Korea: The night we ate a grilled fish head

We were walking around in Hyeopjae Beach, Jeju Island, looking for a place to eat, when we stumbled upon this cozy seafood restaurant. It was a very casual place, but it seemed popular among the locals. Nobody spoke English, but the staff was very friendly, and we managed to place our order by pointing at different items in the menu.

We had a selection of raw fish and seafood, which was served with lettuce and a spicy dipping sauce, so you could make your own lettuce wraps. It was delicious. We also had a seaweed soup and a plate of grilled shellfish, which were also very tasty, but soon we started noticing how people kept ordering something which we assumed was some kind of fish served straight from the grill. We got curious and asked the staff if we could also have whatever the other guests were having, but they politely gestured that we couldn’t. Now we got even more curious about what that secret, for-locals-only, delicacy could be, so we asked once again, and we were once again told that no, we couldn’t order that. But we kept insisting, and finally, they reluctantly took our order.

It took a few minutes before a plate with a grilled fish head landed at our table, and I could see how the staff, almost apologetically, was waiting for our reaction. Obviously, they did not want to serve us the fish head because they did not think we would like it.

We tried not to laugh and silently agreed that it would be embarrassing not to eat the fish head, now that we had insisted so hard on having it, and it wasn’t bad at all. The meat around the cheeks was delicious, and the skin was nice and crispy, so we actually ate up everything except for the eyes.

I’ve been trying to find the restaurant on GoogleMaps, but I couldn’t. Not sure if they went out of business or if they’re just not on GoogleMaps. The restaurant’s name is 협재 활어직판장 (Hyeopjae Hwal-eo Jik-pan-jang) in Korean, and it was located on Hallim-ro, right after Hyeopjae 4-gil.

And here’s a shorter version of the video: