“Sushi God” of Seoul & HIDDEN GEM Korean BBQ inside Street Market

Hey guys, Mike Chen. Just got to Singapore. My first meal here in Singapore, one o'clock in the morning at this cafe called Hainan Story. Anyway, can't wait to get my Singapore food adventure started. But before that, before this video, I just want to give a big thank you and shout out to the sponsor of this video, Surfshark VPN. Guys, I've been talking about Surfshark VPN for several years now, I think. I told you guys, it's still a tool I use every single day. Especially now that I'm traveling more, everybody is traveling more. A lot of random Wi-Fi hotspots that everyone is connected to. And these are usually not secure and great ways for people to gain access to your personal information. I'm sure we've all experienced this. 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If you don't like it for whatever reason, get your money back. Alright, food's almost here. I'm gonna get back to filming this video and enjoy this video. Hey guys, Mike Chen here in Seoul, South Korea. Today, I am at the Yeongdong Traditional Market. This is a market that not a lot of tourists go to. It's a gem of a little market smack in the middle of Gangnam. And here you can buy clothes, you can buy rice cakes, snacks, produce, meat. Meat is why I'm here. Let's check this place out. There are quite a few butcher shops around this area. A lot of them, you can go in there, there's a restaurant attached to it, they cut the meat fresh for you right then and there, and on the barbecue it goes. In this place, and you see all these ribbons in front of this restaurant, that's like kind of the equivalent of the Korean Michelin. I'm thinking this is gonna be a good place. On the table, some sprouts, greens, onions, raw garlic, of course, with minced bean sauce, and the meat plate is here. This is an assortment of meat. They just told me that this meat goes first, and then this meat, and then everything else. So it looks like it goes from really lean to really, really, really fatty. And everything's gonna be grilled on a hot stone. Okay, so no wonder she's saying this goes first. This is a thick cut, a meaner cut of meat. I'm gonna toss some garlic on here as well. It's the kind of breakfast I like. It's ready. A little bit of salt, some onions. This is delicious beyond words. First of all, just the first time I'm eating beef barbecue since getting to Korea, in this place, what a gem of a place. It's inside this awesome little traditional market. The beef is from the local butcher right here. And you definitely taste the difference. Each piece so splendidly tender and juicy, and this is not even the fattier pieces. And the beef flavor in every single bite is just explosive. A little salt, really all you need if you want to change the profile up a little bit. Take some sprouts, or onions, or greens. Also, the banchan is so good. I don't know what this green is, but that's just amazing with the beef. Mmm. Now the fattier parts. So the first pieces we have are the sirloin pieces. These other ones, they look like a little ribeye and also some rib meat, which I think is the more marble pieces. Wow, wow, wow. Okay, this stuff is cooking so quickly, and you really don't want to overcook this. And that's perfect. That's ready to go. Again, a little salt. The really marble pieces, there's so much fat content. Everything just dissolves as soon as it goes into your mouth. The slightly more lean pieces got a bigger beef flavor. And the texture is just so nice. These pieces here, the thin pieces of beef, this is the OMG factor right here. Barely need to chew. Oh, wow. It's almost like you can slurp that beef up with a straw. That's how juicy and marbled it is. This is such an amazing beef barbecue experience. Oh, these thin pieces, I just found out, this is beef belly. That's why it's so fatty and disappears so quickly when it hits your tongue. You're gonna 100% taste the quality of this. Also, a huge shout out to the owner. I'm like literally trying to sign language my way into understanding the meat more and so patient, so nice. Yeah, this is it right here. This is the gem. Ordered a plate of brisket. That's my favorite cut of meat when you're eating Korean barbecue. Can't leave here without eating brisket. I just found out this is called nang-i-namul. It's some kind of Korean pickle. This is delicious. Banchan in this place is amazing. The meat is spectacular. This is a hidden gem of a place. Well, I don't know if it's a hidden gem to locals here, but this is a great place to go for barbecue. The name literally translates to mountain garlic because