Dongtan izakaya with an aged sashimi platter: Susanjang Dongtan Branch

Lately I've been having so much fun hunting down newly opened restaurants. This time I visited a seafood-focused izakaya that had only been open for about two weeks.

I'd heard the aged sashimi was good, so I went to check it out — and the short version is, every dish felt carefully made, and the menu was varied enough that I left pretty satisfied.

Susanjang Dongtan Branch on a Sunday evening, two weeks after opening

Susanjang Dongtan Branch is a seafood-focused izakaya on Dongtanjiseong-ro. The day I visited, it had only been open for about two weeks. Even so, on a Sunday evening, the place was packed with customers.

A spot this new already this busy — I figured places that do well must have a reason for it.

I ordered the Susanjang Mixed Seafood Platter Special, a Chill Green highball, and butter-grilled rice cake.

The basic table setting

Chill Green highball, 8,500 won: a crisp match for sashimi

Susanjang Dongtan Branch's Chill Green highball is ₩8,500. It's made with Chill Green, a citrus-style barley soju, and from the first sip I liked the clean, fresh aroma.

It wasn't a heavy or overly sweet highball — more of a refreshing style, which paired especially well with the sashimi. Good to sip alongside the aged sashimi.

The complimentary side at Susanjang: grilled flatfish

First came a small grilled flounder as the basic side dish. At sashimi restaurants, a grilled fish side dish is usually pretty simple, but this one at Susanjang Dongtan Branch was well-made enough to pass as a standalone menu item.

It was seasoned nicely salty, and there was more flesh on it than expected, so it was fun picking it apart. Best of all, the flesh was soft and moist — really tasty eaten warm. Even the basic side dish felt like it had real care put into it, which made a good first impression.

Butter-grilled rice cake, 9,000 won: gijeong-tteok with sugar and butter

The butter-grilled rice cake is ₩9,000. It's gijeong-tteok (fermented rice cake) sprinkled with sugar and pan-fried crisp in melted butter — I thought it looked unusual on the menu, so I ordered it as an appetizer.

It was way tastier than I expected. The outside was crisp while the inside stayed moist and chewy, which made for a fun texture. The nutty aroma of the butter combined with the sweet, almost caramelized flavor from the toasted sugar gave it a taste clearly different from regular rice cake.

Pairing it with apple chutney was especially fun. The sweet, nutty rice cake plus the tangy apple chutney was a combination I hadn't expected, but it worked surprisingly well together.

What comes on the 64,000 won Susanjang Mixed Seafood Platter Special

The Susanjang Mixed Seafood Platter Special is ₩64,000. This was the main dish I was most looking forward to that day — everything comes together on one platter, so it's especially good if you want to try a little bit of many things.

The aged sashimi included red seabream, flounder, and sea bass, along with scallop sashimi, abalone, sea squirt, sea cucumber, and rock sea squirt. Being able to try several kinds at once, rather than just one type of sashimi, made it that much more satisfying.

• Aged sashimi: red seabream, flounder, sea bass
• Seafood: scallop sashimi, abalone, sea squirt, sea cucumber, rock sea squirt, scallop sashimi

The aged red seabream, flounder, and sea bass each had slightly different textures and flavors, so it was fun comparing them one by one.

Adding scallop and abalone into the mix meant the textures and flavors kept changing throughout the platter. The sea cucumber had a nice chewy bite. The scallop sashimi was soft and clean-tasting, and with abalone added too, it felt much more indulgent than eating sashimi alone.

The scallop sashimi was also fresh, and a touch of sesame oil added a nutty note that boosted the overall flavor.

The rock sea squirt kept its distinctive ocean aroma alive and was soft enough to melt away in the mouth.

The sashimi at Susanjang Dongtan Branch had great texture because it was properly cleaned and aged — both freshness and flavor were really impressive.

With aged sashimi and seafood together on one platter, it works well as a drinking snack, and also lets a group pick and choose based on individual taste.

This is genuinely one of the best-quality sashimi platters I've had recently. Having tried it myself, I get why the place is so busy.

Who is Susanjang Dongtan Branch best for?

Susanjang Dongtan Branch put real care into even the basic side dish, has unusual menu items like the butter-grilled rice cake, and offers a varied lineup of aged sashimi and seafood for its main platter — overall, it felt like a place that puts a lot of thought into its food.

Rather than a pure sashimi restaurant, it has more of an izakaya vibe where you can enjoy good snacks and drinks together, so it's a good spot for dinner plus a few drinks in the evening.

I'd recommend it both to people who love aged sashimi and to anyone who wants to enjoy a variety of seafood alongside their sashimi.

Something tells me this place is going to get even more popular. Next time I want to try some of the other side dish menus one by one.