One Fish, Two Fish, Fin Fish, Shell Fish

By Wendy Chan

 

Food and travel are two of my favorite things in life. I am very grateful that I get to enjoy opportunities to travel and do culinary explorations abroad, integrating my personal passion with my professional endeavors.

My recent trip to Seoul was a remarkable experience and fulfilling on numerous levels. One very memorable part of the itinerary was the tour of the Fish Market in the center of Metropolitan Seoul with direct sight of Trump’s new luxury buildings a freeway’s width away.Fresh (translation: still swimming in tanks) seafood always commands a premium in Asia, because of the insatiable demand for everything still kept alive. This is well illustrated with Seoul’s multiple football field-sized fish market’s ingenuous retail-wholesale persona. Vendors have aquariums that almost rival any top aquariums around the world, as they have a wide assortment of fin fish, crustaceans, shell fish, and even questionable worms-like invertebrates that are considered delicacies to the natives.

With Tsukiji in Tokyo, it is strictly down to transactions, leaving curious visitors and hungry tourists catching just a glimpse of the excitement of huge frozen tuna being auctioned in the traditional way. Eager sushi lovers trying to taste the catch of the day will have to roam the surrounding alleyways for crowded places that offer amazingly fresh samplers in business as early as 7 a.m. But in Seoul, competing restaurants that line the mezzanine floor is truly a seafood lover’s heaven. I was dared to taste squirming octopus tentacles drowning in a hot chili sauce during a sumptuous seafood extravaganza. That was quite my “Anthony Bourdain moment.”

 

I am sure many of you have great Korean food experiences and suggestions, so please share them here!

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