Oseong SikdangIncheon's Raw Shad Salad, Built to Be Mixed Into Rice

The day my regular spot was shut

I went to Geumsan Sikdang nearby for years. This time it was closed, so I tried Oseong next door — and found the dressing here had more savoury depth. I'll be coming back to this one.

That's a preference, not a verdict. Geumsan is the street's landmark. The famous one and the one that suited my palate turned out to be different shops.

Turns out the whole street serves the same thing

After switching, I learned why it didn't matter much: the Haeyang Centre building at Yeonan Pier holds a cluster of long-running shad restaurants, and their main menu is essentially identical.

• The standard set — raw shad salad plus soy-marinated crab
• What differs by shop — the dressing, and which side dishes arrive with it

Bandaengi (밴댕이), a small oily fish in the herring family, is a Yeonan Pier speciality served here as hoe-muchim: raw, sliced, and tossed in a spicy gochujang dressing with julienned vegetables and sesame. Alongside it comes ganjang gejang, raw crab cured in soy sauce. Both dishes are raw — if that doesn't work for you, this whole street isn't the place.

So "which one is best" comes down to seasoning and side dishes. You won't go badly wrong walking into any of them.

Eat it as a salad first, then as a rice bowl

This dish has a set order to it.

1. Eat the shad salad on its own first. Wrapping it in the lettuce provided works well
2. Then tip it onto the rice and mix it in, and eat it as a rice bowl

Don't mix everything at the start. A while as a salad, then the remainder mixed into rice to finish — one order, two different things.

The table brings the raw shad salad (the main event), the soy-marinated crab (standard with it), a generous bowl of lettuce for wrapping, simmered soy beans, seasoned seaweed, acorn jelly, cabbage kimchi, and soybean paste soup. Those side dishes are exactly the part that varies shop to shop.

What it looks like

The bowl on the left holds pieces of crab cured in soy sauce, and the plate on the right is piled with thinly sliced raw fish and vegetables tossed in a red seasoning, sprinkled with sesame. Both look suited to eating with rice or alongside a drink.

Menu words

• Baendaengi is a small, flat, silvery fish
• Hoe-muchim is raw fish tossed with vegetables and a spicy seasoning, and it is sometimes mixed into rice
• Gejang is raw crab cured in soy sauce or a seasoning

Worth knowing before you go

• It's spicy — a gochujang dressing, so expect real heat
• No subway. Yeonan Pier needs a bus from Incheon Station, or a taxi. Driving is easiest
• Closes at 9:00 PM
• Staying in Incheon a bit longer? — Paradise City Cimer, a spa on Yeongjong Island, is another stop worth working into the trip

Who this suits

• ✅ You want a regional Korean dish rather than a Seoul restaurant
• ✅ You like the idea of eating it as a salad, then as a rice bowl
• ✅ An old commercial-building restaurant with no tourist polish appeals to you
• ⚠️ Both main dishes are raw seafood
• ⚠️ Awkward to reach without a car