- When I came here for the first time a few years back,
and I enjoyed ganjang gaejang, like, it opened up
a whole other universe of flavor,
that honestly, like, I think propelled me toward
a greater pursuit of amazing Korean food.
So, that's why I love this place.
Raw crab.
It's a specific breed that's flown in from Korea.
And the way they get made,
is put into this incredibly complex, aromatic, sauce.
(chill electronic music)
(gasps)
Eatin' well today! (laughs)
The piece de resistance.
This amazing soy marinated flower crab.
They are using kkotgae,
so kkotgae literally means in Korean, flower crab.
This soy fermented crab is the absolute pinnacle
of Korean cuisine expression.
(chill electronic music)
It's not this heavy spicy red marinade,
instead you have a gentle soy marinade,
and inside you have all these aromatics.
You have onions, you have scallions,
and you even have like traditional Korean
medicinal products like deer antlers,
and licorice root.
The thing is really completed with the addition of Mirin,
which is a rice wine, and also some sake and soju.
This thing, this liquid, just magically transforms the crab.
(chill electronic music)
You can tell this is a female crab,
because you can see the roe, the bright orange roe in there.
But let me crack this open.
(shell crunching)
Okay.
It almost has this like, sheen of like,
bone marrow.
Really and almost the same texture as bone marrow.
But this is cold, this is a completely cold dish.
It's uncooked.
(bright electronic music)
Oh my God.
That is just incredible.
It is so rich, and smooth.
Like, almost like butter melting on your palette.
It just coats your whole mouth.
It has a sweetness to it,
that is indescribable.
Like, I can't...
It's not sugary, it's not caramel-y,
it's got this sweetness that only crab can give you.
(slurping)
I can't...
Oh man.
The gentle fermentation has like, congealed the meat
into this like, kind of uniformed gelatin.
It's countered by the brighter notes of actual marinade.
When it's raw it's another thing completely,
like it's almost unrecognizable.
If blue crab is regular Angus beef, like, this is wagyu,
because it just melts away as you start eating it,
just like a great piece of wagyu beef.
(chill electronic music)
When you have it with rice, because of the soy,
it takes on this almost like, sushi-like quality, right?
This actually reminds me a lot of raw scallop.
When you have a raw scallop, on top of sushi rice,
you get that rich texture of the scallop,
contrasted with the warm rice.
It's the same thing that's happening here,
except you have an entire crab of it.
You can keep getting that incredible combination.
So what I'm going to do is take some of the roe now.
This bright orange roe, along with the...
These are kind of the innards of the crab.
Let's try that.
Get some of the rice.
I'm a little scared of this part,
I don't love eating the middle of the crab,
but maybe that's just because...
Whoa.
Man, that's totally different.
The roe is...
Reminds me heavily of like uni.
That is like truly, truly special.
(chill electronic music)
You can see ganjang gaejang,
you can find it in Korea, definitely.
But in the US, this is not a very common dish.
(groans)
It's a long process,
these things have been aging for two days.
So it is a hard dish to serve,
you have to be known for it, you have to specialize in it,
and that's what I love about Soban.
They have committed to preparing
one of the greatest Korean dishes.
Thank you so much for watching,
and if you want to see more of K-town in Los Angeles,
click right here.
- That was the first father and son trip.
- [Matthew] I had a very good upbringing,
and I ate very well.
- Yeah, and I take full credit for that. (laughs)
(guitar chord)