Pacific Fish Center & Restaurant - Redondo Beach

This was an expensive dinner. A delicious one, but, man, did it cost a lot. Such is the nature of seafood. Three steamed Dungeness crabs. A spicy Korean fish soup served in a huge pot. A bottle of soju. Rice. A few raw oysters. The bill? Something around $150, if I recall.

In truth, most of the investment went into securing those lovely crustaceans. They were the reason we came. They come pre-disassembled, so I dumped a spoonful of rice to soak up the yellow fat that puddled on the bottom of the hollow skulls. I scooped it out, ate it while wondering how much bad cholesterol I just ingested.

I cracked, sucked, and dipped my way through the rest of the carcass, fingering the joints for that precious, precious meat, doing math in my head to guess how much every little white speck cost per ounce. I concluded it’s probably less costly than cocaine, but what do I know? Food like this is my drug of choice.

We were fortunate enough to not shell out (pun intended) any dough for this meal. We were being treated; and what a treat!

The Korean element is what I liked most about the joint. You’d never guess that with the other tourist trappy restaurants here, there’d be a Korean mom-and-pop that served mae-un-tang, a seafood stew brimming with hunks of fish with bones still attached, simmering in a gochujang-powered broth that burns your esophagus the same time it tickles it with sweetness. The soup would be a great hangover cure if it weren’t also the kind of dish you want to eat with never-ending shots of soju.

Nevermind that the place looks like a mess hall, and the utensils you use are made of plastic. With all due respect to Quality Seafood, this restaurant is where I think I’ll return the next time I’m in Redondo Beach with a few bucks to burn and a hankering for shells to crack.

Pacific Fish Center & Restaurant
131 Fishermans Wharf
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
Neighborhood: Redondo Beach
(310) 374-8420

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