Na-re Korean Kitchen: Marinated raw crab in Burnaby
We see Korean raw marinated crabs for sale in H-mart and other Korean supermarkets all the time, but there aren’t that many restaurants that actually offer it. I have only tried raw marinated crab at Jejudo, a Korean BBQ spot in Lougheed and the only other place I know of is Jinmi downtown (but I haven’t dined with them yet).
I have also tried raw marinated crab in South Korea when I was exploring the Myeongdong area, at a popular restaurant called Odarijip.
But recently, I found a new spot in the Lower Mainland that has raw crab on their menu – Na-re Korean Kitchen in Burnaby!
Na-re Korean Kitchen
7413 Edmonds St, Burnaby, BC V3N 1B1
The vibe
Na-re is a casual and cozy restaurant. Strangely enough, it kind of felt like winter/Christmas when we first entered because of the lights on the fake tree by the counter. Chairs and tables are black and wooden (nothing special) and the wall had a strange fake window.
We came on a random Thursday night for dinner and every table was actually full so business seems to be decent.
Food review
Here is everything we ordered for 2 adults. Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
Ganjang gejang ($29)
This was the main reason we decided to eat at Na-re and it was also the first dish to come out (very quickly). One order of the Ganjang (soy sauce) gejang (crab) comes with around 6 small raw crabs marinated in soy sauce and a side order of rice with some green onions and sesame seeds.
For $29, I would say this is a pretty good deal 🤩 considering the raw crab meal set from Jinmi in downtown Vancouver will cost you about $60 per person.
They provide some plastic gloves so you can squeeze out the crab guts onto the rice without dirtying your hands.
I usually really love my first bite of raw crab and will even suck the remaining guts out of the shell with my mouth. But after maybe my first crab, it starts to get a bit overwhelming and sometimes a bit fishy for me, and then I have to eat it with some rice to balance it out.
I felt the raw crab here at Na-re was decent and it wasn’t too salty from being over marinated in the soy sauce.
Beef tartare ($28)
For our second dish, we decided to be randomly bougie on a weekday night and ordered the beef tartare since it was also one of their signature dishes. This is a Korean-style raw beef with a house special sauce, served with egg yolk and pears.
I found this beef tartare to be below average – it felt a bit “frozen” to me as the pieces of raw beef felt and tasted cold 😕.
For a similar price to the raw crab, I think the raw crab is a better choice.
Tteokboki & chicken combo ($27)
We actually couldn’t decide between ordering fried chicken or tteokboki (spicy rice cakes) so we were happy to see there was an appetizer that was a combo of both 😆.
For the fried chicken, we could choose between original, soy sauce, or sweet & spicy. We chose soy sauce but the sauce came in a separate little cup for us to pour on so it kinda felt like we ordered the original fried chicken. For the tteokboki, you can also choose between original or cheese but we chose the cheese (they sprinkle it on top).
I eat a lot of Korean fried chicken and I think the fried chicken from Na-re is not bad – better than I thought based on the appearance, although I do prefer my fried chicken with a thicker batter/more crunch. The chicken meat inside was juicy 👍.
The tteokboki was what I expected although I do think the portion is a little small for $27. We did however get the last order of tteokboki so it seems like that is a popular item at Na-re.
Bibim naengmyeon ($18)
My husband loves naengmyeon (cold noodles) so we ended our meal with an order of the spicy cold noodles.
It came in a slightly weird presentation – a large plate looking thing (usually it is served in a metal bowl) – and was garnished with quite a lot of beef, egg, radish and cucumbers in a cold broth.
Unfortunately, we found this naengmyeon to not be very good 😔 – my husband believes the broth is missing a lot of flavour and also there just wasn’t enough of it for the amount of noodles and toppings.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Na-re Korean Kitchen floats around a 2-3 star rating for me and the main attraction pulling it up to 3 stars is the raw marinated crab because it was yummy and a good price for the portions. Everything else was just around average to me and I actually would not order 2/4 dishes we ordered – the beef tartare and the cold noodles.
So unless you want to try the raw marinated crab at a lower price, I wouldn’t recommend specifically going to Na-re Korean Kitchen.
Sincerely, Loewe