Typical Melvin and Quinine duo, straight after we check into our hotel in Busan we head straight to the nearest fish market, Jagalchi Market. Similar to Noryangjin Market in Seoul, the ground floor has heaps of stalls selling sea cucumber, sea squirts, fish, abalone etc. The main difference at this market is that you don't have to pick up your seafood and take it to the nearest restaurant for them to cook it. You can just head to a restaurant on the second floor and pick what you want from a menu. Melvin and I chose the first place we could see, Jacky's Seafood, which had its very own tanks of live seafood.
We were greeted immediately by Jacky, who speaks English quite well. He kindly told us which seafood was in season and the best way to eat it. Taking on his recommendations, we ordered 1kg of steamed snow crab, sannakji, sea cucumber sashimi and sea urchin. (I need to correct myself before I go any further, in the Noryangjin post, I said we ate sea cucumber sashimi with the sea squirt. We actually ate something called Echiuroid which must be the scientific name for sea doodle).
What we loved about Jacky's is that the little grandmas brought out plenty of banchan for us to pick at whilst waiting for our food. First thing that came out was the sea cucumber sashimi. I've only ever eaten cooked cucumber which is usually pretty tasteless and chewy so having it sashimi style is a new experience for me. l had to take a few deep breaths before popping a slice into my mouth. Sea cucumber is really ugly. lt's bumpy and a gross green colour. When I did get over how disgusting it looked and started chewing on it I wasn't surprised that that taste was pretty bland. What did surprised me was it twitched when I picked it up with my chopsticks. It was also quite crunchy instead of being chewy. The sea cucumber was served with its orange stringy guts...........so we ate that too.
The next main event was our plate of sannakji that was doing some serious boogieing, our last plate of sannakji wasn't as flashy. Don't know whether it was because there was more tentacles or whether because it was served with sesame oil mixed in already but this plate was having its own dance party. A super delicious dance party.
Sea urchin is an enpensive delicacy especially if it was as fresh as the ones we ate. Jacky serves the raw sea urchin with dried seaweed instead of on a bit of rice like at Japanese sushi restaurants. Fresh sea urchin is not for everybody but if you are a sashimi lover like me than you will love this. Super tasty, a little sweet from the urchin and a little salty from the seaweed. Perfect combination.
Our final dish was the steamed snow crab. I love crab.....like really love it, but sometimes it annoys me at how difficult it is to eat. However, at Jacky's, the way that it is prepared makes it so easy to scrape out big deliciously sweet chunks of crab meat. If I had the money, I would permanently move to Busan, live right next to this market and eat crab all day.............and all of the night.
As you might have realised, l really liked Jacky's seafood at Jagalchi market in Busan.
Jacky's sign
Jacky's tanks
Jacky's tank
Banchan
Sea cucumber sashimi
Melvin eating sea cucumber guts
Sannakji
Sea urchin
Snow crab
Jagalchi ground floor
