Korea’s Seafood Street Food!! Super RARE Sea Creatures!!

In this video, oh god, it's so slimy. I'm gonna be eating the most exotic seafood I can find. The shrimp is very rare. It just needs a little bit of... I did not see that coming. In Busan, South Korea, this is called a dog shark. And they don't cook it, they don't steam it. Here, they're gonna make a shark sashimi. They have something I want to show you. Now, this isn't the most odd, unusual thing in the world, but the way they prepare it is really unique. Hold on. For our next restaurant, I need to be a little bit secretive. This is not only an exotic food, but a very controversial food here in Korea. I'm talking about... South Korea is a peninsula surrounded by miles and miles of coastline. From the city of Seoul here to the second biggest city of Busan, you can find all kinds of seafood. A lot of it is normal, but a lot of it is a little bit exotic and strange too. Some of my favorites from the past include the sea pineapple, sannakji, a baby octopus. There's also the fermented skate, a food that smells so strongly of ammonia, it feels like it's gonna peel off the inside of your mouth. Here today in Jagalchi's outdoor market, we are gonna find some of the best, most exotic seafood you can imagine. Coming up right now after this music montage. We have come to our first location. These are ugly looking eel type creatures. The way they prepare it, it might scare you a little bit because they still writhe and wriggle a little bit even though the head is removed. Actually, I'm not sure if they remove the head or not. We're about to find out. Oh, wow. So in the back, you can see the tail is kind of flat like a butter knife and then it... Oh, thank you. Oh, they're really slimy. Look at that bizarre, wormy, noodley face. Oh, God. Looks like it just had a wet dream. Oh, my hands are never gonna get clean. I'm never gonna recover from this financially or emotionally. Um, wow. I wanna end my life right now. So right now, she's gonna show us how she actually takes the skin off the animal. She actually puts a needle through its head, puts that through the cutting board and she makes such quick work of this. Slicing down the body, peeling the meat away from the skin. These little bits that look kind of like rice grains are eggs, I'm told. And that right there is the delicious hagfish meat. These are not alive. And in fact, these right here can keep moving for up to seven hours, I'm told. Wow, this... I mean, I just look at it and my mouth is watering. It looks so good. All right, we have our fish right here. They're gonna be put upon the grill. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is more than I bargained for. This seems difficult to cook. I've never had a situation where the fish was actually still escaping the cooking vessel while being cooked, even though it had long since passed away. I gotta say, it doesn't smell that great. It smells like burned fish. But that doesn't mean it can't taste great. From here, she has the scissors and she's cutting them down to little bite-sized pieces. Wow, this actually looks like a giant cow penis. Right now, she's put on some tinfoil. She said it's actually a bit easier to cook with the tinfoil on there. Perhaps it disperses the heat more evenly. She's cut all of it into the tiny little bite-sized pieces with the scissors and then now she's just roasting it. Flipping them one by one, just like typical Korean barbecue. She said, give me your hand. She put on the sangchu, some lettuce, other kind of lettuce, piece of raw garlic. She just put the fish into sesame oil and then she said put on some ssamjang sauce. All right, so she said wrap it up and freaking eat it and stop talking. That has raw garlic and sesame oil and the ssamjang sauce. So there's a lot of potent flavors being mixed in with the meat. So right here, we have just the fish. This white part sticking out here, she said it's just part of the muscle. What muscle is that? She said at least give it like a swipe with the sesame oil. Look at that steamy hagfish. It looked so ugly a little bit ago. Now, it still looks terrifying. Cheers. Whoa, it's actually pretty decent. It has a really chewy texture. The meat is not really fishy at all. It almost tastes like pork. This is like the tail. Whoa, the tail is a little bit less meaty, a little bit more crunchy, almost like a tendon but really nice. This is a neck. There's this cut that they love in Korea. It's like pig neck and it's just like that where it's like a really dense, fatty, delicious meat. The hagfish has a brutal sounding name. It looks intense. It's very slimy but in the end, tastes pretty good. She's like now leave. For our next restaurant, I need to be a little bit secretive. This is not only an exotic food but a very controversial food here in Korea. I'm talking about whale meat. Whale hunting in South Korea is strictly prohibited. However, there's a loophole when it comes to consuming whale meat. It's