Kko Kko Na Ra is well known for their fried chicken. However, my visit to Kko Kko Na Ra was to try their chicken feet. After watching the Korean mukbang and varieties shows make me wants to try Korean style chicken feet really bad. It was also something which me and my friend have been talking about it in ages. Finally we manage to find a common time to go down and try the chicken feet.

We visited Kko Kko Na Ra on a Friday evening and it was crowded. I would say almost every Korean restaurant that is situated along the Tanjong Pagar stretch is crowded. The wait time is usually very long as the space in the restaurant is not very huge. As my friend arrives early at the restaurant, our waiting time was about 40ish minutes.

While browsing through the menu, every single items looks so mouth-watering, from kimchi pancake, army stew, fried chicken, fried webfoot octopus, spicy rice cake everything in the menu we wanna try. Sadly we can only eat this much and furthermore the price point is not very wallet friendly. After going back and forth we finally decided to settle with the chicken feet, beef and pork intestine and marinated raw soy crab as it was something that is not available in other Korean restaurants. After we place our order, we were looking forward to our food.

First up was the side dish which comprises of kimchi, pickle cucumbers, shredded potatoes and stir fried fish cake. I must say that their kimchi is delicious, it has a balance of both spiciness and sourishness. Not very often we get shredded potatoes as a side dish, it was well season and taste good. Kimchi style pickle cucumbers is refreshing and crunchy and the stir fried fish cake is yum.

Next up was the soy marinated raw crab. I have been watching Korean varieties show and particularly Fun -Staurant. This is a food concept variety show which showcase Korean actor/actress dishing out dishes based on each week theme. The winning dish will then be sold in local Korean convenient store. It was through this show that I saw them taking about raw marinated crab when it was in season for quite a fair bit.

I enjoy eating crab and I am curious on how it would taste like. We were deliberating whether we should give it a try as it was very expensive. We decided to just go ahead and order it since we will not visit Korea anytime soon. It might not be appealing to one as the thought of eating raw marinated crab sound yuck or wonder if it’s even ok to eat it raw. Just like sashimi (raw fish) the crab too have to be very fresh and once it is marinated for about 24 hours then it is ready to be consume.

Visually it looks so good! I got to squeeze the meat from the body, just like how I watch it on the varieties show. It was so satisfyingly to see the meat and roe flowing out from the body of the crab. At that moment I just could not resist, lol I just didn’t care if I was not prime and proper at the restaurant! I was in a hurry to tasted whatever meat or marinate that was left behind at the body. My first taste impression – it was very salty! However, after I mixed the crab meat with rice and kimchi OMG ~ I just fell in love with this dish! No wonder the Korean enjoyed this delicacies so much when it is in season.

Then the crab shell has lots of rich tomalley and roe, I enjoyed it like how I would for my usual grill crab by mixing the tomalley and roe together before adding spoonful of rice and eat it right out from the shell. It felt as though I was transported to Korea in that instance. If you are a crab lover and have not tried it before I recommend that you give it a try. For sure you can get it cheaper in Korea, but for experience sake in Singapore I would say it worth paying for it once in a blue moon.

The next two dishes kind of fell short for us. In Kko Kko Na Ra their chicken feet were serve in the form of a stew (though the menu indicates grill), the chicken feet will continues to cook until the stew dry up. I was disappointed with the chicken feet, on first bite it was not tender, the stew was spicy and it tasted not too bad. But I was expecting the chicken feet to be tender and when it continue to slow cook the skin and tendons will kind “fall out” easily from the bone just like how the Chinese dim sum restaurant would prepare the chicken feet, unfortunately for this case it did not.

Somehow it also does not look like the chicken feet that were showcase in Korean mukbang or varieties shows. I would say it did not match up to the expectation that we have for Korean chicken feet. I do understand that different restaurant has different way of preparing the chicken feet, there are those boneless chicken feet that were either stir fried or BBQ/grilled. Sadly this was a bummer for us, we were really looking forward to chicken feet for the longest time but this just don’t appeal to us. Comparing to other parts of a chicken, chicken feet (raw) is relative cheap in Singapore. With the price point that we paid it was not worth it. Though it did not meet our expectation, we finish up the dish anyways.

Lastly was the beef and pork intestine. Sigh ~ for the amount we paid the portion size was miserable. The taste is not too bad just that the intestine was kind of rubbery and very oily. Not too sure if it should be like that. The type of intestine that I am used to having in Chinese cuisine are usually soft and tender.

All in all, it was an expensive meal for just 3 dishes. It was an experience that we would not forget. We unanimously agree that the marinated raw crab was the key highlight of our visit to Kko Kko Na Ra. We would love to go back and try their fried chicken as I see almost every table have fried chicken!

Also if you plan to visit Kko Kko Na Ra, don’t forget to take your complimentary ice cream. As we were too full and we totally forgot about it though we kind of remind ourselves at the beginning that we should have ice cream while walking back to the train station. Oh well, we will have it in our next visit.

XOXO

Disclaimer: This is based on my personal preference. Do give it a try and let me know what you think.