Seongnam sashimi restaurant with sake: Haeseon’s 8-course meal

I found a decent sashimi restaurant at Sunae Station! I visited Haeseon, a specialist in aged sashimi. It is a sashimi spot with fresh aged fish and neat, well-served banchan (side dishes), perfect for drinking lots~ Let’s get straight into what I ate here. Haha.

Getting to Haeseon near Sunae Station and the atmosphere

Haeseon is a three-minute walk straight toward Seohyeon Station from Exit 1 of Sunae Station, on the first floor of Daedeok Glory Building across from Starbucks.

There are two ways to enter Haeseon, the sashimi restaurant near Sunae Station: 1. cut through the Daedeok Glory building, or 2. go around half the outside of the building to the right. Of the two, I recommend number 2, going around outside. Trust me, haha.

Past Sandeomi Ori Jip and beside Mapo Galbi, there it is—today’s good eat, Haeseon! Just then, the owner was taking fish out of the two-tier tank to age.

The restaurant is small and cozy, with a warm atmosphere, and laid out over two floors.

The upstairs seating at Haeseon has a comfortably high ceiling and a pleasantly intimate feel too.

Haeseon’s fundamentals, seen in the fish tank

When I go to a sashimi restaurant, I tend to look closely at the fish tank. Because of that habit, when my eldest was little, I once said, “Let’s look at the fish at the aquarium~” to keep them quietly waiting while I chose fish. After that, my eldest kept calling every sashimi-restaurant fish tank an aquarium, haha.

Up close, poorly maintained tanks smell of disinfectant plus fishy water, but this one was clean with none of that. And as you can see in the photo, the fish are big. Big sea bream and flounder—love it! The fish were lively too.

A side note.... Apparently we are supposed to call them “water creatures,” not fish these days? Since this is a food review, I’ll call them fish anyway ㅠㅠ Their eyes were clear and bright too. Oh wow... I just noticed the flounder at bottom right was looking at me taking the photo. Sigh........

How Haeseon’s aged sashimi course is served

Haeseon does not work like a typical sashimi restaurant where you order medium sea bream or large flounder. You do not even need to study the menu. Whoever comes, there is one single option only: an aged sashimi course built around assorted sashimi. As of September 2026, the aged sashimi course is ₩40,000 per person and has eight courses.

With the food decided, all that is left is choosing the alcohol.

Since it is Japanese style, I chose sake. The good-value Junmai 750 was ₩38,000. It is 15.6% ABV and 750 ml—roughly equal to two bottles of soju, haha.

My favorite kind of juk (rice porridge) is beef-and-vegetable juk. It was a little strongly seasoned, but good for settling the stomach. Sorry, but I skipped the soup. My stomach had to be saved for drinks and bar snacks, haha.

Course 2: sweet, sweet sea squirt

Haeseon course 2: sea squirt. Sweet, sweet, sweet sea squirt! Does sea squirt need any more explanation?

Sake plus sweet, sweet, sweet sea squirt in the 5 p.m. sunlight. Alcohol is meant to be drunk while the sun is up, haha.

The texture of aged flounder, rockfish, and sea bream

Haeseon course 3: assorted aged sashimi. Today’s main event, the assorted aged sashimi, has arrived~! Flounder, rockfish, and sea bream: a trio of popular fish that almost nobody dislikes.

The sashimi was sliced thickly. There were about 36 pieces, a suitable amount for two people.

My thoughts on good sashimi, and my review after tasting the three kinds. I have a lot to say about sashimi, so this will get a little long. If you are interested, read it slowly, haha.

Honestly, aged sashimi is divisive. My husband is on team live fish sashimi: he likes Pohang-style makhoe, freshly caught fish sliced immediately and spun once in a dehydrator, and does not especially prefer aged sashimi. I am firmly in the middle. Makhoe, aged sashimi, live fish sashimi—I eat any kind. But I absolutely hate sashimi with a watery fish smell or a chewy texture. I also absolutely hate aged sashimi that has been aged badly and is too soft or sticks to your teeth.

From my perspective, the watery fishy flavor in sashimi comes from bodily fluid (?) absorbed into the flesh. Whether it is makhoe, aged sashimi, or live fish sashimi, that fluid needs to be removed well so you taste the fish’s own flesh rather than a watery fishiness. Makhoe is sliced and spun in a dehydrator, physically removing fluid through centrifugal force. With live fish sashimi, after removing the skin, the fillet is patted with cloth or paper towel to absorb the fluid—like blotting blood from meat with a paper towel.