allowed if the meat comes from accidental catches or if the species can be verified. Now, I'm told that the animals here, the whale is not endangered but some of the whale that was brought into this country was done so illegally. South Korean fishermen have been taking advantage of this bycatch loophole by legally selling whale meat that they claimed accidentally was caught in their fishing nets. However, research has shown that recent bycatch numbers are far above normal, a situation that has stirred controversy in South Korea. Most of these whale restaurants do not want you to film their restaurant. So, we're still gonna ask permission and if they say we can as just cool tourists hanging out here in Busan, then we'll do that. So, I'm told this is from the mink whale. It's like blubber, it's a fat and then she just kind of slices thin slices. So, I'm told that's the tail meat and this is kind of from the back of the neck. Wow, that's big. I'm told this is a hard piece of meat. It's a free upgrade and this is some soft stomach part of the whale. So, they give us a million different parts here. Here's the situation. I spoke to the woman outside, very nice lady. I don't intend on showing her face or revealing which restaurant is hers because we don't actually have proper permission to shoot inside of here. But that being said, you know, just an American guy and his Vietnamese wife and his Korean guide out for some whale. Nothing unusual about that. To be honest, it doesn't look that good. That is the skin. Then there's a big inch and a half of fat roughly. If you're a whale, you're a big creature in cold water. You need a lot of blubber around you to keep you warm. So, that is what all that fat is. And then there's protein after that. I'm told you can just put it in here. A little bit of salt. Let's try it out. Wow. Put some garlic back. Oh, it's so fatty, greasy, fermented tasting. I'm not sure why people would opt to eat this. It tastes pretty bad. Flavors are stuck to the back of my throat now. She did give us different types of pieces. So, here's another type. They said to put just a little bit of their special secret sauce. That was a bit drier, less fatty, less intense. It's a little bit more like jerky. Not so strong tasting. Here's another different type of cut. I'm gonna hit it with just the salt. Cheers. Everything is better than that really fatty one I had. It's a different experience from what I had in Faroe Islands. This is all just fatty pieces. There's no like steak or protein here. Where in Faroe, they had a balance of like skin, fat, and protein. So, it's a wild experience. I don't know how much longer we can keep pretending we're making a vacation video. I think we need to wrap it up before they get too suspicious. Anyways, that has been whale meat filmed secretly in Busan, South Korea. We have left the whale restaurant and we found something new and interesting. Let me back up a second. This place outside the main market has a really fascinating, cool vibe to it. It's like all these little houses with maybe two or three tables each. They have a bit of seafood. You can choose the seafood that you want and they'll cook it up right there. Here, we stumbled upon another such place. They have something I want to show you. Now, this isn't the most odd, unusual thing in the world. But the way they prepare it is really unique. Hold on. Now, first of all, you gotta work smart, not hard. She takes a basket out of the water and then she uses a knife to peel this off of the basket. Now, that is a succulent, delicious, interesting-looking abalone. You can see the shape of it is actually contoured to the basket. And then that shape is also a pretty unique shape too, for no reason. So, we've all seen abalone before. It's no big deal. But if they cook it the way I'm hoping for, we have a tantalizing visual treat in store for us. So, right here, I've ordered four abalone. They've just plucked them out and they're taking them inside. Wow. Give them a little bit of a bath. Wow, they clean up nice. We're not just here for the abalone. We're also here for this. This is called a dog shark. And they don't cook it. They don't steam it. Actually, here, they're gonna make a shark sashimi. The shark is right here. She's got the net. Look at that. Beautiful creature. Very thin. It doesn't seem like we're gonna get that much meat off there. So, we're gonna have to get two. She only has one good arm right now. Can she do this? All right. Well, when you've got one good arm, that is how you kill a shark. Once the shark is stripped down, it looks like this. And there is not a lot of meat remaining. At this point, it seems they've scraped off pretty much everything. I'm told it's gonna be sashimi, but with the bones. And it seems it would have to be, because that's about all that's remaining at this point. Here we go. She's brought over the abalone. Oh, this is what I'm talking about. They are just wiggling back and forth in their shell as the