it grows in the mountain and tastes like garlic. It's so good. Round two has arrived. They cut the chadol right outside. I'm seeing the guy slice it. That's how fresh everything is and look at how beautiful this is. Look at all the fat that's in here. It's like a fat sandwich. Fat on either side, lean meat in the middle, paper thin. This stuff is gonna cook in no time. Look at it. Best is if you get a little char on this. That's why I like it when this is fatty. That is so good. That is mind-blowingly good. I'm very picky when it comes to brisket. I like it fatty. The ratio has to be right. This thing, the ratio is perfect. The beef flavor is extraordinary. This is one of the best beef briskets I've had anywhere. I mean, I'm still feeling the coating of that nice beef fat on my tongue. Absolutely perfection. I just sit here and just eat plates upon plates of this. It's my favorite thing. Definitely. I'll be coming back to this place. We're just rocking around the market. Smell something familiar and I found this. There's a lady and a vendor just frying up Kaochi or Chinese is Da Ye. Elephant fish. I especially love this in South Korea because they cook this a lot. Really simple. Fried in light batter with some salt just the way my grandma used to make this. I've been eating this since I was three years old. One of my favorite fish in existence is it pretty much eats like a steak. Not a lot of bones. Big spine in the middle. That's it. Pull those out and just feast. Oh, so good. So simple. So good. Let's see what else we can find. This place sells cream cheese balls. This is so addictive. Soft cheese ball that is so airy on the outside. It's just like so fluffy and crunchy and delicate. Crunch is amazing on this thing. Also, I got a spicy hot dog. Add a little ketchup, a little mustard. Mmm, this whole place is awesome. So crunchy because I think it's rice batter on the outside. So it's just delicate and light. But again, that crunch is subtle but powerful. Sausage inside. I see the jalapeno. Besides being so crunchy because of this rice batter, it's also got that mochi-esque texture. So it's kind of chewy as well. This place is great, great, great. I don't go to sushi restaurants a lot, but had to come here. They don't open yet, probably another 30 minutes, about 5 o'clock right now. This place is so popular right now. There's usually always a line and the chef is known as the sushi god. I'm not the best authority on sushi, but I'm gonna try and tell you guys how it is. Got the 12-piece chef's special. This is the most common one people get here. And of course the maki roll is made with soba noodles instead of rice. Let's get started. In the chef's special, there is uni, king crab, scallops, eel, sweet shrimp, salmon, there's tuna, mackerel, there's yellowtail. Of course, two different kinds of shrimp. Start with something sweet and creamy. The uni. This is Australian uni. Briny with a hint of sweetness. Much richer, I feel like, as well. Left starting out with uni. Something a little sweet, a little creamy. Helps get the appetite going. King crab. This piece is falling apart. Mmm. I should've saved that for last, cuz that's just such a ridiculously sweet piece of sushi. That's just like the candy of the sea. The scallop is slightly toasted and dusted with togarashi. That's the best place by far. Wow. I think it's both sweet, charred, smoky, spicy, and just oh so scrumptious. I don't think I ever had scallops that ever went into my mouth and just kind of threw a party and invited so many different spices and flavors. Unagi. Well, that is really different. Typically, eel is really, really soft. But this particular one is called anago, and it's a saltwater eel that Korean people love. And I don't know whether it's supposed to be really dry, but the texture is very dry compared to the other eel. Not very soft, almost like borderline jerky-esque. But because of that, you do get a better chew. There's more smokiness to it. There's more flavor. I like it. So you get two different types of shrimp. Well, I think it's sweet and creamy. The texture is very buttery. I'd say borderline slimy a little bit even. But the sweetness is very, very pronounced. And this is the spot prawn. That was more of a dessert than a king crab. The texture is kind of similar to the last prawn I had. I think the texture is even more velvety and the flavor is definitely more sweet. Wow. That was amazing. This is my favorite. Head of a prawn, deep-fried with all that innards still stuck in its noggin. And the little prawn whiskers just turn into perfectly crispy shrimp chips. I don't care what I'm eating. As