The Fish Cake Burger — What Busan’s Oldest Eomuk Company Does With It Now

Where to Eat · Busan · Part 1.5

A seventy-three-year-old fish cake company opened a burger joint above its own shop. Two minutes from the station you arrive at.

This follows Part 1 of the Busan series, Eomuk — Busan’s Fish Cake. Read that first if you don’t know what eomuk is; this piece assumes you do. Series overview: What to Eat in Busan — and What to Skip.

Two minutes from Busan Station, one flight of stairs above a fish cake shop, there is a burger restaurant called VIKEN HUS. The house burger has two patties. One is beef. The other is fish cake.

That sounds like a gimmick until you find out who runs it.

The fish cake shop downstairs is Samjin Eomuk — the company from Part 1, the one that started in a Yeongdo market stall in 1953 and never stopped. VIKEN HUS is theirs.

It isn’t a burger shop that decided to put fish cake in a bun. It’s a seventy-three-year-old fish cake company building a burger around its own product. That reframes the whole thing

All dollar figures use ₩1,340 = US$1, the rate in September 2026.

⚠️ About the price — I did not pay what you will pay

I need to be straight about this before anything else, because a lot of reviews are quietly out of date on exactly this point.

What I paid	₩7,000 (US$5.20) — a 50% promotion
When that ended	31 August 2026
What you’ll pay	₩14,000 (US$10.45) for the set

At ₩7,000 this was an easy recommendation and I’d have told anyone to go. At ₩14,000 it’s a real decision, so let me do the comparison honestly.

In Korea	Price
McDonald’s set	₩8,000–10,000
VIKEN HUS set	₩14,000
Shake Shack burger alone	over ₩10,000

So it’s no longer cheap. It sits above fast food and below the imported burger chains, which is roughly where a two-patty burger with bacon and cheddar belongs.

The value argument is dead. The other argument isn’t.

Why it’s still worth a meal — if you’re visiting

Here is the whole case, and it has nothing to do with the burger being cheap:

1	I have not come across a fish cake patty in a burger outside Korea, and I have looked.
2	Busan is the eomuk city. This is the regional food.
3	It’s made by the company that has defined that food since 1953.
4	It’s two minutes from the station you’re already arriving at.

This is not something you are likely to run into at home, and you are already standing next to it. At US$10 that’s still a reasonable trade for a meal you’ll remember, in a city where you have maybe ten meals total.

If you live here, the calculation flips completely. I’ll get to that.

Finding it — don’t look for the burger sign

This is the practical bit, and it’s the part that will actually save you time.

Look for the fish cake shop. The burger place is upstairs. The burger sign is quiet and easy to walk past

1	Busan Station (부산역) — come out to the plaza
2	Look across for SAMJIN EOMUK (삼진어묵) — big, bright, ground floor
3	Look directly above it
4	VIKEN HUS, second floor, same building

The building is the Gwangjang Hotel, Jung-ang-daero 214beon-gil 7, Dong-gu.

⚠️ Ignore exit numbers here. Busan Station has a KTX railway station and a Subway Line 1 station, and they number their exits separately. Put “Samjin Eomuk Busan Station Plaza” into your maps app instead — the fish cake shop is registered clearly, the burger place isn’t.

This matters more than it sounds, because Busan Station is where nearly every visitor from Seoul arrives. You are going to walk past this building anyway.

What’s in it, and how it tastes

Beef patty
Fish cake patty (pollock)	⭐ the reason to come
Bacon
Cheddar · lettuce · tomato

The fish cake patty is mild, springy and faintly sweet. It does not taste strongly of fish. If you’ve had Japanese kamaboko or chikuwa, it’s that family — a savoury, bouncy protein layer rather than anything that reads as seafood.

Paired with beef it works as texture, not flavour. The beef brings fat and browning; the fish cake brings chew and a lightness that stops the whole thing being heavy. Two patties would normally be a lot. These two aren’t.

It’s a solid burger. Not a gourmet one. But it’s doing something no chain would bother to do.

Vegan, Vegetarian, Halal

Diet	Suitable?	Why
Vegan	❌ No	Fish cake patty, plus cheese in most builds
Vegetarian	❌ No	Fish cake
Halal	⚠️ Depends	No certification; check the sauce and shared equipment

Pescatarians can eat this — it is the rare Busan burger with no red meat.

⚠️ Allergens — read this one

Independent restaurants in Korea don’t publish ingredient lists, so this is from the menu and from asking.

Halal	❌ No — contains bacon (pork)
Vegetarian	❌ Beef, pork and fish
Fish allergy	⚠️ Yes — the second patty is fish
Gluten	⚠️ Bun, and eomuk contains wheat starch
Dairy	Cheddar

⚠️ The fish patty is easy to miss if you don’t read Korean. A burger menu does not look like something that will contain fish. If you have a fish or shellfish allergy, say so before you order — the English menu board may not flag it.

Should you go? Two different answers

	Visiting	Living here
Location	★★★★★ two minutes from arrival	★★★☆☆ fine if nearby
Value at ₩14,000	★★★☆☆ fair	★★☆☆☆ steep
The experience	★★★★★ specific to this building	★★☆☆☆ it’s a burger
Taste	★★★★☆	★★★★☆
Overall	★★★★☆ 4.0	★★★☆☆ 3.0

I’m splitting the score because the answer genuinely differs, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

If you live in Korea: the promotion is over and ₩14,000 is a real lunch budget. It’s a good burger near the station. It is not a reason to cross town. My Korean-language review says exactly that, and gives it 3.0.

If you’re visiting: go. A fish cake burger made by Busan’s oldest fish cake house, two minutes from the station, for about ten dollars. That is not a judgement about how good the burger is. It’s about what you are unlikely to meet again once you leave.

⭐ Buy fish cake downstairs on your way out. Samjin sells packaged gift boxes and it’s one of the better Busan souvenirs — you’re already in the building. ⚠️ Check your own country’s customs rules on processed fish products before you pack it.

Good for

✅	Arriving at or leaving from Busan Station
✅	You want Busan’s regional food in a form you won’t find at home
✅	You read Part 1 and want to see where the story ends up
✅	Filling meal before a train

Skip if

❌	Fish or shellfish allergy
❌	Halal or vegetarian — contains pork bacon
❌	You want a premium burger for ₩14,000
❌	You live here and would have to travel for it

← Part 1	Eomuk — Busan’s Fish Cake
↑ Overview	What to Eat in Busan — and What to Skip
Next →	Part 2 — Dwaeji Gukbap