Cheongna seafood hot pot with crab and scallop: Haemul Teukbyeolsi

Looking for a dish in Cheongna good for sharing with a group, like agu-jjim (braised monkfish) or a seafood stew, I tried the seafood hot pot set at Haemul Teukbyeolsi Cheongna Direct Branch this time. Since one pot holds many kinds of seafood together, I could pick and choose as I went, and finishing it off with kalguksu (knife-cut noodle) noodles at the end made for a satisfying flow.

Where Haemul Teukbyeolsi Cheongna Direct Branch is and what the restaurant feels like

Arriving at the storefront, it wasn't hard to spot — a big Haemul Teukbyeolsi sign in red letters on a white and blue background. There was a parking spot with a car out front, and one side of the sign noted private rooms and group seating available. The exterior heavily promoted hot-plate seafood stew and hot-plate monkfish stew, making it a good stop when searching for Cheongna's best seafood stew or monkfish stew spots.

Inside, a spacious hall opened up with wood-toned walls and bright flooring, centered around 4-person tables. The ceiling was high and the spacing between tables felt fairly generous, with a self-serve bar and fridge set off to one side. The layout looked easy to adapt for a family meal or a larger group by pushing tables together.

Ordering the seafood hot pot set from the table tablet

Orders were placed through a tablet at each table. Categories ranged from lunch specials to monkfish & seafood stew sets, soups, sides and finishers, hand-battered fried dishes, and drinks, so I could scroll through photos and prices without calling for a menu. Ordering the seafood hot pot at Haemul Teukbyeolsi Cheongna worked the same way — check the screen, then order right away.

And then the Cheongna Haemul Teukbyeolsi seafood hot pot set landed on the middle of the table for real. Scallop, whole squid, octopus leg, crab, shrimp, roe and milt, and vegetables all piled on top of a red broth filling a wide pot — at first you could barely see the inside of the pot. Scallions and green and red chilies were piled on generously too, adding sharp color between the seafood.

Side dishes, hot-plate corn cheese and flat dumplings that come with the set

The menu noted that the set comes with a sample clam soup, hot-plate corn cheese, flat dumplings, and side dishes. First on the table were small plates of cucumber pickles, chili and vegetables pickled in soy sauce, baek-kimchi (white kimchi), and a red-seasoned kimchi. Since the meal centers on a big pot of seafood, the sides felt curated to complement it rather than pile on variety for its own sake.

The cucumber pickles were cut into thick rounds, sitting in a shallow pool of pickling liquid. The soy-pickled side had big chunks of chili and what looked like radish, and the baek-kimchi had generous cabbage leaves and white stem sections. With the red kimchi added, the color contrast filled out the table nicely before the main dish even arrived.

The hot-plate corn cheese came on an oval griddle packed with corn kernels and melted cheese on top. The surface had a few browned, slightly charred spots, and corn filled the plate right to the edges. Right beside it sat several stacked flat dumplings in a wide half-moon shape, which looked like a natural pairing with the main seafood hot pot on the table.

What seafood goes into the Haemul Teukbyeolsi hot pot

In the middle sat two scallops, shells spread open with the meat still attached. Octopus legs stretched out around them, with whole squid and other seafood layered underneath — clearly a different setup from a hot pot built around a single ingredient. Eating the Cheongna Haemul Teukbyeolsi seafood hot pot naturally turned into a process of fishing out one type of seafood after another to see what would come up next.

Looking at the vegetables, long-cut scallions, green chilies and red chilies were tucked in, along with plenty of leafy greens. As the broth kept boiling, the ingredients piled on top slowly sank down, and the seafood and vegetables blended into the red broth. Cooking continuously right at the table meant the pot looked quite different from start to middle.

Whole squid and octopus in the pot

The whole squid had been scored across the body at even intervals, so it kept its shape even after cooking. The white flesh alternated with the dark-striped skin, making it look quite large, and the tentacles were included as well. Given that whole squid is right there in the dish's name, it definitely took up a noticeable share of the pot.

After lifting out the whole squid, octopus kept coming up from underneath. Legs lined with suckers stretched out long, and crab, roe and milt kept appearing around them, so the seafood went all the way down to the bottom of the pot. It wasn't a case of eating what's visible on top and calling it done — stirring the ladle deeper kept turning up more.

Blue crab with fish roe and milt

Several pieces of crab were mixed in too. Pulling out the reddened claws and body made it easy to tell apart from the other seafood, and inside the pot, crab pieces overlapped with squid and octopus. True to a full set menu, the variety of seafood was easy to notice bite after bite.

Scooping with the ladle brought up hefty portions of roe and milt as well. White, curly milt and roe marked with vein-like patterns landed together in one scoop, giving a closer look at the makeup of the hot pot. Since roe-and-milt jjim is offered as its own main dish here, it made sense that these extras showed up inside the hot pot too.

Big head-on shrimp

Several large shrimp were in there too, heads and shells still intact. Placing one whole shrimp on the ladle nearly filled it up — the size was hard to miss — and the body kept its round curl. Setting a shrimp pulled from the hot pot on top of a bowl of rice made the size stand out even more by comparison.

Finishing the pot with kalguksu noodles

After eating through most of the Cheongna Haemul Teukbyeolsi seafood hot pot, I finished it off by adding kalguksu noodles. The noodles came out on a separate plate — fresh, unevenly cut noodles — and once stirred into the remaining broth, the white noodles started spreading through the red liquid. With most of the seafood already cleared out, there was plenty of room to add the noodles and let them cook.

After boiling a bit longer, the noodles' bright color turned reddish from the broth, and I scooped them into an individual bowl. Being able to go from seafood to a full noodle finish in one pot meant I didn't need to order a separate meal, and the whole meal flowed naturally. Since fried rice or udon noodles were also options, the finish could be adjusted depending on group size or preference.

Who the Cheongna seafood hot pot at Haemul Teukbyeolsi suits

What stood out about the Cheongna Haemul Teukbyeolsi seafood hot pot was that it wasn't just a big pile of whole squid — scallop, crab, shrimp, octopus, and roe and milt all went into the same pot. The basic set comes with corn cheese, flat dumplings and side dishes, plus extra sides and noodle finishes to add on, making it easy for a group to split. Since the restaurant also runs hot-plate monkfish stew and whole-squid seafood stew, it's worth comparing options here when looking for a seafood spot in Cheongna for a family meal or group gathering.