heat creeps in and penetrates the shell. They're trying to escape their shell. But, you know, they can't because they're connected to it. We just asked how long it's gonna take for them to cook all the way through. And they said, soon. She's saying it's cooked enough of the way through. She's gonna cut it off now. So each one, just like a snail, has a little poop sack. Ah, that's the mouth piece. She's cutting that out too. So from here, she's just gonna cut it down into little bitty bite-sized pieces. Right here, we have all the meat. It's looking fantastic. Some of these pieces are feeling a bit more firm, dense, and finished. The dipping options are red chili sauce, or we have sesame oil with a little bit of salt inside. I'm gonna give it a little bit of a dip in the sesame oil. Cheers. Mmm. Overall, good. I got another piece here. I'm gonna put a little bit less oil on it. Wow. Right now, it's kind of like medium rare. So some parts are a little bit more dense, and some parts are a little bit like an oyster, almost. Really soft. The flavor is really clean. You mix it with a little bit of the sesame oil, it's just salty, it's smoky. It's really good overall. For me, the most fascinating part of eating abalone like this is just seeing the way they're prepared. You're literally watching them, like, trying to crawl out of their shell, and they can't. Too brutal? I'm not sure. I don't think abalone even have brains. Hey Siri, do abalone have brains? Abalone don't have brains, as we typically think of them. Like, I tell you, the people who get offended by seeing the abalones being cooked, they also don't have brains. So that is the abalone right here. We have the full shark filet, and then on both sides, there's two different types of sashimi. There's one with the bone, and one without the bone. So I'm just gonna grab a little piece and try it out. I found the bone tough. Flavor, it's a little bit like mineral-y type flavor. Nothing fishy or anything like that. I'm gonna try to eat this piece that has no bone. Wow, the meat is really tough. It's kind of like eating raw octopus. Let's put it in the red chili sauce. If you add some flavor to it, it's better. The sauce is spicy and savory, and then you have some nice meat to just kind of chew on. But that's about it. This isn't food to get you full by any means. This is food to kind of hang out, chill, drink 18 beers, seven bottles of soju with a group of friends, and you all just like take a little bite. All I'm missing is best friends. There is one food remaining in this video. But first, we need to wait for the sun to go down. We have come to our next exotic seafood location right behind me, a restaurant specializing in shrimp. But not just any kind of shrimp. This place is called Dokdo Godseyu. Most of these shrimp here originate from the island of Dokdo. Dokdo is a very contentious island. Don't talk to any Korean person about it because they think they own it, and the Japanese think they should own it. And if you're in Korea, just be like, that's definitely your guys's. I don't actually know. I have no idea. I'm just gonna assume it is. They have three different types of shrimp I want to show you. First, if you come look down here, this is what's known as the Dokseyu. That literally translates to chicken shrimp. If you look hard enough, it kind of looks like some loose chicken hair is coming off its shrimp head. Up here, we have a couple more varieties that are mixed together. This is the Goseyu, the flower shrimp. It looks like a flower. But lurking amongst the flower shrimp are these gigantic shrimp with that big spiny crest on its helmet. That is known as a Dohwaseyu. If you get them at the right time of year and break them open, they're gonna be full of either green or blue eggs. That's what we're looking for today. Next, we're gonna get the guy who works here, ask him to pluck out all those giant shrimp, cut them open, and see what's inside. Wow, that's a long name. Usually, it's just three syllables. This is our fisherman. Fishing by hand, as you can see. I didn't know they made gloves that tall. Follow him. I don't know what's happening. All right, so he's getting his stepping stool right here. My man has climbed up, and oh my gosh, he's plucked one out already. That is massive, and it's looking bluish, almost green on the inside. Look at those eggs. He's going in here. He doesn't have a ton of them, but they are hiding, and he has to pluck them out one by one. Wow, look at that guy. Very active, doing sit-ups. I love that these shrimp are so active, unlike that king crab I got the other day that looked like it was halfway dead. All right, those are the shrimp right there. We're about to prepare them. Sadly, there is only one single shrimp that has eggs inside. Take a look at that, and you can see the individual eggs. I'm going to be eating that in just a moment. Step number one, he rips it plumb in half. Looking in the head section over here, it doesn't seem that they