My foodie friend raved about the delicious kkot gae tang, Korean spicy crab soup, at Ondal 2. It s located on Washington blvd at the middle-of-no-where part of Mid-City. Later I found out there’s another outpost in the heart of Koreatown. We headed out there with a group of 4 adults and 1 child. There’re other types of soup on the menu but the spicy crab soup (#2 on the menu) is what they’re known for. It came in 3 different sizes, medium $55, large $63 and x-large $75. We ordered the large and it was plenty of food for 4 grown ups.
The soup came with lots of banchan (side dishes).
My favorites were the steamed egg (taste like egg tofu), pickled sweet potatoes and the Korean pancake. In fact we loved the pancake so much that we ordered an extra one.
Here’s the Spicy crab soup. The server emptied the crab meat from the shell into the soup for you so you don’t have to worry about cracking shells. The server would also put rice in the emptied shells and served them for our individual bowl.
The crab-flavored broth reminded me of a very good bowl of seafood soon tofu. We asked for mild in terms of spiciness but it was still quite spicy. Besides crab meat, there’re bean sprouts in the soup.
You can add fried rice or pasta at the end. We got the fried rice. Basically they’d move the remaining soup to another bowl and then put the rice in the pot along with some of the broth from the soup to cook with. It was delicious!
We got really really full by the end, even though a lot of it is water content. I really enjoy the crab soup, but I also felt like the large portion was too much food for the 4 of us. By the 4th or 5th bowl, I felt like I want to eat something else, so I think medium is plenty enough for a group of 4. In fact I suggested that to a friend who went there few days later with a group of 4 and she said the waitress insisted that the medium nor large is enough for them and that they have to order the x-large! The waitress was being very aggressive and the other people in her party who didn’t know better agreed to it. Turns out it’s really way too much food. So here’s a note for anyone who’s interested: for a party of 4, medium is enough, large is very generous, and x-large is excessive. Don’t let the pushy waitress sway you!
Ondal 2
4566 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016
Tags: Korean
