Jung Soo Nae Restaurant

The GanJang GeJang raw crabs arrived in two plates and split open to reveal the guts inside each small blue crab. It looked mighty fresh. Gen was a big fan of the special soy sauce blend and taught us to eat it by taking some of the rice and putting it into the shell of the crab in order to use up the soy sauce blend. The soy sauce was actually really delicious! The best part was mixing the fat of the carb, called tomalley, into the rice with the sauce!
The difference between cooked crabs and raw crabs is that the meat in the raw crab was very gooey, with its texture and consistency similar to that of egg yolk. It was chilled and very gooey. You cannot distinguish any ‘meat’ inside at all. It also took a bit of time to chew through the shell and legs of the crab in order to eat it. However, it was a very unique and satisfying experience! The rice really went well with the soy sauce blend as well.

I am very surprised at the comments regarding rude service.
I have been coming here for almost 20 years and have never had any incidents with rude staff.
It is a small, family owned and operated restaurant. I have travelled to Korea since 1999 and this place reminds me of the food I loved in Jeolla Province in S. Korea.
The quality of the food is excellent and prepared meticulously and with care. At the end of the day, that’s what my dollar is buying. And Ajossi is a hardworking, salt of the earth, decent human being.

Horrible Customer Service. Worst restaurant I’ve ever been so far.

After bugging my bf to come here for months so I can try their infamous soy sauce marinated crabs, we finally went yesterday evening! We were quickly seated by who I think was one of the owner and I remember other Unilocalers mentioned that the owner and servers were quite rude.
I felt a bit of that rudeness when my bf asked the owner how good the crabs were because he’s never had them here in Toronto and the owner answered they’re the best in Toronto. I don’t speak Korean but you can tell by the tone of her voice. It was just an innocent question.geez. I guess she’s moody ²⁴⁄₇.
Anyway, our side dishes came fairly quickly as well as our food. The crabs came first, and immediately I saw how small they were. These were blue crabs in soy sauce and there were two cut in half. The best part is mixing the crab with rice, and I made sure to scrape everything off. Delicious! There’s not a lot of meat with the other part but you won’t taste any fishiness because it’s been marinated well. My bf said the soy sauce marinated crabs taste the same if you were to eat it in Korea. We also shared a ground soybean stew, and that was alright.
Overall, I’d say it’s good to come try the raw crabs at least once because they are quite pricey! But beware of the owners/​servers although we had no problem with the server.

We received very rude service from multiple servers in the restaurant. Quite unbelievable that there is service like this in Toronto.

Wow the worst customer service ever! Got rude stares from two of the waiters for ordering only one dish… And just kept asking whether I wanted to order more when I said I was okay. Would not recommend at all!

Very rude service, we received cut eye from the serving staff because we ordered too little.

*small restaurant under an apartment complex
*rude service. Even my Korean friend hated the server here.
*Pricing is ok. In Korea the crabs can even be more expensive.
–YangNyeom GeJang (Raw crabs marinated with hot spicy sauce) — $ 14.99
Unlike the ganjan gejang, the crabs for YangNyeom are already opened and cut into pieces before being marinated for the sauce to coat and penetrate the crab meat. While the crab was fresh, there was no other flavors such as sweet or salty and the crab was just. bland and spicy.
–GanJan Gejang (raw crab smarinated in JungSoNae’s special, unique soy sauce) — $ 14.99
I found the brine for the GanJang to be more flavorful while not overpowering nor too salty. The sauce eliminated the raw, fishy taste while enhancing the flavor of the fresh crabs at the same time. Since the crabs were kept whole — which is how it’s supposed to be anyways — I would have appreciated more if the staff provided us with a knife or scissors to cut the crab into bite size pieces. This way it would be much easier to suck the crab flesh out of the legs and claws. I also recommend you guys to put a few spoons of rice into the shell to mix with the roe and tomalley — absolutely delicious!
–SaeAl PatJuk (red bean porridge with rice balls) — $ 9.99
The supposed-​to-​be porridge was thinner than expected — I remember having a creamier red bean porridge in Korea. The rice balls were too salty yet the soup was just not too sweet. The flavor combination was so strange that none of our friends liked this dish.

