Since I’m staying in Seoul for the next few days, I decided to be adventurous and try some wriggling live octopus (called sannakji). I’ve eaten octopus sashimi in Japan many times and enjoy pairing it with soy sauce and wasabi, but the experience in South Korea is a bit different. Instead of thinly slicing the octopus like in Japan, here they carefully cut the tentacles into smaller bite-sized pieces and give you special spicy sauce to eat it with. Taste-wise I prefer spicy seafood, but texture-wise I prefer my octopus to be thinly cut so it’s easy to chew. Though the tentacles were slippery and difficult to pick up with chopsticks, I managed to almost finish the entire plate!
The octopus is selected from a tank outside and takes about 10 minutes to prepare depending on how busy the restaurant is. This dish is safe to eat when it is served to you, but due to the complex system of neurons in each tentacle, they still wriggle a bit even when they have been severed from the octopus’s body. If you really enjoy seafood (especially in Asia), then this is something you should try!
Pro Soy Crab is a popular restaurant where people in Seoul go to eat crab and octopus, but I chose to eat at a local shop nearby that had a Japanese menu. Sannakji is called “生きているテナガダコ” in Japanese, so you can also try looking that up (I cannot read hangal, so I rely on my Japanese skills here). Earlier this year I ate Dancing Squid in Hakodate, so if you are interested in other seafood adventures, please look at my post here!
Great post 😊
The only knowledge of this kind of dish I have is that famous scene from Oldboy. I like seafood a lot, but don’t know if I’d try this. Sounds interesting.
Haha! If you come to Japan, try octopus sushi first! Then if you like it, you can work your way up to this if you are feeling adventurous 😉