Whole abalone, giant octopus, and squid all go into the pot!! Plus two jumbo lobsters

Text & Photos /Little Paine

For this trip to Busan, I had planned visits to many great restaurants. On April 1st, I met up with friends and two fellow travelers from a Hong Kong backpackers' forum for lunch at the Emperor Submarine first, then in the evening, I made plans with Lily and Lily (yes, that's two Lilys!) to have Fupyeon beef intestines—total calorie overload!! This Emperor Submarine place was actually introduced on a TV show before my trip, and I quickly found out it’s located in western Busan. Since we were going to Busan anyway, how could I miss it?!

The restaurant is right across from the Bestwestern UL Busan Hotel where I was staying afterward—it’s also where kind Mr. Kim’s gimbap shop is (that’s the place where the triplets ate tons of steamed dumplings!). Staying at the Bestwestern UL Busan Hotel was really quite nice.

We arrived just as the shop opened, and that’s when the fresh lobsters had just been delivered!! The uncle, seeing us taking photos, immediately grabbed the lobsters for us to snap pictures—super nice!!

The lobsters in hand weren’t small at all, and they were jumping around lively—super fresh!!

After entering the store, the staff seated us and handed us a Chinese menu (lol), which was super convenient. Our goal for the day was the “Special Emperor Steamed Set,” the most expensive one at 90,000 KRW, which was perfect for sharing among four people.

There are quite a few seats in the shop—we were the first group of customers, and the place got quite busy during our meal. Take note of the black plastic chairs lined up—they might mean you’ll need to queue when it’s crowded.

Inside the shop’s tank, there were so many lobsters!!!! The ones the uncle just brought in were already placed inside. It looks like quite a few lobsters usually meet their end here (V纾┘/p>

They all seemed to be about the same size

First came the side dishes, one for each person—not shared. Notice that—top right corner

Yep—yep—yep—I saw silkworm pupae served as a side dish for the first time (shocked). Of course none of our group of four tried it. It really smells awful, and just looking at its appearance makes it hard to even pick up.

There were three dipping sauce plates: salt, Korean chili paste, and mustard. I used the chili paste; not sure what the mustard goes with—maybe sesame oil? (lol)

The main dish is here!! 9,000 KRW Emperor Steamed Set!! My Hong Kong friends were like, “So cheap,” seems like seafood is really pricey in Hong Kong. Haha—there were two big lobsters, three abalones (I think they should’ve given four, three doesn’t divide evenly), one big octopus, squid underneath, lots of shrimp, a bunch of shellfish (big and small, so many), plus four skewers of fish cake. The very bottom had the most “bean sprouts”—super many!!

Then the waiter asked if we wanted butter-grilled lobster. For both lobsters, it was only an extra 3,000 KRW to have them processed, so the lobsters were taken away again—going in for a second round of cooking. Just a heads-up: steamed is good enough. Don’t grill them again, because after being cooked twice, the lobster meat gets way too tough!!

Thanks to the Hong Kong girl for keeping me company—we ran into her again later in Jinhae too

The lobsters went off to be processed, so we started eating what was left first!!

Does anyone know what this is? Some kind of fish innards? It’s soft when you eat it

Scallops—these definitely need to be fished out early or they’ll get small and tough

The thing in the photo looks a bit like cat ears (dumpling-like bits). It’s dough balls—super yummy, really chewy.

The lobsters that were taken away for the second round of butter grilling are back—butter grilled lobsters (two lobsters with a 3,000 KRW surcharge)

Visual perfection

The huge lobster claws are packed with meat!!

Thick, juicy lobster meat!!
Thoughts: As for the steamed seafood part, since everything was fresh and steamed directly, the flavors were really good, but nothing should be overcooked or it’ll get tough. But because there was so much food, saving some for later wasn’t great—the taste went downhill. The broth part was really tasty though, though maybe too much pepper—it was a bit spicy-peppery, but the broth was very flavorful, I thought it was delicious. Don’t recommend the second round of grilling for the lobsters—it’s such a waste, because if steamed well, they’d be super juicy and springy. A tip from me!!

Address: ?腊?彭萝 ?腊赡? ?呼杠 16
Korean Map
Phone: 051-816-0025
Business hours: 11:00~06:00
Latitude and longitude: 35.152149, 129.058140

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