Namttoli

Cuisine	Korean
Price	$$$ (31-50)
Rating	3/10
Last Visit	Feb. 25, 2024
Location	Korea: Jeju Island

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General Notes

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Restaurant right by the ocean, specializing in sashimi. It's ... mediocre. None of the dishes were particularly noteworthy (well, except one of the kimchis, which was very nice), and quite a few of the dishes were flat out bad. We had a pretty interesting experience here -- we had a party of 12 and tried to get seated, and we were told that "we might experience an indefinite wait because a bunch of people just sat down and they're drinking". We were pretty confused about this and decided to split up into a group of 4 that stayed (to take the last remaining table), and a group of 8 that went elsewhere. Then after staying there for a while we understood what was up. The waitresses know. There are a lot of Chinese tourists here, and they stay for a loooong time. We witnessed ... a lot if interesting things that night.

Note that the entire menu is in Korean and there is no English translation. Though if you can speak Chinese, one of the servers speaks Chinese and you'll be fine.

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Positives

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> They had a non-spicy kimchi (just pickled / marinaded) that was extremely good. I had consumed way too much meat in the meals leading up to this, so it was refreshing and almost / cleansing in a way to consume like 4 plates of kimchi on my own.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★☆☆☆ sashimi bibimbap -- this was alright, but I just was not a huge fan of sashimi in bibimbap. The gochujang sauce is pretty strong and overpowers the fish completely
• ★☆☆☆ fried sea bream -- not my favorite dish. It's cooked alright, but whole fried fish is just not a great idea. It's really difficult to eat.
• ★★☆☆ abalone -- pretty yummy and cooked well, but the flavor just tastes like butter. It's pretty masked.
• ★☆☆☆ shrimp tempura -- I don't like this batter, and it doesn't adhere to the shrimp well. the shrimp is overcooked
• ★☆☆☆ specialty sashimi -- I forget exactly what cut of fish this is (sea bream? jungmun?), but it's a whitefish with red near the surface of the skin. It's alright. Apparently it's only available on Jeju because it goes bad really quickly and must be eaten fresh. It doesn't really have much flavor and is a little chewy / tough
• ★★☆☆ assorted sashimi -- decent, but not particularly noteworthy. My favorite was the shrimp. The tuna was clearly previously frozen as it was EXTREMELY cold. Many of the whitefish cuts were rather tough.