Late-night second-round izakaya in Magok: shimesaba at Kuro Yakitori

I went to Kuro Yakitori, an izakaya near Magongnaru Station with a great atmosphere, a value-for-money omakase, and a lot of delicious-looking side dishes. It had mackerel sashimi, which I love at izakayas, all the way to skewers — totally my thing.

Where Kuro Yakitori is, its hours and corkage rules

Kuro Yakitori is at 21 Magokjungang 5-ro 1-gil, 107, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, in Building N of the Lux Nine officetel near Magongnaru Station. It opens at 17:00 and closes at 01:00.

Walk into the alley by the original Ilmijip gamjatang (pork back-bone stew) restaurant — Lux Naru... I mean Lux Nine officetel Building N — for about 50m and you'll find the izakaya.

You can also make a reservation through Catch Table!

• 🍷 Corkage policy / free corkage
• Free corkage applies for one bottle under 20% ABV (as long as you order one draft beer per person in-store)
• For 20% ABV or above, corkage is ₩20,000 per bottle

Counter seats at Kuro Yakitori: good for solo drinks or a date?

There's also a table for 3–4 people in the back of Kuro Yakitori.

Since there were two of us, we sat side by side at the counter. The atmosphere seemed good for both dates and solo drinking.

The basic side dish was cabbage with sesame sauce. Why is the free cabbage side at izakayas always so good... I kept eating it.

The Kuro Yakitori menu and the 29,000-won omakase

Here's the menu at Kuro Yakitori, a spot known for aged sashimi near Magongnaru.

💛Recommended menu💛 ✔Omakase, ₩29,000 per person — a good-value solo omakase. A mix of small dishes and yakitori, composition varies by the day's ingredients. ✔Tuna + uni + sweet shrimp / price varies ✔Yakitori (à la carte, chef's choice) / price varies — domestic yakitori by cut, grilled over binchotan charcoal. ✔Mackerel hand roll sushi / price varies

The skewer omakase is the signature dish and the price seemed reasonable, so it looked like good value. Several kinds of skewers came with aged sashimi too! With a name like 'Yakitori' I expected them to only sell skewered dishes, but they also had aged sashimi, hot pot rice, charcoal-grilled ji-something, clam wine steam, and other dishes, so there was plenty of variety to enjoy.

Since we'd already eaten meat in the first round, we wanted to focus purely on sashimi, so we ordered the aged sashimi.

How does the in-season aged mackerel shimesaba taste?

What we ordered at Kuro Yakitori was mackerel sashimi, in season now that it's autumn. I was thinking of ordering the assorted sashimi but went with mackerel instead — and the look of it was something else 💞💞💞

This is shimesaba, mackerel cured in vinegar! There's no fishy taste at all — it's soft, nutty, and delicious. Each slice was a good size, and there was quite a lot of it.

What part is this, I wonder? A fin, maybe? Anyway, my friend Pure said it was delicious, so I let her have it all and never got to taste it myself.

A slice of mackerel sashimi topped with ginger.

Seriously the best drinking snack. If mackerel sashimi feels like too much, they also have mackerel hand roll sushi, so give that a try instead! It's one of the signature dishes at Kuro Yakitori, a top spot for aged sashimi near Magongnaru, so it should be great too.

Skirt steak and shoulder skewers, tsukune and a draft beer

With 'yakitori' right there in the name of the place, I felt like it'd be a shame not to order skewers.

We kept the skewer order simple — skirt steak and shoulder!

Chewy and delicious.

The skewers were so good we ordered a draft beer. The Orion draft was really smooth and delicious.

We also ordered a tsukune (Japanese-style chicken meatball skewer).

Dipped in egg yolk sauce it's stupidly good;

The kitchen was right in front of us, so we kept watching the food being made — I didn't know what it was, but it all looked so delicious.

I wanted to order more, but I was really too full, so I left it for next time. Kuro Yakitori, this aged sashimi spot near Magongnaru, genuinely won me over — enough that I'm already thinking about coming back.