A note on the words: samgyeopsal is Korean grilled pork belly, cut thick and cooked at the table, and jjukkumi is the webfoot octopus, a small squat octopus that Korean cooks braise in chili sauce; jjukkumi samgyeopsal puts the two on one griddle. Yangnyeom is the sweet-hot Korean seasoning paste built on gochujang. Tobiko is flying fish roe, the tiny orange beads that pop between your teeth. Okoge is the crisp scorched rice at the bottom of the pan. Sangchu is the soft Korean lettuce you wrap grilled meat in, and perilla is the broad, minty leaf served alongside it. Gyoja-ninniku is a wild mountain allium, known in English as victory onion. Kimchi jjigae is the everyday kimchi stew. A sour, in a Japanese drinking context, is shochu lengthened with soda and a splash of fruit flavoring. Shin-Okubo is Tokyo’s Korean quarter, one stop from Shinjuku. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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SOOKDAL, Shin-Okubo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
This is Hangover Meshi. This time I went to Shin-Okubo to eat Korean food with a Korean friend of mine! Show me somewhere good, I said — and the answer was that there is a shop in Shin-Okubo doing the dry-aged samgyeopsal that is popular back in Korea, so my friend booked us a table. Very kind. Rain started spitting as I came out of Shin-Okubo Station, so I arrived at the shop slightly damp! Inside it is fairly large, with a few people waiting. I met up with my friend, who had got there first, and we were off. Time to eat a lot!
There is a great deal on the menu, but the one thing I absolutely wanted that day was jjukkumi samgyeopsal — grilled pork belly with webfoot octopus. I had only ever heard the rumors that it is wonderful and had never eaten it, so we ordered this before the plain samgyeopsal.
First, a sour to wet the throat — shochu with soda and a splash of flavoring. Ordering is done by QR code for the most part, which makes life easy!
The leaves for wrapping, and the little side dishes.
And then the jjukkumi samgyeopsal appeared!!!
There it is!! I had been told that the jjukkumi samgyeopsal is not finished until you have had the tobiko fried rice at the end, so let us eat properly.
The octopus goes in whole and floppy, but before the grilling started a member of staff cut it down to a size you can actually eat.
They handle everything up to the cooking for you, which is reassuring.
A lot of the staff are Korean, and so is my friend!
They talked away in Korean and sorted all sorts of things out for us lol
The cheese we added as a topping!
And onto the heat it goes!
Oof… that looks good! I like that they perch one whole little octopus on top lol
Add the cheese and the whole thing jumps up another level of looking delicious.
One mouthful and — delicious!!!
That sauce is so good. The octopus is fine too, but this yangnyeom sauce, is that what it is called? It goes perfectly with the samgyeopsal. Wrapping the lot in a perilla leaf and eating it all in one go is also excellent. So this is jjukkumi samgyeopsal!!!
By the way, I think you should absolutely add the cheese. It rounds everything off and tastes great.
Once that was done, the tobiko fried rice, of course. It is barely an exaggeration to say you eat the jjukkumi samgyeopsal in order to get to this fried rice — in fact this is the main event. That is how it was explained to me, so I was very much looking forward to it.
In goes the tobiko!
Spread it out flat and it is done!
And this really was as extraordinary as the rumors said!!!
How can something be this good. Fried rice that has drunk up every last drop of the jjukkumi samgyeopsal. It is that yangnyeom sauce, I am sure, that does it. The richness of the okoge, the scorched rice underneath, together with the little popping tobiko is irresistible!! What is this, it is magnificent. I normally try to go easy on carbohydrates, but this is the sort of good that makes you decide not to worry about it today. Wonderful.
This is the lightly pickled napa cabbage salad.
It looks red but the heat is gentle. The crunch of the cabbage is lovely. Being only lightly pickled there is not much acidity — if anything it is a salad where the sweetness of the cabbage stands out. This was very good too.
Kimchi jjigae. You do want something soupy as well.
But I was gradually getting full.
And yet I ordered it anyway! The dry-aged samgyeopsal!
The staff cook this one for you as well, so no need to worry. Although — that is a big slab of belly lol
Cut in two and onto the heat.
Gyoja-ninniku and onion. These are the toppings!
Beautifully done! A crisp outside, and when you bite in, sweet fat comes flooding out — perfect with the sangchu lettuce!
And these are the dressed scallions. They make another good topping. Delicious.
I am absolutely stuffed! I ate far too much! But I am extremely satisfied!
It was seriously good. No wonder it is a popular chain in Korea. They cook everything for you, and the prices are genuinely reasonable, so I think this would be a very good everyday Korean place. If there is one problem, it is that everything is so good you end up eating too much. That tobiko fried rice was really something… I want it again!
SOOKDAL, Shin-Okubo (Korean / Shin-Okubo Station, Okubo Station, Seibu-Shinjuku Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
