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- Nothing is more fresh than something that's still alive.
We're here in Woodside, Queens,
where they actually serve one of the rarest
Korean seafood specialties: live octopus, or san nakji.
I've only had this in Korea, in Busan,
so I'm very intrigued to see how they serve it here,
and I'm going to be joined by my friend and colleague,
Stefanie Tuder, who writes for Eater NY.
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- They seem to know what they're really doing
with seafood here.
- This is really good.
This is excellent.
When you go to Korea, when you go to the seaside markets,
there are just tubs of live seafood, you know.
It could be fish, it could be oysters, clams, octopus.
Live octopus to me, is very much our way of saying,
"Hey, we have a super fresh thing.
We're going to have it in its prime and
we're going to respect it
and we're going to eat it with joy."
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- Hell yes.
- Oh.
Whoa, that's so long!
I've had live octopus before, and I had it in Busan,
and they pre-chop it up for you.
Maybe because they knew I was an amateur.
This is really aggressive,
because you're looking at like five, six-inch long pieces.
When you eat this, you have to chew it to completion.
- What happens if you don't? - Until it stops.
Well, I mean you're going to--
On your way down, it'll get revenge on you.
Look at that.
It's got the jalapeño too.
Even though they have a brain and
they have a nervous system,
the nervous system basically reacts
and continues to fire despite being severed from the head.
I'm going to watch you go first.
- Okay.
- Because you've never had this before.
- No, I haven't.
- Okay, small piece.
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- I don't know how much chewing is enough.
You have me scared about it.
- I would just stop, and if you don't feel movement,
I think you're good.
- It tastes as if I dove into the ocean and
got a mouthful of ocean water.
- The thing about this dish,
it's definitely a signature Korean dish.
It is something you can find across the coastal areas.
I had it in Busan, and when you get a whole array of "hwe,"
which is like raw fish, this is part of the raw fish.
Look at these tentacles.
They--
Oh.
(laughter)
Oh.
I mean.
- I wanna try.
- Holy shit, that feels so weird.
Oh.
Ugh.
- It's like a little octi-massage.
I'm going to get some sauce.
- Yeah, yeah, no let's dip it.
- This is just sesame oil, salt, and pepper in here?
- Yeah, it's already tossed a little bit of sesame oil.
- Ooh, this one's sticking to the roof of my mouth.
Oh my god, he's on my cheek, like suctioning.
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Mine suctioned on my cheek. - Yeah, mmhmm.
- I loved it. - It's kind of a cool feeling.
It tastes exactly the same as when I was in Korea.
I think in Korea they put a little bit more soy,
and a little bit more sesame oil,
to give it a little more flavor.
This one you can kind of soak in the essence of the octopus.
- On its own, it's just super briny,
and that's great, but like I said,
it's just like ocean water,
and adding that flavor element, I think, helps.
- I think this is a great way to
celebrate a beautiful creature.
What's the difference between this and having it grilled
as a whole piece and with a bunch of sides at a fancy
non-Korean restaurant?
So, that's just how Koreans like to enjoy fresh seafood.
That's how we know it's fresh,
and it's perfect.
There's no fishiness to it.
- No. - It's great.
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- [Stefanie] Ooh, that is bountiful.
- [Matthew] Oh, my gosh.
- [Stefanie] Wow, oh wow!
It's going to--
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- I think that makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
- Does it?
Why does it make you feel more uncomfortable than
if you had just eaten it if it was cooked?
It's completely severed from the body.
- Yeah, yeah, it's dead. - This lobster is dead.
- It's dead.
It's just the nervous system that's reacting.
This restaurant, Sik Gaek, is actually very insistent
that they serve it this way.
They've gotten some push back,
but they do it because they want to show you
how good the quality of the lobster is.
It's going to actually deepen in flavor.
That's why they actually serve it with the fire underneath,
so that the first couple of sips are going to have
just a little touch of the seafood,
and then as it reduces and it develops,
and you keep eating this shellfish,
and it goes down, it will be super intense by the end.
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Man, that broth is so good.
It's clean.
You get the aromatics of the cabbage and the bean sprouts,
and then kind of tempered with super fresh seafood.
- This is a broth I'd want to eat when I'm not feeling good.
It's just comforting.
- It's like Korean bouillabaisse.
- Mmmhmm.
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You know they take a lot of care of the presentation
to kind of put it back into the shell.
- Yeah, you know that is a really good detail.
I like that,
because they know you're going to just gently pick at it
and you don't want those lobster pieces to get--
- Overcooking.
- Yeah, lost into the broth.
- This does beg for a group of friends,
some shots.
So what is the traditional Korean cheers?
- Gun-bae. - Gun-bae?
- Mmhmm, yeah.
- Gun-bae! - Gun-bae!
- Look at this chunk of lobster.
- Gorgeous, mm.
- It's tender, it's sweet, it has
the light scent of the broth underneath it.
- Mmhmm, but not overcooked.
Oh, I gotta get some of this claw meat.
Mm, mmhmm.
That's heaven.
- I'm so not used to the Korean flavor profile
with lobster like this, you know,
it's usually just butter and lemon.
- That gets tiring after a while.
- It gets tiring, I agree, so it's fun to--
- Instead you get this crazy hot sauce,
or this really sweet, spicy sauce.
It's fun.
You come here and it's so unpretentious,
it's so easygoing, I don't need to
teach you how to do stuff,
it's kind of more fun to figure it out.
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Thank you so much for watching,
and if you want to see more of K-Town, click right here.
- That was like, super profesh.