Jongno sushi restaurant with cooked sushi options: Choe Uyeong

5 reasons to try Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch

• 1️⃣ Thick-cut sushi — you can really taste the depth of the aged fish and the texture of the thick slices
• 2️⃣ Premium deluxe sushi, 17 pieces — flounder, red seabream, salmon, tuna, gunkan and more all at once
• 3️⃣ Fine even if you can't eat raw food — cooked options like egg sushi and beef brisket fire sushi make it easy to visit together
• 4️⃣ From solo dining to group meals — solo seats, 2–4 person tables, and group seating are all available
• 5️⃣ A Jongno sushi spot with parking — convenient for anyone hunting for parking in Jongno, and takeout is available too

I'd been craving sushi so badly, so my boyfriend and I went on a Jongno date. He had errands to run in Jongno, so we decided to combine it with a date — Jongno has plenty of good restaurants, but finding parking there is trickier than you'd think. Then I found a place with in-building parking that also serves fresh sushi: Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch! If you love sushi and are hunting for a sushi spot near Jongak Station, this is worth a visit.

Where is Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch, and what are its hours?

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch is at 7 Jongno 5-gil, B1 Unit 104, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea, open 11:00–21:30 with a break time from 15:00–17:00. In-building parking is available.

If you're after sushi for lunch or dinner in Jongno, this place suited the mood well. And for anyone who's struggled with parking in Jongno, the in-building parking will be a relief!

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch uses fresh ingredients daily to make premium sushi and sashimi carefully, at reasonable prices. From sushi with the deep flavor of aged fish to kaisendon (seafood rice bowl) and seasonal dishes, the menu was quite wide. Maybe that's why there were so many office workers there when I visited, along with quite a few solo diners.

Takeout made easy at the entrance kiosk

At the entrance of Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch there's a separate takeout kiosk. It accepts both card and cash payments, so anyone who wants to grab food to go can use it easily.

The interior overall felt spacious and pleasant. There were seats set aside for solo dining, and tables good for 2–4 people, so it was fine for dates or small gatherings too. Group seating was also available, making it a good option for office dinners or gatherings — recommended for anyone looking for a sushi spot near Gwanghwamun that can also handle group meals!

How tablet ordering works at the table

Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch has a tablet at every table for ordering, which was convenient. You just browse the menu and pick what you want without having to keep calling a staff member over.

Looking through the menu, we each ordered what we wanted. My boyfriend ordered the premium deluxe sushi, and since I still can't eat raw food, I ordered egg sushi and beef brisket fire sushi. We also added tempura and udon, which pair well with sushi.

After ordering, they give you clear broth and wasabi as the basics. Pickled radish, ginger, and house-made soy sauce are set on every table, so you can use as much as you need. The soy sauce in particular wasn't regular soy sauce but a house-made version for sushi, with a nice savory depth that went great with the sushi.

Was the order filling? More than expected

There were just two of us, but our table at Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch filled up like it was almost three servings. As our dishes started coming out one by one — well, since our baby is on the way, we figured we'd better eat well, so we dug in happily.

With sushi, tempura, and udon filling the table, just looking at it felt satisfying. Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch was great for ordering a variety of dishes at once to sample lots of flavors!

Crispy tempura: the whole sweet potato was the best

The first thing we tried was the crispy tempura. There was a mixed tempura option too, but since we wanted to taste a bit of everything, we ordered each item individually — shrimp, sweet potato, and scallop, two pieces each.

Personally, the sweet potato was the one I expected the least from, and it turned out the best. The outside was fried crispy while the inside was super sweet and moist — way tastier than I imagined. Since it was a whole sweet potato, you could really taste its natural sweetness, and it worked well as a dessert-like bite. If you feel like sushi alone isn't quite enough, adding this as a side dish is a great idea!

