12 flavors of whale meat restaurant

Located in Jangsaengpo Port, Ulsan City, is a handful of restaurants specializing in whale meat. I visited a restaurant called in English something like “12 flavors of whale meat restaurant” while attending the Ulsan Whale Festival. Jangsaengpo Port is also called something like the Special Whale Culture Zone and has the Jangsaengpo Whale Museum (Korean website).

Whaling culture goes as far back as prehistoric Korea, as evidenced by rock carvings of whale hunts in the Ulsan area at Bangudae. However, these days it is illegal for Koreans to hunt whales. So the only whale meat that is legal to eat in Korea is either from a dead whale that washed up on the shore, or from one accidentally caught in a fishing boats nets.

Gorae Bapsang (고래밥상), 12 kinds of whale meat

I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew the restaurant name indicated that I would be able to try different kinds of whale parts, including raw meat, but that was it. Actually, I had heard that whale meat was both expensive and tasted bad. This was my opportunity to verify the rumors for myself.

Raw Whale in Sesame Oil and Sliced Pear (육회/yu-kwae)

In the photo above is the yu-kwae we ate. It was served with the side dishes at the beginning of the meal. A few minutes later, the large dish with an assortment of whale parts came out. We ordered soju, and Hite beer to wash it all down.

The menu

In the menu above, you can see at the very top, the price for the 모듬/mo-deum “everything dish” is ₩60,000 (small plate), ₩80,000 (medium plate), and ₩100,000 (large plate). My travel companion and I ordered the small plate. If you eat raw fish anywhere in Daegu City, you can get a small plate for about ₩30,000, so whale meat IS expensive in comparison to fish. If you want to try all 12 flavors, you’ll have to order this one. Each of the main kinds of whale can be ordered separately, if you already know what you like.

The main entree with 11 kinds of whale parts.

What comes with the “everything dish”? You get 수육/su-yuk “steamed whale” that comes from the belly, side, and back (half fat, half meat). You get 우네/o-neh which I don’t know how to translate, but it looks like the “steamed whale”. You get 육회/yu-kwae “shredded raw whale meat mixed with sesame sauce”. You get 막찍기/mak-jjik-ggi “raw chunks of whale meat”. You get 오베기/o-beh-gi, which I don’t know how to translate. Finally you get some lung, liver, and intestines.

The yu-kwae was awesome. The meat around the edges of the main plate taste great after dipping them into a pile of salt while the raw whale meat was a little better without flavoring or with the sesame/hot pepper paste mix that was provided. Some of the intestines were alright.

I enjoyed almost all of the things I ate and would eat whale again in the future as a special treat considering how expensive it is. I would order either the yu-kwae (육회) or mak-jjik-ggi (막찍기), and combine that with the su-yuk (수육). I would pass up on the intestines portions.

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