The best place for King Crab and the most popular Tteokpokki in Busan (ever!) at Gijang Market (기장시장).
>>ภาษาไทย
Korean Traditional Markets (Si-jang) are similar in Korea. But Gijang Market is one of the best traditional markets that we visited more than 5 times during our 1.5 years living in Haeundae, Busan.
I heard from TripAdvisor, this is the best market for King Crab and it’s so true!
First, Gijang Market is on the other side of Busan city (it’s on the way to Ulsan). The market is about 6-7 KM away from the most famous temple of Busan “Water Temple” or Haedong Yonggungsa Temple.
It’s about 15,000-20,000won ($15-$20) taxi from Haeundae Beach to Gijang Market. I would recommend you to take a taxi from Jangsan Station (Green Line) if you travel by Subway.
We drove to Gijang Market a couple times, we never had a problem with parking our car. There is a public parking building next to the market – very convenient and not expensive.
But once you walk in the Market. You will see there are soooo many crab restaurants and they will fight for you to eat at their restaurant!
All will offer you the best price and discount.
They will show you, how much they would like to offer you at the best price.
We don’t have any idea which is the best shop to stop. We tried several different shops for Kingcrab over here. They are all good, so just go for it!
Like our first time, we stopped at this guys shop because his English is so good. But it doesn’t mean he a offered better deal than others. I think they are almost the same, we paid 160,000won (~$150) for 1 King Crab and 1 Snow crab.
*Poor crabs, I’m sorry if my picture hurts your feeling*
The big crab took a long time to stream.
They will cut and serve for us, it’s easy to peel.
Korean food table style, full of the side dishes.
This shop is a very good service but we just had a hard time to sit on the floor to eat.
Fried rice is also available at all crab restaurants, it’s an extra 5000 won if you order it. They will take our King crab shell to put fried rice in it.
It’s fried rice with seaweed, it’s quite sweet for us.
Believe it or not, the king crab meat is good to eat with Kimchi!!!
We are now king crab lovers, we tried crab around Busan at the Jagachi market, and the Haeundae market but we like it here the most at Gijang Market.
We did like our first shop for Kingcrab at Gijang market but we picked different shops later. Specially, we picked the one that has the table and chair for us to sit LOL.
And we found out its not much different price (average $150 for 2 people), but each restaurant gave us different side dishes. For example, one of the shops gave us 4 abalones.
Even Ian and Stacey wanted to try King crab over here too.
*Stacey & Ian: 3 October 2019
Both Ian and Stacey never had king crab before, and they do enjoy eating King crab!
The King crab is very expensive but it’s good to reward yourself for some special occasion.
Most Korean will take the family to eat King crab for their special holiday (especially Korean Thanksgiving “Chuseok” in September) and for their special day at the Gijang market.
But the Gijang market is not only for King crab. There is a famous shop for Tteokpokki (Rice cake in hot sauce, the famous Korean traditional street food) in Gijang market as well.
And it’s fun to eat this local food with local friends.
Both of my Korean teachers (Mom and daughter) took me to try the Tteokpokki (before I moved to Geoje Island).
This shop has been selling Tteokpokki ever since. The owner is making Tteokpokki in a huge pan!
Also the Twe-kim or deep-fried tempura (fried shrimp, pumpkin, chili, sweet potatoes, etc), this is a good combination to eat with Tteokpokki!
We tried everything. It’s my first time to try “Soondae“, the bloody rice sausage too. It’s pretty chewy rice!
The owner is so happy to make Tteokpokki.
It’s hard to mention everything in the market even it’s not a that big market but something we never have seen before (in Thailand or USA). So it’s much more fun to shop with the local who knows what they are shopping for!
This is also my favorite shop for Ganjang-gejang, Raw crabs marinated in soy sauce. It costs about 10,000won -15,000won.
See? that Gijang market is really good food market for the Korean food lover in Busan 🙂
If you want to feel the real local in Busan, you have to get off the shopping mall and go to the traditional market!