Single-piece sushi: 5 pieces of egg sushi

At Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch, you can order sushi individually as single items. What I ordered was egg sushi, fried tofu sushi, and steamed abalone, and my boyfriend added monkfish liver and yukhoe (raw beef) gunkan for me to try.

I really love egg sushi, so I ordered a whopping 5 pieces. Personally, whenever I go to a sushi place, egg sushi is a must-try. I think it's a decent way to judge whether a sushi place is good — and the egg sushi here, which I found while hunting for a sushi spot near Jongak Station, had soft, thick egg on top that really suited my taste. The egg itself was moist and soft, so I kept reaching for another piece. If you love egg sushi, you'll probably understand exactly why I ordered 5!

A handy soy sauce tip for eating sushi

And here's a quietly useful tip for eating sushi. Instead of dunking the sushi straight into soy sauce, use a slice of ginger like a brush to lightly dab soy sauce onto the top of the sushi. This way, you won't drop the sushi in the sauce, and you can control exactly how much soy sauce you want. Just dip one piece of ginger in the sauce and brush it onto the sushi — it's simpler than it sounds. It's a surprisingly handy method, so that's how I eat it!

Beef brisket fire sushi, full of smoky flavor

Next up is the beef brisket fire sushi I ordered. Since I still can't eat raw food, I looked for cooked options and gave this a try!

With onions and a generous amount of teriyaki sauce piled on top of the beef brisket, plus that smoky char flavor, it was way tastier than I expected. Eating it warm really brought out the savory taste of the beef and the smoky flavor even more. So I'd recommend eating the beef brisket fire sushi first, right when it arrives while it's still warm!!

I thought it'd taste even better topped with radish sprouts, so I ordered those extra too. Since there's a cooked option here for people who can't eat raw food, it worked well for me looking for cooked sushi. So if you're hunting for a sushi restaurant in Jongno and need something to bring a companion who can't eat raw food, this menu might be worth checking out!

What's in the 17-piece premium deluxe sushi?

The main goal of today's visit — my boyfriend's sushi, the premium deluxe sushi. A whopping 17 pieces came out!

With flounder, red seabream, salmon, tuna and gunkan sushi all coming out at once, it was really generous. Since our baby is still on the way, both of us have been avoiding raw food lately — but since it had been a while since we had sushi, we made a point of ordering the premium deluxe sushi, which comes with a wide variety of pieces.

The first thing my boyfriend said while eating was how thick the fish on top of the sushi was. Even I could see the fish was pretty thick. It wasn't thin-sliced fish — it was the kind where you could really feel the fish's texture in one bite, and he ate it happily, clearly satisfied. It made me think again that it was a good call to come to Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch. Once our baby is born, I'd love for the three of us to come back together for sushi — and by then, I'll get to properly enjoy the delicious aged-fish sushi myself too.

Udon, the side you can't skip with sushi

And of course, you can't skip udon when eating sushi. We ordered udon as a side dish, thinking it would just be a mini bowl. But the portion turned out to be really generous.

It was plenty even split between the two of us — my boyfriend scooped some into my bowl, and even the portion in front of me looked like a mini udon on its own. It came with plenty of fried tofu too, which was delicious with the broth. It was great when you wanted warm broth in the middle of eating sushi, and worked fine in place of the clear broth. If you're hunting for a sushi restaurant near Gwanghwamun and want generous side dishes as well as sushi, this should suit you well.

Who is Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch best for?

Overall, Choe Uyeong Sushiya Jongno Branch was spacious and clean, making it a good fit for solo dining, dates, or gatherings alike! The in-building parking especially made it less stressful on days we drove into Jongno. With aged-fish sushi, kaisendon and a variety of other dishes, it was also great for visiting with others so everyone could pick what they wanted.

I also appreciated that, since I still can't eat raw food, there were options like egg sushi or fire sushi I could choose instead. It had been a while since I'd had a Jongno date with my boyfriend, and eating sushi together made for a genuinely happy day. Next time, I'd love for the three of us — baby included — to come back and enjoy delicious sushi together.