Seomyeon summer pufferfish soup with vinegar and chojang: Busan Bokjip

Today's post is a visit review of Busan Bokjip (부산복집), a 20-year-old Seomyeon institution.

Where is Busan Bokjip in Seomyeon?

Busan Bokjip is across from Younggwang Books in Seomyeon, so it's easy to find. Apparently it's been a Seomyeon favorite for over 23 years. As someone who hunts down every good pufferfish soup place, I could not skip this one, right? (Manyeo, the writer's nickname, writes about herself in the third person; I'll just say I.)

Let's head in! I arrived just after the lunch rush, so it was a bit quiet and the staff seemed relaxed‼️

I sat down and took my time choosing from the menu.

Busan Bokjip menu: wild fresh vs. regular magpie puffer prices

A few searches told me Busan Bokjip is famous as a course-meal specialist!

But I'm a hyena for seasonal food (?). Wild fresh magpie puffer is a summer-only treat, so I ordered it (₩25,000)! The menu shows regular magpie puffer, the non-fresh kind, is available year-round at ₩19,000. Seasonal food does cost more, as expected.

Does ordering just the fresh magpie puffer come like a course?

At Busan Bokjip, ordering only the wild fresh magpie puffer as a single dish gets you extras that feel like a course, so it never feels like a waste of money. Salmon sushi, fried puffer, puffer skin salad, and later the milbok gon (puffer milt), all gently fill your stomach before the main magpie puffer earthenware pot arrives.

Nutty fried puffer, sweet-and-sour puffer skin salad, and a hearty piece of salmon sushi woke my appetite right up. Warm porridge comes out too, easy on the stomach, and it really has the presence of a course-meal specialist.

Even paying wild fresh puffer prices, this spread is worth it. They quickly handed me a small dish, and I filled it with chojang (sweet-spicy chili sauce). It's probably meant for soy sauce 🤣 but I have a kid's palate, so chojang it is!

Side dishes, braised flatfish and puffer egg custard

While I waited for the main puffer, even more side dishes arrived. Wow, so generous! Busan Bokjip lays out a full Korean table, and every side dish was delicious.

The braised flatfish was so rich in savory flavor that it disappeared in no time.

My Daejeon guy always lovingly de-bones the fish for me. Then, so I wouldn't stop eating, they brought egg custard, and it turned out to have puffer meat in it! It's made as soon as you order, so it took a little while, but I'd have been so sad to miss it.

I usually can't eat egg custard because it tastes fishy to me, so the fact that it was nutty with no fishiness even with puffer meat in it says enough, I think. And finally, the star arrives in one earthenware pot‼️

How does the wild fresh magpie puffer jiri taste at Busan Bokjip?

The fresh magpie puffer jiri (clear pufferfish soup) at Busan Bokjip is appealing for its clean taste with no MSG. I'm a puffer soup lover, so I already have lots of pufferfish soup posts. That makes me pretty good at telling the good places apart (?)

No MSG aftertaste lingering on the tongue, just the plain, clean flavor of puffer that finishes crisply with each bite. This is probably what people mean when they call hot food "refreshing." Magpie puffer is pricey, so I hadn't had it often, but this time I tried the fresh version!

The wild fresh magpie puffer had a brilliant yellow color, and as a rare summer seasonal food it's the ultimate stamina dish. I tend to de-bone the meat first, so I naturally got a sense of how much puffer there was.

See how the meat fills a plain small plate? The generous portion shows how big-hearted the place is.

What is milbok gon?

The soft white pieces in the pot are milbok gon. Gon means puffer milt (the reproductive organ), and its texture is mostly soft and melting. Since puffer is widely known to be toxic, preparing it is tricky, and Busan Bokjip reportedly has a puffer-prep specialist who can even handle the milt. Its health benefits are sometimes described rather extremely, but I do think it's a rare, nutrient-rich ingredient. I'm properly boosting my body for summer.

Next, the chewy wild fresh magpie puffer meat. I ate it with the minari (water dropwort) and bean sprouts in the pot, dipping it in chojang rather than soy sauce, poke poke poke.

The fragrant minari delights my nose, the crunchy bean sprouts the texture, and the chewy, clean puffer meat my taste buds‼️ Compared with the silver puffer (eunbok) I usually eat, it's definitely softer and more premium in texture. Once I've de-boned all the meat, I get serious and season the soup (?) with vinegar and chojang hahahaha

My way of eating pufferfish soup with vinegar and chojang

Adding vinegar and chojang to pufferfish soup is a ritual I've kept since childhood and can't give up. I know, "ew, what?" Some say vinegar makes puffer meat a bit springier, believe it or not, but I just love the tang of vinegar.

It somehow deepens the savory flavor, you know? And for addictive savoriness, I smother it in chojang. It's not even a spicy fish stew... it's more like chojang soup, but the spoon keeps going back in. That's Busan Bokjip's pufferfish soup.

Since the soup at Busan Bokjip was so clearly clean in flavor, I added even more vinegar and chojang. This Seomyeon pufferfish soup spot is great for nourishing your elders, and also as a seasonal specialist for getting your nutrients through summer. I really enjoyed Busan Bokjip.

Because it comes out like a course, the amount is definitely large. My small stomach is so sad.. and now I start thinking about the leftover soup… 🤤