Photo unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
Photo unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A dispute at a neighborhood snack restaurant over a customer who brought in fermented skate — a notoriously pungent Korean delicacy — and ate it at her table has divided public opinion.

The story was recently featured on JTBC's "Sageon Banjang," a TV current-affairs program, as told by a woman in her 40s, identified only as A, who had visited a local snack restaurant with her mother.

Her mother wanted a window seat, so A ended up sitting next to another customer. While waiting for their order, A noticed a strange smell and turned to find the woman beside her eating hongeo — fermented skate she had brought from outside.

"My mother didn't seem bothered by the smell at all and just ate normally," A said. "I tried my best to ignore it and eat, but the smell was so strong I couldn't tell whether I was eating kimbap or hongeo."

She said she deliberately tried to signal her displeasure by asking the restaurant owner whether hongeo was on the menu, and was told it was not.

A then confronted the woman directly, saying the smell was overwhelming and that eating hongeo at a snack restaurant that did not even serve it was inconsiderate. The woman shot back, saying A was being oversensitive, that the smell was not that bad, that the owner had not said anything, and that no other customers had complained. "You chose to sit next to me," the woman added. "Let's just mind our own business and eat."

Commentator Choi Hyeong-jin sided with A, saying hongeo is a divisive food with an extremely strong odor. "Eating outside food like hongeo in an enclosed space such as a snack restaurant — not even outdoors — shows a lack of consideration for other customers," he said.

Attorney Park Ji-hoon agreed, saying hongeo, with its powerful smell, belongs in a specialty restaurant, not a tteokbokki-and-kimbap snack shop.

Psychology professor Park Sang-hee offered a more measured view, saying that while the customer who brought the hongeo was not in the right, directly confronting another customer when the owner had not intervened risked escalating the situation. "If there had been an empty seat elsewhere, moving to another table would have been one option," she said.


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