The story
Forty years ago, Lee Suk-ja started selling fish from a street stall in Sokcho — the old-school way, before the harbor was paved and rebuilt. She'd be at Daepo Port by six in the morning, at the dawn auction, buying squid fresh off the boats to sell all day. Twelve years ago she moved into her current stall in the B-building of the redeveloped port, and the shop has been called 순철이네 — 'Suncheol's place,' named after her son — ever since. The menu today is built around Russian snow crab and sashimi sets, but the kitchen rhythm still belongs to someone who has been buying at the auction for forty years.
“40년 동안 이 일을 했어요. 제가 직접 담근 김치하고, 정성껏 끓인 홍게라면이 손님들한테는 '짱'이라는 소리를 들어요. — 'Forty years I've done this work. The kimchi I pickle myself and the red-crab ramyeon I slow-brew — guests call them their favorites ('jjang').'”
Owner, Suncheorine Live Fish
What they stand for
The kitchen at 순철이네 is built on three things the owner refuses to outsource: the crab broth, the kimchi, and the forty years of daily auction visits that precede both. The red-crab ramyeon is made with a clear, slow-brewed crab stock — most stalls on the strip buy their soup base from a specialist; she makes hers. The kimchi (particularly the kkakdugi, radish cubes) is pickled in-house and refreshed weekly. Nothing prepackaged, nothing sent out to someone else's kitchen. Russian snow crab comes in year-round; live fish (flatfish, rockfish) comes in through regular auction suppliers.
Behind the signature
The set menu the shop is known for is the 대게+회 SET — a Russian snow crab paired with live sashimi, a seafood spread, steamed shellfish, crab-shell fried rice, vegetables, and the house red-crab ramyeon to finish. Size variants let a two-person table eat for ₩150,000 and a group of five eat for ₩300,000. What distinguishes this house from the rest of the strip is what's included for free with every set: the kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi) that guests ask to buy by the container. The owner pickles it weekly in her own kitchen — the only thing on the table that's still made by hand the way she learned forty years ago.
Local tip
순철이네 is stall B-building, unit 4, at Daepo Port — 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. From the window seat you can see Naksan Temple on the far bluff — a rare window view from a harbor-strip sashimi stall. Daepo connects naturally to a Seoraksan trip (20 minutes by bus to Heundeulbawi, Bisundae, Biryong Falls, the cable car, and Sinheungsa Temple) and to Cheoksan Hot Spring, which locals consider among the best mineral springs in Korea.
Seasonal note
Russian snow crab keeps the crab sets stable year-round; red snow crab from local boats varies with the season. Daepo Port peaks from late spring through fall — summer weekends see queues on the strip. Come on a weekday morning for the best selection and an open window seat with the Naksan view.
For travelers
Foreign guests at 순철이네 consistently pick the crab over the sashimi — grilled and cooked food over raw. The owner notes that visitors who've had the snow crab have left saying 'delicious' and 'we'll come back.' The language barrier is what keeps the shop from serving more foreign visitors; she expects an English menu will change that. The crab sets are the easy order: everything is pre-portioned, nothing requires deciding on species in Korean, and the red-crab ramyeon that finishes every set is a universally lovable bowl.
