Spicy level 2 agujjim with whole squid at Sin Mokpo, Mokpo

I've been craving agujjim (spicy braised monkfish) for ages, so I visited Sin Mokpo Agujjim, which is quickly becoming a local favorite near Mokpo's Peace Square, and had the chadol-ssam agujjim. Here's the review!

Location and hours of Sin Mokpo Agujjim Main Branch

• 📍 Address: 8-1 Okam-ro, Mokpo-si
• 🕒 Hours: Thu–Sat, Mon–Tue 16:30–22:00 / Sun 11:00–22:00
• 💫 Closed every Wednesday
• 🚗 Parking: available on the main road out front or in the back alley ⭕
• 💫 Reservations available / Takeout available / Delivery available / Groups welcome

Interior and menu lineup

The interior was bigger than I expected, and there's a room-style seating section on one side, making it a great spot for group gatherings.

They have two menus — chadol-ssam agujjim and Sin Mokpo agujjim — and you can choose bone-in or boneless for either!

There's an explanation of agujjim on the wall, which honestly helped a lot with choosing what to order!

If you order the lunch special or take it out, Sin Mokpo Agujjim gives you ₩5,000 off for small, ₩7,000 off for medium, and ₩10,000 off for large.

You can also get a free fried rice if you take part in their receipt review event!👍

Basic side dishes and sauces

Stir-fried eggplant, seasoned bean sprouts, tofu pancake

Napa cabbage kimchi, corn salad, and seaweed salad come as the basic side dishes at Sin Mokpo Agujjim.

Loved that they serve real fresh wasabi!👍

Sauces for enjoying agujjim, posted below the menu board!

They made each recommended sauce for us one by one, and every single one was great for dipping the monkfish in!👍

Dongtae jiri egg soup — perfect with soju

This dongtae jiri (clear pollock and roe soup) comes as a standard side dish! It arrives already boiled, so you could eat it right away, but we boiled it once more — the broth was salty yet clean, absolutely perfect as an anju (drinking snack) with soju!👍

Large chadol-ssam agujjim with two whole squids as a service

With the chadol-ssam agujjim at Sin Mokpo, you grill hanwoo (Korean beef) beef brisket slices one by one and eat them together with the monkfish.

Sin Mokpo Agujjim gives you one whole squid free with any agujjim order. It's supposed to be one squid, but since the squids were on the smaller side, they gave us two — what a nice touch!

We ordered the large chadol-ssam agujjim, and the portion was genuinely huge — perfect to eat together with the squid!👅

Next, the stone plate and hanwoo brisket came out! You place the brisket on the heated plate and grill it — it cooked up fast, which I loved!👍

Once the brisket was cooked, they laid it right on top of the agujjim!

Loved that the monkfish pieces at Sin Mokpo were big and generous in quantity.

How spicy is level 2?

You can choose the spice level for the agujjim, so I picked level 2 — spicier than Shin Ramyun but milder than Yeolla Ramyun — and it turned out spicier than I expected, in a good way!👍

Finishing with fried rice and coffee

After the agujjim, you've gotta finish with fried rice! You can order it starting from one serving, but we got two. The fried rice comes already cooked, with the edges crisped up into nurungji (crispy scorched rice)!👍

There's even a coffee machine on one side, so you can grab a coffee after your meal at Sin Mokpo Agujjim. I visited expecting a lot since it's a rising spot in Mokpo, and it exceeded my expectations. Honestly, I liked it way more than the agujjim places Mokpo is usually known for, so whenever I want agujjim in Mokpo, I'm definitely coming back to Sin Mokpo Agujjim Main Branch!