Seongnam sashimi restaurant with spicy fish stew: Haeseon

As the heat lets up and we start edging toward autumn, there’s one food I especially start craving: sashimi.

Haeseon near Sunae Station: Location and Hours

Haeseon

• Closed Sundays
• Hours: 16:00–23:00 (Mon–Fri)
• 16:00–22:00 (Saturday)
• Parking, phone reservations, group bookings, takeout, and a single-menu format available

There are lots of offices around Sunae Station, so parking gets tricky after work. Haeseon has a large underground parking lot in the building and is close to the station, making it nicely located for gatherings or family meals.

The Ground-Floor Entrance and Today’s Course

The entrance is on the visible ground-floor stretch of restaurants, so it isn’t difficult to find if you follow the map.

They run a single assorted sashimi course, though the lineup seems to change a little each day. Check the day’s selection on the sign outside before you go.

I visited on a weekday evening, and both the building parking lot and the seating were fairly spacious, so it was easy to come by car.

Aged Sashimi Course Price and Split-Level Seating

You can only order the ₩40,000-per-person set course, so just tell them how many people are dining and they’ll get the food started right away. Since it’s such a good spread for drinking, they also had a varied selection of alcohol.

The interior was interesting: it has a split-level layout, with more seating upstairs.

It was Monday evening, so there were fewer guests than on other days, and the two of us comfortably took a four-person table downstairs.

The course is written on the tablecloth once more, which is handy if you’re curious about what will come next as you eat.

A Two-Person Course Starting with Warm Porridge and Sea Squirt

Aged sashimi course for two — ₩40,000 x 2

To start, we got warm beef-and-vegetable juk (rice porridge), jang-guk (soy-based soup), and sea squirt with a lovely aroma and texture.

It was nice to warm up the stomach with something hot before getting into the cold dishes.

The jang-guk was rich rather than bland, and great for taking spoonfuls of between bites.

The staff kept heading to the fish tanks outside, and it seemed like they were catching these fresh seafood ingredients to order.

Maybe because it was caught right away, the sea squirt had a wonderful aroma and a pleasantly springy texture.

How Much Sea Bream, Rockfish, and Flounder Comes with the Course?

The sashimi came in three varieties—sea bream, rockfish, and flounder. Since it was mostly white fish, I loved the chewy texture.

There were five pieces of each cut, so ordering for two gave us a full 30 pieces. It wasn’t a small amount at all; we got pretty full just from the sashimi. With some sashimi courses, you have to fill up on the banchan-style side dishes, but Haeseon near Sunae Station is a place where you can genuinely fill up on fish.

The aged rockfish was especially firm and chewy. It had no fishiness at all and was clean-tasting—great to share with friends trying to eat lots of protein, too.

Flounder, the classic white fish. Its price has gone up so much lately that I hadn’t eaten it often, but I ate to my heart’s content that day.

It was sliced thickly, so you really get that signature chewy texture of aged sashimi.

The sea bream was my favorite. It was the softest of the three fish, so it went down so easily.

Warm Balance from Corn Cheese and Grilled Sea Bream Head

Eating only sashimi can get a little monotonous, but the various sides arrived in between, so it was easy to keep eating without getting tired of it.

They also serve skillet corn, that familiar favorite side dish at sashimi restaurants. This seems delicious no matter when you eat it.

The sea bream head was served hot and nicely grilled with plenty of richness. It must have been a big fish in life, because even half a head was packed with meat.

It was fatty, tender, and nutty, so I diligently picked it clean. It had been a while since I’d gone out to eat alone with my dad, and this was a place perfectly suited to parents’ tastes, too.

Beef Tartare with Live Octopus and Crispy Assorted Fried Dishes

After raw fish came raw meat: yukhoe sannakji tangtangi, beef tartare with chopped live octopus. It had been a while! They caught the live octopus straight from the tank and served it, so the freshness was on another level.

Sweet beef tartare with nutty live octopus—this is the kind of drinking snack that soju lovers simply won’t be able to resist.

Next came crispy assorted fried dishes. The french fries and fried shrimp combination is perfect with beer, though by this point my dad and I were already very full.

Even when full, we don’t skip food. Because you just can’t resist freshly fried, crispy shrimp.

Finishing Every Last Bite with Rockfish-Head Spicy Fish Stew

Last came maeuntang (spicy fish stew) with a whole rockfish head in it. I thought I’d be too full to eat the stew, but wow, they do maeuntang so well here. It was refreshingly spicy and exactly the sort of thing you want to clear your palate.

In the end, we cleared even the maeuntang without leaving a drop. My parents were so satisfied and enjoyed it immensely; I guess they really liked that finishing broth. They said they were too full to eat another bite, then had one spoonful and kept refilling their small plates with broth.