Vermont Soon Dae

Their raw soy sauce crab is so good! Eat it Korean style for best results — grab one of the crab shells, mix in rice with the crab, and enjoy a little slice of heaven.
Also, for the tuna, they were the biggest slices of tuna sashimi I have ever seen. Actually all the portions are incredibly generous — we had enough leftovers to feed at least several more people (we came as a group of 8)
I know it’s called Vermont Soon Dae, but you have to come here for the seafood.

So damn goooddddd… a different kind of seafood experience. Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys seafood or an Asian type of seafood experience.

This place is ridiculous. Never knew it really existed. Came here tonight with my brother to get our crab on. I think every dish we got was amazing. The portions are more than generous and the prices are very affordable. Came here and ordered for both of us. But I think 4 people could have ate was served to us. Spicy raw crab and soy sauce raw crab are the best I have ever tried. I couldn’t get a picture of them cause I devoured them on sight. Stop by if your in Koreatown! Amazing crab restaurant!

Validation $ 2… Oh yea~~!!! Make sure you dip your potato pancake into the crab sauce!!! Soooo delish!
We ordered the $ 53.99 combo for 4 of us — you will get full and its MORE than enough!
The raw crab is still the best in Ktown here and the taste hasn’t changed at all!!!
At the end the best part is the flour dough in the ttang (stew) — Super delish~~

I took my parents here to celebrate a birthday. We ordered Ah-​gu-​jim, Soy Sauce Crab, and a medium-​sized spicy Crab stew. Fantastic food all around, including all of the side dishes. Seriously, the food was so fresh and well-​prepared, I completely over-​stuffed my stomach.
In my experience, the service was very good as well. I was so happy with everything, I gave perhaps the biggest tip I’ve ever given in my life! I highly recommend =)

They changed to a Seafood joint—
Their Soysauce Crab is
!
And they give a lot of free stuff.
I ordered 3 korean crabs, and they threw in extra crabs plus potato pancake for free. Everything was super fresh, and not too salty.
Will definitely come back for more crab when in the mood!

Omg! This restaurant is like the best! Everything I’ve tried so far tastes wonderful! I would totally recommend this place to anyone. Stay tuned for new menu items!

Worst service ever! If you are not old Korean guys, don’t go to this place because the ladies ignore and discriminate you. I went here around 8PM with my gf and this place was not crowded. But there were a couple of tables occupied by old Korean guys and the ladies were so busy to flirt with those tables, they tried to chat with them and provided many on-​the-​house foods which we did not get any. So I asked one lady what kind of food you are serving to them, I know it is on the house but she said they were 3 bowls of noodles and they charge them for $ 12…What a liar! Honestly I am not greedy about their on-​the-​house food but I hate that they discriminate between old Korean guy customers and others. I won’t go back to this place!

Very good service. We ordered a variety of dishes for a group of 6. The staff was very attentive and even gave us extra food. All around a good time.

I don’t remember seeing menu in English. Fermented skates (one of their special dishes) isn’t for everyone. It has very distinctive odor and not everyone can handle it. Trust me. Either you love it or hate it kind of food. Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, they do it well. Their spicy monkfish with bean sprouts is very good. They actually put a decent amount of monkfish, less bean sprouts. A pleasant surprise. Overall, authentic dishes and good service. Small parking lot and expect a valet service if you arrive during lunch or dinner rush.

O.M.G.
.
This place not only has one of the best «soondae“‘s I’ve ever tried, but also has the B.E.S.T «samhap» in LA!!!
My friends and I have been raving and could not wait to try this place for «samhap» because not a lot of places sell «Honguh» (fermented skate) The reason being is that not a lot of foreigners can take in the smell of this fish, neither can a lot of Koreans. But being raised to try different foods and not be picky, my father taught me how to eat Honguh. I searched and searched and decided to try Vermont Soondae. I was super skeptical at first because come on… It’s called Vermont SOONDAE not Vermont HONGUH but boy did I feel dumb for being skeptical about this restaurant!!!
The price is one of the best deals you could ever have. Ordered the Samhap for 3, since there were three of us. We were stuffed and almost exploded by the end of our meal and couldn’t even finish everything that was presented in front of us. They give you a whole bunch of side dishes starting from some «soy sauce marinated raw crab», pancakes, kimchi, soondae, raw tuna and a lot more.
The best combo with the Honguh is to have some Makgeolli, which is raw rice wine. Trust me on this. If you love Honguh, come to this place. (: Take my word for it!!!
The owner of this restaurant seemed a little shocked that three young girls were able to eat Honguh haha it was pretty cute how he secretly would peak at our table to see if we could really eat it.
Definitely coming back again!

