Yangsan sushi restaurant for sweet eggplant sushi: Shirokuma

A sushi restaurant in Yangsan’s Beomeo District I keep returning to

The sweltering summer has passed, and cool autumn is already one step closer. The mornings and evenings are chilly—just the kind of weather to catch a cold in, honestly ㅠㅠ

I visited Shirokuma (시로쿠마), a sushi restaurant in Yangsan’s Beomeo District, with a friend. I’ve tried several sushi places around Beomeo District, but somehow Shirokuma is the only one I keep coming back to.

It is always busy, so I arrived a little before our meeting time today too. There was about a 30-minute wait, and I was so glad I had come early and put my name down!

Location and parking

The address is 11-5 Hwahap 4-gil, Mulgeum-eup, Yangsan-si, Gyeongsangnam-do. When I translated Shirokuma, shiro means white and kuma means bear, which explains the white bear drawn as the restaurant’s signature. You can park near the restaurant, but parking in Beomeo District is difficult, so I recommend using the paid Hwangsan Village Public Parking Lot.

Spacious seating and an indoor waiting area

I like that the restaurant is roomy and the tables are well spaced out. There are also semi-private partitioned tables, but they were all reserved when I visited. The partitioned tables seat four and can be reserved for a party of four, while the tables in the main dining room can be pushed together depending on party size.

One change since my last visit was the addition of an indoor place to wait. An indoor waiting area is such a good thing in hot or cold weather, and everyone looked comfortable while they waited in the space they had generously set aside~!

Shirokuma’s sushi menu and lunch offer

Sushi is, of course, the foundation of Shirokuma’s menu. Prices vary a little depending on the sushi selection and number of pieces!

• Standard Sushi: 8 pieces, ₩12,000
• Special Sushi: 10 pieces, ₩17,000
• Premium Sushi: 12 pieces, ₩22,000
• Omakase Sushi: 14 pieces, ₩28,000

If you visit during lunch, from 11:30 to 14:30, you can have one udon or memil (buckwheat noodles) for free. There is no separate lunch-promotion menu!

Standard Sushi and eggplant sushi

Waiting for our food after sitting down, haha. There were only two of us, but we comfortably sat at a four-person table to order! Pickled radish, soy sauce, rakkyo (pickled shallots), and so on are set aside separately so you can take only what you want. I am absolutely a wasabi-and-soy-sauce person with sushi, while my friend always has rakkyo (so interesting..)

After ordering, they first bring a salad with sesame dressing and warm soup. It is basically a rule that eating an appetizer makes you even hungrier.. I held out and waited until the end, hahaha. I also poured some soy sauce to mix the wasabi into!

We ordered the Standard Sushi. I wanted to order the Special Sushi, but the memil and udon that come with it are more filling than expected. Since my inseparable little baby keyring came along with us too, I thought we should eat quickly and head out, so I ended up choosing the most basic sushi set.

The Standard Sushi has eight kinds: two pieces of aged sashimi, salmon, fatty tuna, egg, eggplant, inari, and cooked shrimp :) Everything was delicious, but of course the signature eggplant sushi...👍🏻 It is sweet and melts gently in your mouth~ I think even people who do not usually eat eggplant could enjoy it.

Free lunch memil and udon

The breeze was cool, but the midday sun was still hot, so we ordered one memil and one udon! They are mini-sized, so the portions are just right and easy to eat lightly. Personally, I liked the udon better than the memil.

A baby chair and a post-meal event

Playing hard with a spinner while we ate🪀🪀 Now that he is six months old and can sit up, he can use a baby chair—what a convenient world this is!! After enjoying our meal while looking at my son’s spin-and-spin spinner, I popped into the restroom and found mouthwash?! It feels like it has been ages since I last saw a restaurant with single-use mouthwash. Such thoughtful attention to detail!

If you are still hungry, you can order individual pieces too, so I recommend reading the menu closely, haha. At the entrance, there is a cute bear holding candies for a little palate cleanser after your meal, haha. So Shirokuma. They also run a receipt event, so we wrote a review and entered it too!

I am not particularly lucky with prize draws, so I gave the chance to my lovely son. And the result was...

Third... third prize....?... hahahahahaha

So we won a ₩10,000 meal voucher...❤️ I guess we have no choice but to go again^^

I visited Shirokuma, a sushi gem in Beomeo District with neat, thoughtful plating and sushi whose natural flavors really come through. Prices have gone up a little compared with before, but the taste has not changed, so I had a delicious meal, haha.