like it would give you two totally different textures and flavors at once.

Hot pot spicy fish stew

The spicy fish stew usually called seodeori has to be ordered separately at most regular sashimi restaurants, but here it's included in the course.

Bean sprouts and radish simmered spicy-hot with fish head — it practically calls for another round of drinks... but we called for rice instead. We're supposed to be cutting carbs at dinner, ha.

The fried course wasn't so much Japanese-style tempura as just potato and shrimp fritters — with what looked like just the owner working alone in the kitchen, expecting proper tempura might be asking too much. And honestly, the course was already so good the fried dish could've been skipped, but it seems like it was added to round out the flow of the whole course.

Overall thoughts on Haeseon, a sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station, and parking

The service was really friendly, the restaurant was clean, and the course flowed smoothly with each dish arriving right on time. Above all, the sashimi is genuinely delicious, and it's rare to find a place where you can enjoy a course this substantial for ₩40,000 — highly recommended as a sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station! For parking, you can use the Sunae Station Daedeok Glory Building, which supports up to 3 hours on weekends, and the entrance road is wide, so it was convenient.