A food lover’s guide to Jagalchi, the new Korean culinary center
Walking into Jagalchi in Daly City feels like entering an edible wonderland handcrafted for K-foodies.
The complex, a much-anticipated project of the Mega Mart USA Korean retail chain, celebrates the rich abundance and variety of hansik (traditional Korean cuisine) and trendy K-foods, inviting everyone to dig in, learn more and cook at home. The first customers packed the place Friday and today, with crowds expected again Sunday — and for the foreseeable future.
The 75,000-square-foot emporium, converted from a former JC Penney, is a wormhole to the food court of any baekhwajeom (department store galleria) in Seoul’s glitzy Gangnam district. The food hub’s name, however, honors the historic Jagalchi Fish Market, South Korea’s largest seafood center in Busan.
Jagalchi’s director, Bum-suk Ha, said that the namesake is a shoutout to the Southeastern port city where Nongshim, the multinational giant that produces Shin Ramyun and runs Mega Mart, has a manufacturing plant and is adding another for exports only.
The owners also wanted to evoke the spirit of quintessential and enduring Koreanness — Ha said, “Jagalchi Fish Market isn’t a place that’s flashed brightly and disappeared.”
The first of its kind in the U.S., the business aims to introduce authentic Korean cuisine and fine dining to U.S. audiences, said Gon Lee, marketing manager at Jagalchi.
“You don’t need a plane ticket to get a taste of Korea,” said Gabriella Lee, Jagalchi marketing specialist.
Fresh seafood and sushi line one wall, 64-ounce jars of imported and house-made kimchi another. There’s an aisle for ramyeon, one for banchan and another for freshly made dumplings and shabu-shabu cuts. There’s a street food alley, a temple food haven, and a butcher counter, neat shelves of imported teas and snacks, K-beauty products from sunscreens to night creams, stacks of fruit glowing with vibrant freshness, a gluten-free bakery with rice-based desserts and, in the middle of it all, a full-service restaurant helmed by a Korean celebrity chef.
Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs calculated that Korean agricultural and food exports to the U.S. reached a record high of $1.59 billion in 2024 (a 21.8% rise from the past year).
But, says Lee, while some Korean dishes — such as kimbap — are having viral moments, Bay Area audiences still may not have had quite as much exposure to Korean food compared to Chinese or Japanese cuisine. Jagalchi’s aiming to change this while elevating visitors’ grocery shopping experiences.
Here are a few things to know before you go.
A famous chef is in the building: At the core of the multimillion-dollar space is the 160-seat restaurant Pogu, ensconced by dark wood slats and filled with furniture straight out of Korea.
Head chef Tony Yoo (Yoo Hyun-soo) energetically toils away with his team in the wide open kitchen.
Yoo became Korea’s first Michelin-star recipient while executive chef of “24 Seasons” and now owns Dooreyoo in Seoul. The chef, who has appeared on television, is also a United Nations World Food Programme chef advocate for the global zero hunger movement,
He once resided in the Bay while training at the Michelin-starred, now-closed Aqua Restaurant in San Francisco. Now he’s back–enjoying the weather, the people, and American steaks and wines.
He said that there were many special ingredients that he had to leave planted in Korea’s terroir.
“Right now, it’s spring there – the greens are all coming out,” he said, sharing that he hopes to bring more seasonal treasures stateside through local partnerships.
Pogu favors traditional flavors: The evening before the grand opening, Yoo presented a testing menu that started with a rice flour bun and a side of matcha buttercream. Next came a ball of salmon, tuna and squid hwe (raw fish) bedazzled with salmon roe on a bed of watercress greens, asparagus, sliced beet and cucumber. Dabs of chogochujang (sort of the shrimp cocktail sauce of Korea) and a grey seafood paste finished the plate.
Fragrant Gangwon buckwheat noodles and shredded chicken rolled in a verdant house sauce followed, surrounded by radish slices, chopped green beans, red onion slices, bright streaks of sauce, and a cluster of finely cubed insam (ginseng) doused in nose-piercing hot mustard. Dessert was Injeolmi Cake — a scoop of pillowy mousse sprinkled with roasted soybean powder, with a square of old-fashioned oranda (puffed wheat fused together with syrup) and a golden crescent of gingery yakgwa (a dynastical, deep-fried, honey-saturated confection) on top.
“The atmosphere here may be modern, but we’ll be serving traditional food,” Yoo said, ready to acquaint diverse K-food fans with classics they might not know about yet. Pogu began serving its full menu on opening day to a booked out-floor, with time and space given for guests to savor their experiences, and for the cooks to create them.
Don’t miss:
The butcher’s station boasts heaps of “tomahawk” (bone-in ribeye) steaks, fresh oxtail, and every bone-in, boneless, thick-cut, paper thin, or marinated pork, beef, and lamb product imaginable for KBBQ and stews.
The fridges hold vacuum-sealed jokbal (pig trotters), Buddhist-style whole duck, and ogolgye (black-boned Silkie fowl) fit for healthful summer samgyetang (chicken and ginseng soup).
Seafood sourced from Korea is a highlight: Beyond the showy carnage of a whole-tuna carving table, smartly packaged and frozen seafood ranging from $6-$15 deliver the flavors of Busan’s Jagalchi and the Korean peninsula.
Just some of these love letters are gajami (rex sole), dried myulchi (anchovies), dehydrated pollock strips for anju (drinking snacks), jeonbok (small abalone), jogi (croaker) for pan-frying with salt, godeungeo (mackerel) for charbroiling or braising in sauce, Korean-grown oysters out of their shells, and packets of ready-to-heat packets of jaecheop-guk (a broth of tiny marsh clams) and chueotang (nutrient-rich loach stew), cod soup kits with fish naejang (intestines) and jjin bori gulbi, salted dried yellow corvina preserved in barley and steamed in rice water–a deep cut from the only-in-Korea repertoire, shrink-wrapped to go.
There’s more to come: Mega Mart representatives confirmed that the company will open another center more like its other groceries in Fremont and Sunnyvale this summer in a former Target building at 1775 E. Bayshore Road in East Palo Alto.
Details: Jagalchi is open 9 a.m.-10 p.m. daily at 63 Serramonte Center, Daly City; serramontecenter.com. Pogu is open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. Reservations are available at Open Table; opentable.com/r/pogu-daly-city-california.