Rice Thief

I was at this rather unique Korean restaurant a couple of months ago with a large group. They specialize in gejang/게장, or in other words, raw marinated seafood Korean style, which is marinated in either soy sauce or gochujang. The staff was pretty friendly, and the place inside was quite casual and slightly loud, but not too overbearing. To drink, I had a sikhye/식혜, which is either available in the traditional style with just fermented rice for $6, or also with pumpkin for $8. It was less sweet than the canned variety I have had before, and it was a nice touch to top it with a little piece of jujube/red date and some pine nuts. A few others ordered their cocktail pouches, with a couple of people liking the Open Sesame for $15, and another person or two also enjoying the $14 Pear with Me. They gave us some banchan consisting of broccoli with a bit of sesame as well as a slightly fermented kimchi, which was decent. The first thing that arrived was something I can't eat, which was the Seafood Pancake/Haemul Pajeon/해물파전 for $24 listed as our classic Korean Style seafood pancake, crispy fried batter, squid, shrimp, clam & scallion and paired with our home style soy sauce dip. It was cut up into eight pieces, and it seemed like there was plenty of seafood inside. I unfortunately have a cephalopod allergy, so squid is a no-go, but the rest enjoyed it. The next to arrive was one of their signatures, the Soy Platter for $89 with 6 soy crabs, 6 white shrimp, 4 red shrimp, and 3 abalone, with the host ordering extra of the blue crabs so everyone could have one. The platters come with rice and seaweed, but we upgraded to the Rice Thief Bowl, which is $5 with the platters or $8 normally, which has some masago, wakame, daikon, roasted seaweed & sesame seed along with the rice, which was very tasty, from the bit I could taste. The platter was as per the price point, quite massive, and I think two or three people could eat it as a main and leave comfortably full with another appetizer or something. The crabs had a good amount of roe and were soft enough in most places to bite and eat the delicious slightly sweet and salty meat inside. However, my preference was surprisingly the shrimp as I liked the texture more, and it was less of a hassle with the red shrimp being stronger flavored. The abalone had good texture as well, and overall, we all enjoyed this a lot. As this is a raw seafood place primarily, the other two $25 dishes were fine. The better of the two was the Beef Brisket DwenJang Jigae with thinly sliced beef brisket, fermented soybean miso soup, tofu, slightly spicy anchovy broth, assorted mushrooms, jalapeno, and squash. The broth had a nice fermented flavor with some funk and plenty of pretty tender beef. The portion size was also adequate for the price point. The Spicy Pork Belly for $25 with sauteed spicy pork, Korean sweet & spicy sauce, onion, rice cake, and jalapeno was alright. It was well portioned, though I found the meat not as tender as some other spots. However, the sauce was solid, and I can imagine the spicy crabs having a good kick of flavor as well, and I wouldn't mind having that instead of the soy version next time. I wouldn't mind going back here at all, as overall, I liked the food a lot. The platter also sounds excellent for a group, though likely, I'd try their abalone jook and/or the spicy marinated crabs next time.

You've been warned: coming here is an actual financial hazard because you will spend all your money on the marinated crab that u have never imagined. It's ridiculously good and really a rice thief. Best of all, the service is impeccable. The staff is always checking on you, making sure you have gloves, fresh plates, rice, and everything else you need. Just make sure your wallet is ready for the crab obsession. Worth every penny!

Korean marinated crabs, shrimp, abalone and other more tradition dishes as well as a seafood tower. The bagged drinks were good, but preferred the simple sweet rice drink. The place is packed and smells great, but pretty loud. Gloves are provided to handle the marinated items, also ordered pork stew, rice chirashi and pancakes. Ok service, a bit lagging to get the bill and pay.

First time at the physical restaurant but I ordered before when it was just a delivery place - it was just as good as I remembered! Amazing quality seafood and the crab mixed with the rice bowl is still my favorite dish. It WILL be messy but it’s so worth it. The restaurant interior is small so would recommend reserving ahead of time, but they were able to accommodate a bigger table for us last minute which I really appreciated. Will definitely be back to try more things.

The food was authentic and great, however I have to say service did not meet expectations. There was no host in the front to sit us (the server sat us eventually) and we had to awkwardly stand even with a reservation. Servers kept getting us the wrong food and no utensils with the food, and also forgot to serve us the banchans (seemed like other table had them). Seemed like very short staffed. The only reason why I tipped was because they were nice. Seafood is fresh.