The story
Before he ran a sashimi stall, the owner of 콩새네회센터 spent fifteen years in the maintenance engineering department at Hanwha Condo Waterpia — the Sokcho resort that routes tens of thousands of tourists through the city each summer. Thirteen years ago, when Daepo Port was redeveloped and the old open-air fish stalls were being rebuilt into the current buildings, his father — a member of the local fishery cooperative — held allocation rights. When it came time to draw lots for the new stall locations, the owner pulled number one: the corner stall in the B-building, closest to the water, with a direct ocean view from the table. He moved from maintenance to sashimi and has been there ever since. His mother, who had run a business herself years earlier, spent the first year teaching him the rhythm of the floor.
“손님이 껍질 벗기느라 고생 안 하시게, 주문 들어오면 그때부터 손질 시작해요. 다 까서, 먹기만 하면 되게 내드리거든요. — 'I don't want my guests wrestling with a crab shell. When an order comes in, that's when I start cleaning — by the time it reaches the table, it's ready to eat. You just pick up and eat.'”
Owner, Kongsaene Live Fish
What they stand for
Two things set this kitchen apart: freshness and service. Nothing is prepared in advance — orders come in, and the crab starts being cleaned then. Everything arrives at the table pre-cracked, pre-portioned, ready to eat. No shell-wrestling, no fiddling with legs, no sorting through bones in the sashimi. Snow crab comes from Russia; live fish from regular suppliers at the Daepo auction; the spicy fish stew (매운탕) is outsourced to a 30-year specialist kitchen that does nothing else. Everything else — the banchan, the seafood spread, the crab-shell fried rice — is made by hand in-house.
Behind the signature
The first menu, thirteen years ago, was 무례 (mu-rye) — a 'basket of fish'. Mothers used to sell the day's catch out of wicker baskets along the old Sokcho streets, and the first iteration of this shop carried that tradition straight onto the new Daepo Port strip. What used to be a basket is now a set menu; the idea grew up with the port. The current bestseller is the mid-tier snow crab set (대게 B) — snow crab, red crab, live sashimi, mulhoe, steamed shellfish, the crab-shell fried rice cooked in the crab's own roe, and spicy fish stew. Everything cracked and portioned by hand. What arrives at the table is not a puzzle; it's a meal.
Local tip
콩새네회센터 is stall #1 in Daepo Port's B-building — the corner closest to the water, with a direct ocean view from the table. A 10-minute drive south of Sokcho's downtown. Take bus 9 or 9-1 to the Daepo Port stop, or park in the Daepo 1st Public Parking Lot and walk in. The B-building runs parallel to the harbor; look for the row facing the water and enter from the first stall on the right. On weekends the ocean-view seats fill first — arrive before 12:30 to lock one down.
Seasonal note
Snow crab availability tightens in summer when the East Sea runs low; red crab from local boats keeps the sets intact year-round. Daepo Port's traffic peaks from late spring through fall — during Sokcho's tourism surge the lot fills early and the strip can queue. Weekday mornings see the widest selection and the shortest wait.
For travelers
Foreign guests are rare at this particular stall, though the ones who do come typically arrive as groups routed from the Ramada or Cassia hotel partnerships. Most foreign visitors to Daepo Port walk the strip and pick on sight rather than arriving with a specific stall in mind. The owner would welcome more — the language barrier is the main obstacle, and an English menu (long overdue, by his own account) is what he expects will change that. Everything here is set-based and pre-cracked, so once the menu is readable, pointing and ordering is genuinely easy.