Some places you go for the service. Just happened to see this place and came in for the spicy marinated raw crabs, and ordered the crab soup also. Everyone was very friendly, very unusual for a ktown restaurant, but in here, the owner made sure to stop by our table at least 3 times to ensure everything tasted and were served well. He also gave us some fatty tuna sashimi for free, which didn’t hurt. It tasted super fresh. Again, service was very remarkable. Next time I have to try thw soy marinated crabs. Oh yeah. Everything tasted very good.

I came here to eat soon dae gook.
It was not the best but I liked it. Kimchi that was served with soon dae gook was super good and tasted like they make their own kimchi.
Service was okay but the guy owner was not nice when he made fun of my accent.
Valet parking $ 2!!!

After Unilocaling, cross referencing with some Korean ahjumma message boards, and conducting a straw poll of the best soy crabs in the area, my friend and I settled here. Why the intense research you ask? Well, I live in ganjang gaejjang deprived Northern Virginia and my friend drove up from SD only on the premise that we will be eating crabs.
So we drove up on a Sunday afternoon, ordered the crabs, the never-​frozen pan fried sea eels, and a plate of soondae. The soy marinate wasn’t what I was used to; instead of the typical soy sauce taste, it had other herbs in it that made it so much more flavorful and easy to consume.
It was so good that my friend ended up buying 10 crabs back home. I was tempted to but wasn’t sure how i was gonna explain it to TSA.

This is actually one of my favorite place for some fresh fishes and marinated raw crab.
Don’t let sign fool you «V Soon Dae» I’m not a big fan of soondae. Their menu varies often. I had freshest toro and king octupus sashimi which tasted great along with freshest uni and soy marinated king size prawns. If you have everything I had dinner for 2 with soju & beer, then tab will run about $ 140 which is not cheap but other than that food was great!

been in Koreatown since 2006 and I just found out this gem!
restaurant is located on Vermont/​San Marino with valet parking. has a homey feel to it and service is great. lots of extras given, especially the «ban chan» which was better and had more variety than most ktown restaurants i’ve been.
got the soondae + bossam combo which came with a bunch of seafood and sushi… nice variety and mix of food that wasn’t too heavy (until i ate too much)…
customer service was excellent, and idk if it was cause we ordered a lot, but we get service bottles of alcohol and soup…
will be back to quench my soondae craving.

I came here two weekends ago for a late Saturday dinner. The place happened to be one of the few establishments serving soondae in Koreatown later in the night, so we made a point of trying it out.
It’s a small joint and at that hour, there was no wait for a table of two, although it is important to note that there was foot traffic basically the entire time we were there.
We ordered one of the combos that had both the soondae as well as the pork hock (jokbal) and also came with a potato pancake, and of course there was banchan. The soondae was average as was the accompanying soup, and what I really liked was the jokbal. It seemed leaner and less fatty than at other Korean places I’ve tried. I was also a big fan of the potato pancake — it was different from some of the other ones I had — tasted more like a potato mash that had been pan-​fried lightly than a traditional Korean pancake.
We also ordered a starter of the marinated raw crab. It’s one of my favorite Korean dishes — you have to be more of an adventurous eater to appreciate it since it’s served chilled, doesn’t necessarily look super appetizing, and is raw seafood. This one was a bit more salty than I would have liked, but it was evened out with the bland (er) soup with the soondae.
Service: The woman holding down the fort was nice, attentive, and very good about explaining things to our non-​Korean table. It was a nice change from the dismissive attitude that you sometimes can get.
Bottom line: I’d come back for soondae, that jokbal, and the potato pancake!

Really great Korean style restaurant. Don’t confuse with Korean BBQ. This place doesn’t have BBQ. Special for pork which cooked real Korean style. Come with a lot of side dishes.

I normally don’t get soondaeguk but it was really good here. They have these combo meals that are extremely affordable and worth it! I’d come by here more often if I lived in the area. Customer service here was excellent and so was the food. WILL DEFINITELY be back!

I’m always on the search for good soon dae and ddukbokki and more often than not, I’m disappointed. Nothing really lives up to the street food eaten in the streets of Korea or your mother’s ddubokki. My siblings and are were in the mood for some late night eats so we stopped by here. Service is what you would expect, very brisk but comforting.
Between the three of us, we ordered some soondae, and ddukbokki. We didn’t want the soup that came with our meal so our server was nice enough to switch it out for more soondae. She also gave us some stewed fish on the house that was just a little sweet for me but went along pretty well with some rice. However, that’s pretty much where anything good ends. The soondae was smaller and cut up in a way that I wasn’t used to and it didn’t taste all that good neither. Extremely salty. In fact, it was so salty that I didn’t even need the dipping sauce. The ddukbokki was a huge miss for me. It was over the top sweet and salty. Not good at all. I did like the complimentary tea the restaurant gave us and because of the salty food, my siblings and I went through many rounds of that.
I don’t know why it’s so hard to find fabulous soondae in Koreatown. Or maybe I’m just picky since I’ve had it my whole life. Anyways a miss for me at Vermont. I’ll continue my search with my siblings. ²⁄₅