Nara Chicken & Tonkatsu — Restaurant in Edmonton

I have been to this restaurant several times and have tried a lot of the dishes.

All of the tonkatsu (Japanese style 돈가스 or pork cutlet), dishes are quite good and their sauce (with a hint of pear) is unique. The meat is always cooked perfectly and the batter is flakey and delicious.

The ingredients in their oodong are standard to this dish, but the soup base is delicious. I like that the base isn't overwhelming with the flavour of denjang (fermented bean paste).

Their beef ramen is quite good. I just had a bite of someone else's dish, but I would definitely order it for myself in the future.

My family wasn't fond of the bibimbap which I would liken to more of a home style bibimbap than one from a restaurant or anything that you would find in Jeonju. For someone who is less familiar with this dish, it might be good, but I would probably not order it again.

The bulgogi rice is quite good and the sauce that they used on the meat is delicious.

The chicken is crispy and the the sauce is delicious and different from any other sauce that I have tried (I've tried a lot of Korean chicken sauces... Like a lot!).

We were completely underwhelmed with the rabokki dish which was $18.99 for a personal serving (we expected a large plate that could be shared with the whole table), and the taste is what you would expect of a train station restaurant dish (bland). It was served in a bowl (it is normally served on a deep plate) with the consistency of a soup, did not include any mandu or a boiled egg (they are not totally required, but most rabokki comes with an egg as a general standard), it wasn't sweet or salty enough, and it was over seasoned with black pepper. It had the standard dukbokki and odeng (fish cake), with ramyeon noodles (and interestingly, some glass noodles as well - this was a first for me!). We ended up taking the entire dish home to add some sugar and soy sauce and reduce the sauce (boil it down) until it thickened properly (we would have added a hardboiled egg as well, but we were out!). This dish needs some improvement in size (or price), consistency, and flavour before I would order it again.

The owners are really nice people and the atmosphere is authentic to what you would find in a comparable restaurant in Korea. They are licensed, so you can order a drink with your meal and I noticed a lot of Skip the Dishes couriers, so you can even order out of you like.

My family is a big fan of this restaurant, but I would probably stick with the chicken and tonkatsu dishes which is what they are really good at making. We will continue to frequent this...

We ordered food from this restaurant for dinner today and overall the food was decent. The Korean fried chicken was decent but definitely not the best I've ever eaten. The spicy sauce chicken and the cheese chicken were both delicious but the original fried chicken and the soy garlic were just meh. The cheese tonkatsu was delicious and the portions, which at first seemed way too small, were actually very filling. The big issue I had with this place was the fact that the ttokbokki was SUPER SALTY. My wife and I both were only able to have a piece or 2 before it was getting to be too much, which is a shame because the cheese was delicious. The soy garlic chicken was also quite salty and almost greasy to the point where I needed the pickled radish to offset the flavor and make it edible.

There are definitely good dishes here to try that would be worth it, but the experience was almost ruined by some of their...

Nara is a hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant that has personal charm that I adore. Nara was my introduction to Korean food. Their scrumptious Korean Fried Chicken, bulgogi, bibimbap, tteokbokki and cheese covered curry tonkatsu come with kimchi, radish and cabbage, sesame slaw. Ask for Korokke (off-menu) and if you are lucky, they are not sold out. Korokke are croquettes stuffed with Korean favourites like corn/cheese, bulgogi, japchae, but my favourite is the potato. It reminds me of my polish grandma's cooking. Their Croffles are a delicious choice for dessert, but don't get ice cream because Croffles are best hot with other toppings like cheese. The servers all seem happy to help us learn more about Korean street food and create family style serving so we can try many dishes! I can dine at Nara's for under $20, but the extras are sometimes irresistible. Sharing with others is...