Price：7/10 (10 means really expensive)
Service: ⁹⁄₁₀
Family-​oriented. Really warm and friendly.
Food: ⁹⁄₁₀
–raw crab: ¹⁰⁄₁₀. love it! If you like Korean style food, u must try this. Put the rice in the crab and eat together.
–fish with hot sauce: ⁹⁄₁₀. Sauce is great
–kimchi fried rice: ⁷⁄₁₀
Food amount: ⁸⁄₁₀ (10 means a lot)
Environment: ⁸⁄₁₀
Feels like you come back home. Not fancy or special but warm.

Finally I tried this place after driving by almost everyday for the last two years. I was surprisingly happy with it. It’s a small restaurant with about 10 tables and it gets busy during lunch time.
I had octopus casserole cooked on table. It was big enough for two people. I didn’t care about the octopus too much. It was good, but nothing too fantastic about it. The sauce was really really good. It was spicy, not too spicy, and sweet. With the sauce, I finished all my rice (I usually don’t eat rice). This dish is officially my favorite Korean dish now. :)
Service was prompted and the restaurant was clean and cozy.
I can’t wait to return. :)
Service

Food was just ok but pricy considering the quality. Gamjatang is 9.99 before tax and the portion was small. This is probably the most expensive Gamjatang in North York. The service was by far the worst that I had in many years. The owner got upset when we asked for more side dishes. He complaint us saying we are ordering more side dishes when we are almost done eating when only ate half of our dishes. When we told them we want to pay separately the owner gave us the long face. Very unpleasant experience and we decided to never go back to this location. If you are thinking of Jung Soo Nae I would recommend you going to the new location.

When you step inside, it’s like you’ve been transported to a small restaurant in rural Korea circa 1995. It’s unassuming, no frills, old-​fashioned, AWESOME country food. (And yes, as another Unilocaler noted, the washroom is VERY impressively CLEAN.) Especially well-​known for the oh-​so-​delicious, fermented cheong-​guk-​jang (think stinky miso soup or Japanese natto in soup form) or raw (blue) crab marinated in either soy sauce (recommended) or hot spicy sauce. Probably not the best place for a first date, suitable for Korean family visiting from Korea (because it’s that authentic).

Korean food at its best. Atmosphere isn’t the best with the place being so small. Literally could hear all the conversations. Loud but fairly worth it. The ahgeoshi is super nice.

This is an authentic quaint little Korean restaurant tucked away under the apartment complex along Yonge Street. Service was prompt and polite. Tables were for 2, 4 or 6. Washrooms were very clean, if that‘s important to you.
What I love about this place was that it serves up dishes most restaurants don‘t ie. blue crab stew and raw blue crab.
We ordered the Spicy Crab Stew for 2, which was under $ 30. Portions were ample and side dishes were all amazing. I‘d definitely come back to try their marinated raw blue crab. Mmmm!
Parking: Behind the apartment complex — not many.
Alochol: Yes

Came here for dinner tonight. We ordered the grilled octopus with rice cake and kimchi tofu soup for a dinner of two. The grilled octopus is da bomb. Definitely a 5 star for the dish! Once the dish was cooked, it turned into a spicy octopus stew. The rice cakes and bean sprout soaked up the soup. So delish!!! The kimchi tofu soup was ok, definitely not the best kimchi jighae I’ve had. We went there at around 7:30 and the restaurant was very busy. So we waited around 20 mins to get seated. Btw, this restaurant is also well known for their legit Korean style raw crab.