For aged sashimi, the chef accomplishes this through know-how such as osmosis, temperature, and time. So its flavor and texture vary enormously with the chef’s skill. Badly aged sashimi can be overly soft, dry, slippery, or sticky. That is why I sometimes do not eat poorly done kelp-aged sashimi.

So then, how was Haeseon’s aged sashimi near Sunae? In one phrase, it was aged sashimi that felt like fresh live fish, aged to a refreshing point. The top pick that day was the sea bream. I ate it dipped in soy sauce. It was sliced thickly but was not tough. Soft, with a fresh, refreshing finish. Both my husband and I opened our eyes wide and said, “Delicious.”

I had the rockfish with ssamjang (savory soybean dipping paste). It was mild and nutty, and perhaps because it was live fish aged that day, it had a pleasantly springy texture.

I ate the flounder so enthusiastically that every photo came out unfocused, haha. The flounder was also nicely soft and mild. I tried it with soy sauce, chojang (sweet-and-tangy chili sauce), and ssamjang. It would have been perfect with salt, but that seemed fussy, so I ate it as served. The flounder fin with white kimchi, ssamjang, and wasabi was a honey combination. It was aged nicely and nuttily, without the occasional watery smell that can come from the fin.

Well. I am no grand gourmet, but as someone who has eaten quite a bit of sashimi, if I may offer a verdict: this place does aged sashimi well. The restaurant also explains what Haeseon’s aged sashimi is, including low-temperature aging and inosinate. Here, fish caught that day is low-temperature-aged, making the freshness come through even more.

White kimchi that brings out the sashimi

Most sashimi restaurants serve aged kimchi, but this place serves white kimchi. Rinsed aged kimchi has such a strong flavor that you taste pickled kimchi more than the sashimi. Is Haeseon’s white kimchi made specifically for sashimi?? It was exceptionally clean-tasting. It brought out the sashimi without making the kimchi itself the center of attention, which I loved.

The next four courses after the aged sashimi

I went on far too long about the sashimi above, so I will be brief now.

Haeseon course 4: grilled sea bream head. It came out early while we were eating the sashimi, so I cannot give it a fair assessment because we ate it after it had gone cold. Still, even cold grilled sea bream head was nutty and tasty. I think it would have been even better hot.

Haeseon course 5: corn cheese. The mozzarella stretched all the way to the ceiling; it was real, high-quality cheese with a clean flavor and no off notes. None of that slick oily taste of imitation cheese.

Haeseon course 6: live octopus and beef tartare tangtangi. This alone calls for a bottle of soju. I first learned to eat octopus-and-beef-tartare tangtangi in Mokpo, so I boldly mixed it all up~ and ate it.

Fresh live octopus plus fresh beef tartare. The sweet tartare and savory, salty, nutty octopus were a great combination. There is simply no way this could taste bad.

Haeseon course 7: fried shrimp plus French fries. I cannot quit fries, haha. Perhaps because the shrimp and potatoes were fried together, the Cajun fries had a faint shrimp aroma, alongside Cajun fried shrimp. Good!

Haeseon course 8: maeuntang (spicy fish stew), the finishing course. Unusually, the bean sprouts were not simmered down completely, and I wondered how that would be. This style was not bad at all. The bean sprout aroma stayed bright and the broth was refreshing. I should try barely cooking the sprouts when I make bean sprout soup too.

There were two rockfish cheek pieces, so we split one each. We were going somewhere for round two, so we finished with the maeuntang without rice, haha.

Overall thoughts on the eight-course meal

Haeseon’s aged sashimi course is ₩40,000 per person. It is not the kind of sashimi restaurant where side dishes come in enough varieties to fill the table, but the eight courses are well composed. In particular, there were no pointless side dishes included just to pad the number, so by that measure Haeseon is among the sashimi restaurants in Sunae that serve good banchan.

The thickly sliced aged sashimi also showed each fish’s individual flavor, with good texture and finish; it was fish aged the same day. Still, as a carbohydrate addict, I was a tiny bit disappointed that there was no sushi or maki. Even so, each side dish was of decent quality, so overall Haeseon is one of the good-value sashimi restaurants in Bundang. Every side dish paired well with drinks, making this a good place for a day when you want to really dig into aged sashimi and alcohol in Bundang.