Odarijip: Soy sauce marinated raw crab in Myeongdong

High on my list for top 10 things I need to eat during my trip to South Korea was raw crab marinated in soy sauce 🤤! I’ve tried this in Vancouver a few times at Jejudo, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Lougheed, but I couldn’t wait to actually try the real version in Korea.

Recommended: Read my review of Jejudo, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Lougheed where they have soy sauce marinated raw crabs.

We found a place that specializes in raw crab in Myeongdong called Odarijip. They have 4.6 stars and over 1,500 Google reviews so we knew it would be popular and good.

We walked in as a table for 4 on a Tuesday night at around 7:20 pm. There was no wait and we were seated right away which is amazing because when we were leaving at around 8 pm, there was a long line all the way down the stairs!

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The vibe

Odarijip is located on one of the busy streets of Myeongdong. I actually think it can be a little bit hard to find because it is on the second and third floor of a building so look for the outside sign and photos of raw crab.

We were seated on the second floor near the windows, which gives a good view of the bustling street outside. I really liked the vibe because there’s a lot of energy in Myeongdong at night. The space itself is a little tight (not accessible at all).

Tales and chairs were all wooden, with a white plastic tablecloth on top. It reminds me of how we would have hotpot at home or at friends’ houses sometimes, where the plastic wrap keeps everything easy to clean.

For raw crab, expect to eat with your hands (they give you gloves), so it is similar to a seafood boil where you just kind of go at it and become an animal 😅.

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Food review

Here is everything we ordered for 4 people. Prices are converted 1000:1 KRW to CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.

Side dishes

The first thing to arrive at our table were the free side dishes. I really liked the plate they used as it features 9 different side dishes for you to share with your table and it just looked very appetizing. You can also get more if you run out. My favourites were the seaweed and spinach side dishes!

They also provided some cut seaweed for us that we can pair with our rice.

Soy sauce marinated raw crab – Medium size for 3 ($110)

Ok first of all, WOW! When this plate arrived I was so excited to eat because it looked amazing 🤩.

We had 4 adults, but we chose to order 3 crabs to share because 1 person said they cannot eat that much raw crab (too fishy for them). We also chose the large size, which is around 350g, vs. the medium size which is around 250g.

All the crabs Odarijip serves are A++ female crabs with eggs caught in Yeonpyeongdo. They are then marinated in soy sauce made with various oriental medicines, fruits, and seaweed, and ripened for 7 days in earthenware, a traditional Korean method, in low temperature.

How we ate it: you take a leg first and squeeze out all the ooey gooey raw stuff and just suck on it 😀. There’s a lot of umami from the raw crab and the soy sauce marinade. My first bite was exploding in flavour – it was sweet and savoury at the same time.

Mixed rice

When you order the crab combos, they also provide 1 mixed rice per serving, so we got 3 since we ordered 3 crabs.

The mixed rice also looks amazing! It looks good enough to eat on its own. It is mixed with some roasted seaweed, fish eggs, and sesame seeds.

As we continued to eat our raw crab, we started to push out the guts and mix it in to eat with the rice. This reduces the fishiness of it and the soy sauce marinade also goes very well with the rice. I liked eating it with the rice the most!

I also recommend you to scoop some of this mixed rice into the crab shell head and mix it all together and eat it as well so you get that soupy rice with crab brains.

Kimchi soup

The kimchi soup also comes with the crab set and it comes in a small-ish hot iron bowl. The kimchi soup doesn’t have a lot of substance to it (mostly just kimchi and veggies), but it was a nice to have in between the rice and the raw crab. Overall, it wasn’t a standout dish.

Steamed egg

The steamed egg also comes with the crab set and is around the same size as the kimchi soup. I did like this more than the kimchi soup though – fluffy steamed eggs! Simple and yummy.

Raw soy sauce shrimp

I don’t remember if this was free or if we added it on because we wanted to try it, but we had a plate of 3 raw shrimp also marinated in soy sauce.

I am a big shrimp lover so I enjoyed it, although I didn’t enjoy removing the shell of the shrimp very much. The crab is definitely easier to eat the way they prepare it and it has more meat.

Cider

Again, the ciders might have been free instead of the raw shrimp, I don’t remember. But if it wasn’t free it’s probably like $1 and it is essentially Sprite/7up.

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Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don’t think I usually give 5 stars out for non-fancy restaurants because the fanciness adds to the experience, but I loved Odarijip!

The raw crab was so good guys omg I can’t. The rice and crab together is heaven. You have to come here! Presentation was beautiful and even though the restaurant wasn’t fancy because of the plastic gloves and it’s messy, I think this is the true raw crab experience. It’s supposed to be like this.

I like eating raw foods like sushi and even during spot prawn season, I enjoy eating spot prawns raw so I wasn’t afraid to eat raw crab and I actually like the taste of it. I will say that after 2 crab legs, I did have to start mixing it with the rice because eating the guts alone started to get a bit too overwhelming.

For the price point, I would say it is reasonable and even pretty cheap for raw crab since $120 and 3 crabs/4 people is less than $30 per person (and there is no tax or tip in Korea). We had a lot of food and were full!

If you are in the Myeongdong area and want to try raw crab, I highly recommend you visit Odarijip and come on a weekday to avoid lines!

Recommended: Read my full travel recap on Seoul part 2 – featuring Myeongdong, Lotte World, Gwangjang Market and more!

Sincerely, Loewe