Ganjang Gejang has always been one of my most wanting to try Korean dish for the past year. Until recently, I finally had the chance to get a taste of it. Recommended by one of my friends, Jung Soo Nae has one of the best Ganjang Gejang in Toronto. She said it tastes exactly the same as the one she had in Korea. Of course, without a doubt, my boyfriend and I went there for our Saturday night dinner. Jung Soo Nae is a very small family restaurant hidden on the ground floor of an apartment building. We were there around 6:15pm, and it is already packed. Luckily, we got the last table available, we sat down and started to order =)
Here are the side dishes. The best ones are FISH CAKE, bean spouts, and mung bean jelly. We had them refilled couple of times.
Since it is crab season, all tables have at least one order of Ganjeng Gejang. We were very excited once the waiter bought the gejang to our table. Seeing the tomalley and roe just make us salivate even more and we couldn’t wait to give it a try =) The crab itself was pretty good, however the marinating sauce was a bit too ordinary. It seems like they used nothing else but soy sauce to marinate the crabs. There was no other taste than saltiness in the sauce. In addition, the claws were not cracked, so we have no way to get the claw meat.
Their bimbimbap comes with heukmi (black rice), which is a much healthier options to plain white rice. Heukmi has much more nutritious values such as iron, vitamin E, and antioxidants. The bimbimbap was loaded with veggies and beef, the portions are bigger than any other Korean restaurant we have been to.
The Gamjatang was served extremely hot, as you can see the steam coming from it in the picture. The taste was a little bit to salty, it is great if you have it with rice. However, if we were to eat it alone, the flavours were just too rich. We also found ourselves drinking a lot of water after having it.
On the whole, Jung Soo Nae is a very nice restaurant for family gatherings or small parties. The Ganjang Gejang was a little disappointing and overpriced, but it is worth the experience. Even though the staffs do not speak fluent English, they are very friendly and tried their best to serve us. We look forward to revisit and try something new on their menu.

Went here for my friend’s birthday. I just love this small but warm restaurant.
It’s a hidden restaurant near Finch station (under/​next to an apartment) and it’s small so if you come here during their rush hour, good luck having a seat.
The staffs are friendly. The old man can speak better English and he was very nice. We asked for iced water and he asked if we want cold tea. When he had nothing to do, he started to clean every leaf of the tree they have for decoration. The lady couldn’t speak English very well but she was very friendly. After helping us with the grilled octopus, she looked at me and pointed at the it. I think she tried to tell me that: «The octopus is ready you can eat it now.»
We order crab soup and grilled octopus. Their serving size is huge!!! Their crab soup was very good and spicy!!! It was also perfect for such a cold day during spring (almost summer). Although crabs were small but they were still very tasty. Grilled octopus came with rice cake, and bean sprouts. It was really flavourful!
We love the kimchi and fish cake. We kept having those two refilled: p
The price is reasonable for the portion size. I was impressed with their washroom. It’s super duper clean! VERY CLEAN!
Even though the restaurant is small, it’s warm and very welcoming and friendly. I know it’s weird but I felt like I actually was invited to a Korean friend’s house to try their food.
I will definitely come back here to try more food. Plus, I will definitely recommend this place to whoever wants good Korean food with friendly service.

The raw crab here is not my type, but the seafood pancake is nice, the fried fish is delish, spicy chicken pot is good but they give less chicken than lim ga nei, side dishes r good
Service here is friendly

There are a lot of Korean restaurants near the Yonge/​Finch area, mostly easy to find, but this one is quite hidden. I’ve been to this place twice and it was quite full so we assumed the food must be good. However, we were disappointed twice.
First time, they were out of their famous crabs, so we tried the pork bone soup hot pot. It was enough for two but I’ve tried better pork bone soup hot pot. The flavour is not quite right and we were really thirsty after eating it.
Second time, we tried the crab, the recommended one year old kimchi soup, and seafood tofu soup. The crab was quite expansive and it was not worth it. If I remember it right, it was almost $ 20 for three or four really small crabs. The crabs were raw and seasoned with soy sauce and left in the sauce for around a week. The taste is not good and is clearly overpriced. The seafood soup had almost no seafood. The one year old kimchi sounds good but it is much worse than the regular kimchi, it was very sour and it was chewy, not crunchy at all.
Also, this place is more expensive than many other Korean restaurants I have been to. I would not recommend it to anyone.

Must visit if you want authentic traditional delicious Korean food. Food tastes like it was made with love and care by your grandmother’s hands. That’s all I have to say about this place. Go eat!!!