Busan seafood restaurant with great maeuntang: Sintongyeong Gul Gukbap

Sintongyeong Gul Gukbap (신통영굴국밥) 11:30–24:00 Closed every Sunday Naver Reservation Group visits welcome No parking lot / alley parking available

Why we switched from oyster rice soup to sashimi

As the weather turned cool, I wanted a hot bowl of soup, so I found this place thinking I’d have oyster rice soup. Plot twist... everyone here orders sashimi. Sintongyeong Gul Gukbap.

Even from outside, you can see the tanks full of fish. I was definitely craving oyster rice soup, but even after looking up blog posts, this seemed like a place where people ate more sashimi haha. Oyster rice soup and sashimi? Let’s go in first.

Sashimi and oyster dishes on the menu

The sashimi menu has striped beakfish, wild assorted sashimi, assorted sashimi, gizzard shad sashimi, and raw shrimp sashimi. There is a good variety of sashimi, plus grilled gizzard shad and grilled shrimp. Since gizzard shad is in season, they even have seasoned gizzard shad salad?

I finally found the oyster rice soup...!! Hahahaha, it’s under the meal section. There’s oyster rice soup, seaweed-and-oyster rice soup, seaweed rice-cake soup, and oyster rice-cake soup. For drinking dishes, there are raw oysters, oyster pancakes, seasoned oysters, steamed rock oysters, and so on—so many tasty oyster dishes! It felt like most people were ordering king crab, sashimi, or grilled dishes.

There are about 10 tables, and for a Thursday evening, it was quite bustling with customers. Then we joined in too!!

A solid spread of banchan first

I’ll show you Anka and Bbu’s pick in a moment! First, the banchan (Korean side dishes) are the same for everyone. There are lots of them, so that already gets a pass. Seasoned bellflower root, seaweed stems, corn salad, sweet potato, sea squirt, and more. The real kicker was beondegi (silkworm pupae)!!!!! It had been ages since I’d had them—probably not since childhood~

We were hungry, so before the main dish even arrived, we diligently filled up a little on the side dishes. The sea squirt was less fishy than expected and tasty, and the beondegi were good too. My husband said, “I’m not eating that~,” but no such thing. Say ah! (And he said he enjoyed them.)

What came with our medium assorted sashimi order

Anka and Bbu’s pick was..!!

Medium assorted sashimi ₩40,000 (maeuntang included) Beer ₩5,000 Steamed rice (2 bowls) ₩2,000 Total ₩47,000

Thick-cut assorted sashimi and wraps

The medium assorted sashimi came with flounder, mullet, and olive flounder. Personally, I prefer sashimi sliced a little thicker rather than paper-thin, and here they cut it to just the right thickness. It was fresh with a great texture!! While we ate, we saw the owner catch fish directly from the tank and take them into the kitchen several times, so it seems they sometimes slice fish right after catching it!

The two sashimi-loving humans ate it plain, and also wrapped it with white kimchi, spicy green peppers, and garlic. What more is there to say ㅠ It was deliciously chewy.

I loved that the ssamjang dipping paste already had minced garlic and spicy green peppers in it, so there was no need to add more! Anka did add more because she wanted extra heat, though?

Slosh slosh, gave it a little shake?!

When you’re eating raw fish, a beer or soju is essential, right? A quick cheers with beer for my husband and me .ᐟ

The maeuntang I remember more than the sashimi

Wrapped in fresh vegetables, it tasted two, three, four times better. The medium size is just enough to fill up two adults. We saved a little room because we had to finish with a bowl of rice and maeuntang (spicy fish stew).

This is it... this... maeuntang... ♡♡ No exaggeration: this was the best maeuntang I’ve eaten in the past few years. “Owner, you need to open a maeuntang restaurant!!!”

The broth was spicy, peppery, and full of umami, with tender, soft fish meat too... I want to come back here just for this. There aren’t that many sashimi restaurants with truly great maeuntang, but this place is the real deal—so rich ㅠ It comes with the sashimi, so just order bowls of rice with it.

Final thoughts on this Suyeong seafood restaurant

We finished by looking at the fish tanks .ᐟ.ᐟ The story of going for oyster rice soup and coming back after eating sashimi... Of course, there were rice-soup meals available, but the sashimi looked so good that we made a sudden menu change—and it was a success ㅜ

It seemed to draw customers from their 30s through their 60s and 70s. Four gentlemen who looked over 60 sat at the next table and ordered gizzard shad sashimi and grilled gizzard shad; it was memorable to see them enjoying it so much. Now that gizzard shad season is here, I’m thinking of coming back once more for it. And one more thing!! This place’s maeuntang is simply the kind of flavor that deserves its own restaurant, so I strongly, strongly recommend ordering it.