East Sea Seafood by Season: What Goes Into Our Sokcho Mulhoe

Off Sokcho, sea squirt and flounder come in all year round, fresh sea urchin from June to August, squid from May, and sea cucumber from late autumn. Our menu stays the same all year; what changes with the season is the mix of raw fish in our assorted mulhoe (Korean chilled raw-fish soup) and hoedeopbap (raw fish rice bowl). I’ve set out further down how we handle the seasonal ones: sea cucumber, sea urchin and fresh squid. Run a mulhoe restaurant long enough and you hear this question a lot.

“Which month is the best time to come?”

There is no right answer. The sea off Sokcho never has an empty season. All that changes is what each season adds.

When is the best time for seafood in Sokcho?

It’s hard to pick out one month. Sea squirt and flounder come in all year, and each season adds something. From May there is squid, from June to August fresh sea urchin, from late autumn sea cucumber, and in winter cold-season fish such as dochi (smooth lumpsucker), yellowtail and herring. Whenever you come, something is in season.

What comes in when

These are the times I’ve seen over many years of running a business in Sokcho. The sea is different every year, so please read the table as a rough pattern. It is not a promise that a given fish will be in our kitchen on the day you visit.

If something is out of season, is the dish off the menu?

The menu is the same all year. The biggest seasonal change is the mix of raw fish that goes into our assorted mulhoe and on our hoedeopbap. All of it is fish that came in that day, and none of it is sliced ahead of time. Here is how we handle the seasonal ingredients: when sea cucumber is out of season, dishes that normally have it get a generous helping of abalone instead. When fresh sea urchin is out of season, we use sea urchin we stored in advance while it was still fresh.

Some dishes have no fixed price. The dishes made with fresh squid (Squid Mulhoe, Squid Hoedeopbap and Raw Squid) are at market price. The price and the amount we can get swing a long way with the catch and the closed season, and on days when there is none, we can’t serve them. Ojingeo sundae (stuffed squid) and the Crispy-Griddled Stuffed Squid have fixed prices.

Abalone Mulhoe, Abalone Bibimbap, Octopus Bibimbap, Abalone Porridge and seopguk are on the menu all year as well. Seopguk is a Gangwon Province dish of wild mussels simmered into a spicy soup, and people in Sokcho like it as a hangover cure.

Sea squirt and flounder don’t follow the seasons; they come in all year. Sea squirt has a strong taste of the sea, bright and slightly bitter, so if you like that, I’d point you to the Sea Squirt Bibimbap.

Spring into summer — squid and sea urchin

Sokcho used to mean squid. Even now, squid comes in from May and slowly tails off as summer passes. April is the closed season for squid, so no fresh squid reaches us. The shoals change from year to year, and in some years the price jumps several times over. On days when the catch isn’t good, we don’t sell it at all. There is more on that in the story of our fishermen friends.

Fresh sea urchin comes in from June to August; the rest of the year we use sea urchin stored in advance. Our two dishes with sea urchin roe are the Sea Urchin Roe Rice and the Sea Urchin Seaweed Soup. Neither is spicy, so they are a good choice if you can’t handle chilli (how to eat mulhoe, and how spicy it is).

Summer is also our busiest season for mulhoe. We are right in front of the beach, so the dining room fills with people who have just come out of the water.

Late autumn and winter — sea cucumber and winter fish

Sea cucumber spawns in July, which is its closed season, so none comes to us then. After spawning it hides in gaps between the rocks, and from late October or early November, as the sea cools, it starts to come out again. The crunch is what sea cucumber is about. Our dishes with sea cucumber are the Sea Cucumber Mulhoe and the Sea Cucumber & Abalone Mulhoe; what we do when there is none is explained above.

In winter, sand lance, sandfish, dochi and yellowtail are in season, and herring comes in too. We don’t use sand lance or sandfish, though, and the fish in our winter assorted mulhoe depends on what came in that day. At the market in winter, sandfish and gomchi-guk (a snailfish soup) are popular, so if those are what you’re after, the Sokcho Tourist & Fishery Market is the place to go. I’ve written about the season separately in Sokcho in winter.

Even in winter, mulhoe goes out cold. The slushy, half-frozen broth sits in a thick earthenware pot, so it stays cold to the last spoonful. On cold days, plenty of guests also order the hot seopguk and the Red Snow Crab Ramyeon.

So what is in the bowl today?

Raw fish cut from whatever came in that day.

When the boats come in at dawn, our fishermen friends get in touch with us first, and we look and choose before the catch goes to the wholesalers. So the mix in our assorted mulhoe isn’t fixed. It changes a little with the season and with that day’s fishing.

Please treat the menu photos as examples. Some days the waves are too high for the boats to go out, and a species in its closed season doesn’t come in for the whole of that period. Nobody can do anything about that, so when we don’t have something, we tell you.

Call us before you come

If you’re coming for one particular dish, call us first and we’ll tell you whether we have it that day. The dishes made with fresh squid (Squid Mulhoe, Squid Hoedeopbap and Raw Squid) are at market price, so we’ll give you that day’s price as well.

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