Wolsan-dong seafood restaurant in Gwangju: blue crab stew with ramyeon

The weather's gotten noticeably cooler lately, and colder weather = seafood's in season.. so I went to Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha in Wolsan-dong with friends to demolish some autumn seafood! 😆

Where is Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha? Hours and parking in Wolsan-dong

• 📁Location: 104 Gunbun-ro, Nam-gu, Gwangju, South Korea
• 📁Hours: Daily 12:00-23:00
• 🚘Parking: No dedicated lot, roadside parking possible

Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha exterior: eight live seafood tanks out front

Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha exterior in Wolsan-dong

It seems like the main menu shifts a bit by season. Since autumn is jeoneo (gizzard shad) season, you can tell right from the exterior haha

Eight whole fish tanks..? That's got to be some kind of record. The tanks weren't totally full the day I went, but a friend told me a few days earlier one tank was completely packed with crab. (That turnover rate..) Basically it means you're eating seriously fresh seafood.

Inside Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha and how kiosk ordering works

Inside Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha

It was an early weekday evening but there were tons of customers. The interior is fairly spacious so you can eat comfortably haha

You order through a kiosk, and the menu is so huge I had a hard time deciding..

• 🦐Salt-grilled king shrimp
• 🦀Crab stew
• 🐟Sashimi platter for two
• 🍻Drinks, ramyeon noodles, etc.

This is what we ordered!

Unlimited pancakes you grill yourself at the self-serve bar

We put our main order in and headed straight for the appetizers before the mains arrived. I loved that there's a self-serve bar where you can grill your own pancakes (since I'm honestly a well-known pancake fiend..). At the self-serve bar you can grab unlimited pancake batter and seaweed. I was planning to eat a ton of pancakes but the mains hit so hard that.. I only managed one,,

Real talk: pancakes really are best when you pour in what feels like way too much oil and basically deep-fry them like this

Usually self-serve pancake batter is mostly flour with barely any vegetables, but this one had a generous amount of chives too, which I loved

Can you tell from the photo.. how crispy that is.. I grilled it myself but it was seriously insane(ly good)..

Cold beer after work + crispy pancake. The first bite was pure bliss.. ahh this is exactly what I worked hard for today

The rest of our group arrived a bit late, so my friend and I ended up polishing off two bottles of beer with just one pancake haha

Free side dishes: seaweed soup and mulhoe (cold raw fish soup)

The basic side dishes arrived while we were grilling pancakes! Honestly at a sashimi restaurant the main dish matters, but the side dishes... can't be underestimated either, you know? Even just the makjang (seasoned soybean paste) looked delicious..

And that wasn't even everything.. the table also came loaded with generous portions of seaweed soup, mulhoe (cold raw fish soup), and even mackerel pike (?I think). At this point.. you basically have no choice but to start on the soju before you've even touched the shrimp.. That sweet-and-tangy vinegar salad and the seaweed soup are basically endless drinking snacks, right? (Say yes)

Salt-grilled king shrimp and butter-grilled shrimp heads

Ahh the grilled shrimp I'd been waiting and waiting for! They even threw in two eggs, nice touch. Now it's just a matter of patiently waiting for the shrimp to cook..

.. take all the time you need, shrimp

The shrimp were gradually turning red so I flipped them all over once. Ooh this is going to be so good ㅠㅡㅠ Can you see the size of these shrimp in the middle of all that? There was a tank full of shrimp right outside, and it looks like they just scoop them straight out for you. Can't even imagine how fresh that is

Zero photo editing and the shrimp still have that glossy shine, the color is unreal.. they fill the pan to overflowing (this is why I only got through one pancake,,)

Since we were drinking, peeling them one by one felt like a hassle so I shelled them all at once. Plump and sweet.. what more can I say about in-season shrimp.. incredible

Everyone was busy talking and busy eating shrimp ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ we inhaled it without a second thought

And how do you finish off grilled shrimp..? With fried heads.. If you gather the heads and hand them to staff, they'll fry them up crispy in butter and bring them back.

Break off the antenna and pick out the meat like that, haah, buttery salty savory shrimp meat gone in one bite

Blue crab stew with three crabs and two extra ramyeon portions

The crab stew we ordered alongside the grilled shrimp! The visual is insane... honestly I wanted to mix a bowl of rice right into this stew. If you feel like the crab stew portion is too much, you could also order the spicier maeuntang (spicy fish stew) instead (with so many menu options, you've got more choices, which is even better?). Seafood + red broth combo needs no further explanation

Right when the shrimp starts to get a little repetitive, cleansing your palate with a crab-packed stew hits the reset button.. There were three crabs in it, packed with meat, so I sucked the meat clean right down to the body haha

Of course.. adding carbs is basically the unwritten rule.. so we added two orders of ramyeon noodles haha. Boiled up in that broth, the noodles soak up all the crab umami plus the fiery broth flavor, delicious even totally soft.. want to eat it again..

Sashimi platter for two, picked instead of jeoneo (gizzard shad)

My friends that day couldn't really handle jeoneo, so we ordered the sashimi platter instead, which comes sliced like makhoe (roughly-cut raw fish). The fish is sliced thin, so wrapping a bunch in seaweed and eating it as a wrap let me get a full mouthful of fish in one bite, so good..

Hwanggeum Hoe Pocha is a Wolsan-dong favorite where you can enjoy seasonal seafood all year round. This is just the beginning of the season, so make sure to visit and enjoy some in-season sashimi -! It was such a satisfying meal.