enjoyed that, but this is kind of the quickest process to end their life. Wow, savage, but delicious looking at the same time. The next step is to peel the shell off of each one, but we're going to keep it raw. So these right here are ready to eat. These here are destined for the fryer. As soon as they crisp up, we're going to eat those too. Bye, guys. Right here, we have our food. I'm told there's a couple more things they're going to bring. Ah, yes, he's brought me a live shrimp that he's placing on top of my beer. Oh, and they brought some crabs too. Well, service in Korea means something that's on the house. It's like they almost want to thank you for coming and for spending money. Well, why would they want to thank me for that? It might be because this plate, I just found out, costs over $200. The shrimp is very rare. It's difficult to obtain, and so that's why it is so expensive. What's unique about the look is that right from the shell, without being cooked, they actually look kind of cooked first. I want some beer, actually. You can hang out here. Just got it. Nice, now we're all comfortable. Here, the body. I'm going to put that right here into the soy sauce. Oh, that's really good. How many shrimp do I have here? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. It's like $20 per shrimp. That's wild. We are not going to let this go to waste. It just needs a little bit of... I did not see that coming. Put that right there. Well, so what was I saying? The soy sauce gives it a little bit of salt, a little bit of savoriness. The texture of the meat is the best part. It is not sinewy. It's got bite to it, but it's tender and soft at the same time. There's a slight metallic flavor because it's raw. Fascinating and delicious, but we still have this to look forward to right here. So this is the only shrimp I told him not to crack open. I just turned it upside down and you can already see the eggs. They are bluish green, kind of aqua colored eggs. It looks awesome. So I'm going to use a spoon and try to get as many of them out as I can. It's almost like a sheet connecting them all. Let's get a little bit of soy sauce on there. Let's try it out. Shrimpy caviar. It's briny and kind of pop in your mouth. It's a really nice flavor. I love it. All right, I have the shrimp right here. I have the eggs. I'm going to put on a little bit of soy sauce. This right here is a shrimp to remember. Let's go for it. There's like a little bit of brininess from the eggs, but overall they taste fantastic. Right here, our final course. No eggs, but lots of heads. We're not going to actually eat the shell. We're supposed to rip it open and then eat what's inside. It's like taking the helmet off after a long day on the motorbike. Take a look at that. That's like the biggest shrimp vein I've ever seen in my life. The rest looks good though. Cheers. Sweet, soft and tender. It's like very fatty, fall apart type of shrimp. I got to say that raw shrimp is the best raw shrimp I've ever had in my life. The eggs were epic. Super expensive, super rare, strange, exotic and delicious. Boom, and look at that. Suddenly, it is daytime again. What an adventure. Today, we went to four different destinations and we saw several different types of exotic seafood here in Seoul, South Korea. Sorry, I've been in Busan. Today was a mixed bag. Some things I thought would be bad and they were pretty decent, like the hagfish. Some things I didn't know, like the whale, and they turned out to be pretty gross. I mean, for me personally. Some people who like that fishy flavor, they will love that. In the end today, I got to say my favorite food was the shrimp. That is the best raw shrimp I've ever had in my life. Maybe I wouldn't buy a $220 worth again because I didn't really know that that's the price I was paying at that moment. I was confused and I feel like I was misled. But anyways, would you try all these foods in today's video? Is there one food that's more interesting than the others? Let me know downstairs in the comments down below. Otherwise, guys, that is it for this one. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time. Peace. All right. I'm going to look for more exotic things like a restaurant with heating without rain dripping into it. That would be nice. Guys, before we go, I want to say a huge thank you to Joe right here. Without Joe, this trip would not have been possible. He has facilitated this whole shoot from beginning to end and all the locations we went to. So you can find more information on Joe here at Wandering Bicycle on YouTube and on Instagram. More information about Busan travel and delicious food that you can find here. Thank you so much, Joe. Peace. All right. It feels good to say it, right? Satisfying. Joe hates my show. Yeah. I hate you. Cool. Elevate your style with our brand new clothing collection. Rock out in our threads. Feel the thrill of culinary adventures and celebrate with us in style. Head on over to beffers.shop today.