“Jeon Hyun-moo Plan” pairs broadcaster Jeon Hyun-moo with YouTuber Kwak Tube as they travel around the country with no fixed schedule, hunting down little-known local restaurants. The format relies on tips from locals—the hosts go find the places themselves and order whatever’s recommended—and its authenticity has been backed up by viewers from those very regions chiming in to confirm, “Yes, that’s really a great spot.” Now in its fourth season since it began in 2024, the show has become something of a travel guide, since it highlights restaurants worth visiting in their own right, not because they serve some famous regional specialty.

Mulhoe has turned up unusually often on the show. It’s a dish made by thinly slicing freshly caught fish or squid, tossing it with vegetables and a gochujang (red chili paste) seasoning, and serving it all in a bowl of cold water. The first version to appear on the show was Pohang-style gajami mulhoe (cold raw flounder soup): fresh flounder sliced as thin as noodles, tossed with cucumber and other vegetables in gochujang, eaten first without any liquid and then, later, mixed with rice and water. As the hosts toss the raw fish with their chopsticks and take bite after bite, they let out quiet sounds of appreciation. Once they pour in the water and stir in the rice, they remark on how well the gochujang flavor still comes through and agree it would make the perfect summer meal.

From there, the show moved through different regions and seasons, and a different face of mulhoe appeared each time: Gangneung’s spicy jjamppong mulhoe made with a variety of seafood, Sokcho’s raw squid mulhoe, Jeju Island’s live cuttlefish mulhoe. Fresh, firm seafood tossed with colorful vegetables swims in a spicy-and-sour broth of gochujang and vinegar, flecked with a thin layer of ice—stir it all together, and each bite delivers a rush of cold, chewy, sweet, spicy and tangy flavor at once. Just watching it is enough to cool you down, and after a summer spent drenched in sweat, it’s the kind of dish that can revive even an appetite that’s given up.

Mulhoe’s origins were nothing glamorous. Its earliest form goes back to fishermen who, working out at sea, would mix cold, hardened leftover rice with water, toss in slices of whatever fish they’d just caught, and season it with gochujang to make a quick meal. After becoming popular in the 1960s, it gradually evolved, and today it draws crowds not out at sea but in urban areas. Perhaps that’s why, every summer, Korea’s coastal cities fill up with people chasing this flavor. Since Korea is bordered by sea on three sides, the fish available differ by region—and so does mulhoe.

Along the East Coast, Gangwon State (Gangwon-do Province) is known for mulhoe made with squid or flounder, while Gyeongsangbuk-do Province is famous for versions using flatfish and filefish. Jeju Island has its own version made with a fish found only there, damselfish, called jari mulhoe. Around the South Sea, rockfish, halibut, greenling and squid are common, and other regions showcase mussels, abalone, sea squirt, sea bream, greenling, oysters and more as the star ingredient.

The seasoning also varies by region. Gangwon-do Province favors a spicy gochujang-based sauce, while Gyeongsangbuk-do Province tosses the raw fish and vegetables with gochujang first, eating it almost like a bibim (mixed-style) dish before adding water later on. Jeju Island, on the other hand, slices fresh fish and vegetables, adds water, and stirs in doenjang (soybean paste)—the result tastes less like a rawfish dish and more like a light, clean soup. The South Sea falls somewhere between the two styles, embracing both gochujang- and doenjang-based versions, and some places even add kimchi. These days the regional lines have blurred, so gochujang-seasoned mulhoe is easy to find almost anywhere. And no matter the region, finishing the bowl with rice or noodles stirred in has become something of a universal rule.

What makes mulhoe unique also comes down to the very nature of hoe (raw fish) itself. Eating fish raw is a practice found in cuisines around the world, but the methods differ widely. In South America, there’s ceviche, where citrus like lime or lemon “cooks” the fish through acidity. In Northern Europe, there’s gravlax, cured in salt and spices for flavor. In Japan, fish is aged to deepen umami and soften the texture. Korea, by contrast, favors hwaleo-hoe—raw fish eaten as freshly caught as possible, prized for its firm, springy texture. Rather than treating the fish itself, Koreans lean instead on garlic, ganjang (soy sauce), gochujang and leafy wraps to build a complex layering of flavor.

The main ingredient is Korean, the seasoning is Korean, and even the way it’s finished off with rice or noodles is Korean. Even the act of eating raw fish this way—hwaleo-hoe—exists nowhere else in the world quite like it does in Korea. All of these elements converge in a single bowl, which is why mulhoe can fairly be called a distillation of Korean food culture.

If the summer heat is sweltering where you are, this single bowl might be just the thing to help you cool down and get through the day. Just like the two hosts eagerly working their chopsticks as they taste their way through different regional varieties of mulhoe, you, too, might find yourself savoring every refreshing bite and beating the heat one bowl at a time.