Hard-core Korean

Marinated crab goes mainstream.

- E. ALEX JUNG

EVERY ASIAN BADDIE I know has been talking about Rice Thief, a ghost kitchen in Sunnyside that turns out batches of ganjang gejang, O a classic recipe of raw crab marinated in soy sauce and aromatics. News of the Korean delicacy's arrival last year spread through group chats: "Study this menu," said one friend, who dropped in the PDF. Another quickly responded, "If you don't invite me, I will drown myself in soy sauce." It wasn't just the people in my immediate vicinity, either: Social media has a way of seizing on weirdly specific things, and raw crab has become an unexpected star of mukbangs and TikToks, like a clip posted by a dietitian named Blair Cooley, who tried a super-spicy version from H Martmade with gochugaru marinade-for the first time only to declare, "I don't know how I feel about, like, the fishiness taste."