Hanam seafood braise, Sunday room seat with makgeolli: Appa Jjim

Where Appa Jjim Hanam Main Branch is, plus hours and parking

Appa Jjim Main Branch is a seafood-braise and kodari-jjim (braised dried pollock) restaurant at 60 Wolho-ro, 1F, Hanam-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Driving is welcome, and if you're taking public transit, it's a 4-minute walk from Exit 1 of Hanam Pungsan Station on Subway Line 5.

Opening hours are 11:00–21:50, with a break from 3:00–3:30pm. It's open year-round, and there's parking right in front of the restaurant.

I was craving soft, mild seafood dishes — the kind of hearty spread that's easy on the elders too — so after a while I finally revisited 'Appa Jjim Main Branch,' famous as a Hanam seafood braise restaurant. The owner here is actually young, but quite skilled in the restaurant business, having already opened several branches.

Sunday at Appa Jjim: do you need a reservation?

The main branch really is the answer when it comes to restaurants, isn't it. I visited on a Sunday and was shocked at how packed it was — the parking lot was completely full. So here, booking a reservation through Naver ahead of time is absolutely the way to guarantee a seat.

I actually came about a year ago, and since my family home is in Gangdong, my parents know this place well too. It's always packed, so weekdays are better than weekends, and having kodari for lunch is generally filling and comfortable.

What people order at Appa Jjim for lunch and dinner

At Appa Jjim Main Branch, meal-type dishes like kodari are popular at lunch, while for dinner — where drinks come into play — seafood braises, seafood stews, and monkfish jjim (agujjim) are the go-to. In particular, the monkfish here is cooked on hot stones, giving it a chewy, firm protein texture that's excellent.

It's clean, not too salty, and loaded with rich starchy sauce that's great mixed with rice, but also perfectly fine mild and plain on its own — a textbook example of classic Korean cooking. After some deliberation, we quickly ordered the siraegi kodari-jjim medium (₩50,000), pot rice (₩2,500) × 2, and Jipyeong makgeolli (₩5,000).

Siraegi kodari-jjim, medium, 50,000 won: what comes with it

The siraegi kodari-jjim goes straight into cooking the moment you order it. This restaurant's kodari-jjim was practically the entire East Sea tossed together — whole dried pollock, moist siraegi (dried radish greens), radish, rice cake, tofu, and green onion all mixed in. The description alone got me excited, and when the dish actually arrived, its sheer visual impact drew gasps from everyone at the table.

The portion was truly a work of art. I could see why the restaurant keeps drawing crowds nonstop — they're clearly not stingy, but generous. Being such a famous Hanam seafood braise spot, there were a lot of group customers too.

The room-style table at the back and the side dishes

Appa Jjim Main Branch gets a bit noisy with all the group customers, but there's a quieter room-style space further inside that's comfortable to settle into. Having booked a reservation ahead of time, I got to sit in a cozy, tucked-away spot and eat without any pressure.

The basic side dishes came out neatly — cabbage along with various pickled vegetables and greens. The main dish itself was so mild that you honestly barely needed rice.

The agujjim (monkfish) here is popular, but this kodari-jjim, which throws in seemingly everything the sea has to offer, really earns the title of VIP dish. Being such a bustling, well-run place, I could feel the energy and quick hands of the coordinated staff and the kitchen aunties.

Even with this many people, the turnover was fast, and the food came out hot and freshly made, feeling like a proper set meal — I could immediately understand why the older generation loves it so much. Picking through the dish bit by bit, I was full before I knew it.

How many people does the medium kodari-jjim feed?

The kodari-jjim at Appa Jjim Main Branch comes in such generous portions that the medium size seemed like it would easily be enough for 3–4 people, with leftovers. On top of that, there were meal-type dishes for lunch, plus poached cuttlefish and pollock roe stew — full spreads covering pretty much everything you'd hope for from East Sea seafood, so pick according to your taste.

Exploring a new menu item like a mission every time you visit is also a good approach. The hotter the weather gets, the more it makes sense to fill up on protein-rich, natural ingredients like this. Leaving Appa Jjim Main Branch, I was reminded once again why it's such a hot spot.