soon as a deep-fried shrimp head with all the innards and brain and everything is included, that thing just always takes my breath away for a while. So crispy with this natural miso that provides just the best taste of umami. Tuna. And also, I noticed the fish to rice ratio is really good. Look at this. The fish is just trailing off the rice and the rice itself completely melts in your mouth. I really should have started this plate from the other end. Kind of ended with the uni. Next piece is a very, very popular fish here in South Korea, the seabream. The seabream kind of has that medium chew to it. Not too tender, not too tough. It's mildly sweet. Again, so much fish to rice ratio just leaves your mouth with that incredibly fresh, mildly sweet flavor. This, I have no idea what this is. I think they called it a jimage. Oh. It's actually almost like a squid. It's just extremely buttery though. Especially as you chew, butter flavor just starts showing itself more and more. That's a really nice piece. Next piece, the herring. Mmm. That's tender. There's a little bit of ginger on there to kind of offset the fishiness. That's definitely one of the fattier pieces of fish I put in my mouth today. I mean, that thing definitely disintegrates when you bite into it. I don't think it's my favorite piece, but the texture is very nice. This is a flatfish. Hmm. I think it's like crunchy. It's almost like chewing on a piece of cartilage. I think the crunchiness is because it's the tail fin muscle. It definitely feels like I was crunching on a tendon slash cartilage. A little hard to chew, but very clean flavor. This is like very unique pieces of sushi that, I mean, I don't eat sushi a lot, but the ones I've had, the ones where they served at omakase, tend to be kind of similar pieces of fish. There's definitely some curve balls on this plate. And this is the blood clam. Whoa. Really crunchy, really snappy, but also very tender. Now, let's see about these soba maki rolls. So in this thing is tuna, shrimp, there's radish, there's carrots. I think there's maybe a little tempura in here. And then, of course, soba noodles. This is a ginormous piece of roll. Wow, I don't even know how to fit this in my mouth. I think I need a support plate. Well, there's a lot more stuff in here than I realized. Besides the tuna, there also seems to be, I think this is yellowtail maybe? Like I said, radish, there's tamago, there's avocados, carrots, of course, the soba noodles. So many different textures. You got the melty tuna, of course, contrast that with the pickled vegetables, especially that carrot. The greens is really refreshing. I mean, this is definitely something you want to enjoy in one bite if you could. It's also a little citrusy. Oh yeah, there's fruit in here. I can't really tell what kind of fruit. And with the soba instead of rice, because the soba is so al dente, it gives it another layer of texture. And also you get that sweetness from the buckwheat noodle inside the maki roll as well. I've never seen this anywhere. This is a really innovative way to create a maki roll. This is definitely delicious. That's 12-piece chef's choice spider. That was like a unique, refreshing seafood experience. I would highly, highly recommend getting that. This is delicious as well. It's so big. Time to get to work. That was a really good place. Also so much value. So the 12 pieces was about 50,000 won. So about $40 for 12 piece. That's like getting a 12-piece omakase meal for about $40. And that's including gratuity and tax. That's an amazing deal. Plus every single piece was exquisitely made. The seafood itself, the preparation is very unique. The taste is amazing. If I wasn't filming, that plate would be gone in less than a minute. They all went down so easily. The flavor, the texture is fantastic. I think the sushi god of Korea is worth a visit. Now for some dessert. Raspberry, blueberry, blackberry bingsu, red bean and mochi on the side. Also the first bingsu I've had since coming here. Red bean, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and all the berries frozen too on a hot night like this. Today, one of the best beef barbecues I had anywhere in my life. Definitely the best thinly sliced brisket I've ever had in my life. Some awesome sushi. Finish it off, bowl of delicious snow. Oh, also that spicy hot dog today was amazing too. Anyway, this whole area, especially that market, tons of amazing food. If you ever get a chance, definitely give it a try. As always, all the places I went to listed down below for you guys. Thank you all so much for watching. Until we meet again, see you later.