The Cat’s Fish Store (Now Hi Neco Hi Neco)

An absolute diamond in the rough, the Cat’s Fish Store (now Hi Neco Hi Neco), on the very end of the university walking street is a delicious seafood restaurant.  The restaurant has a comfortable neighbourhood feel, with plastic chairs and a comfortable atmosphere where friendships can be formed with staff or other patrons, on a regular basis. The staff are young and vibrant, running their own successful visit, and knowing that customer satifaction is the only thing that counts.

The most popular dish is “chulpan Haemul Jim” , which would translate as Steamed mixed seafood. The ingredients are prepared before you, and cooked on a hotplate, and the combination of crab, shrimp, little octopus and muscles leads to quite possibly the most amazing soup in the world. It also has brilliant noodles that help fill you up. A dish that feeds 2-3 people costs 16000 won, and is worth every last 10 won coin.

The best way to eat this ‘jjim’ is to bring a baguette with you. The bread soaks up the mouth watering soup (literally, my mouth is actually watering thinking about last night’s dinner). The only problem this could create is that you and your friends might fight over who gets the last piece of bread to soak up the soup.

The restaurant is styled in a ‘PoCha’ or “Pojangmacha”, which means ‘Soju Tent’ us English speakers. Though the stools and chairs aren’t great, you’ll spend hours here with a group of friends gorging your selves on the incredible food, and drinking “Daenamu Soju”, which is Bamboo Soju.

Unlike your regular Jinro or White soju, this stuff actually tastes good. Be warned though, consuming more than 5 bottles WILL hamper your judgement.

I will forever be indebted to my friend who introduced me to this restaurant. Long had I walked past it, thinking that it seemed remarkable popular, and then shuffling off to another, less tasty site.

If a friend were to visit Korea for a weekend, this would be the restaurant I would take them to to introduce all the best things about Korea, the friendliness of the people, the tastiness of the food (which doesn’t always need to be spicy) and the cheap and yummy alcohol.  A feast for two with a bottle of daenamu soju will only run you 20 ooo won, which is unbeatable. I’d happily pay twice that for the meal, just don’t tell the owners!