Nak Won Garden

Great food and atmosphere. The pork belly was delicious. Living in Squirrel Hill/​Shadyside there are so many options but this one is the best. My wife and I eat here often.

I never write reviews but this was one legit meal. The carpaccio was to die for and the service was outstanding. I will definitely be going back soon!!!

NWG has been a blessing since they opened! I’ve been looking for great Korean food since I moved to Pittsburgh 5 years ago. Every place I’ve tried has been very, Meh…
Anything off their BBQ menu is perfect!!! Try the Bulgogi. You won’t regret it.
Bring a bottle of wine and their staff will make you feel right at home.
Great service and AWESOME food. What else can you ask for?
Thanks Nak Won Garden! I’ll see you soon!!!

Ordered galbi tang soup and beef bibimbap :-) the food is okay, and they provide small dishes! I love the fish cake. The tea is also great!!! The restaurant is not so big and very crowded. Since there is not many Korean restaurants nearby center ave, will recommend this one !

I went here twice with different friends. None of them said the food was impressive. The price of bulgogi is little higher than we expected.

Being an out of town patron, I was craving some warm Korean food since it was really cold outside. This was the closest Korean place to where I was staying so I make a trek to Nak Won Garden. This place may be a hole-​in-​the-​wall establishment, but the food is pretty good. I ordered the beef soon-​du-​bu which is a beef tofu soup. The banchan (side dishes) come in these really tiny bowls but of course they refill it for free. The service was on point and food was decent. It definitely satisfied my craving for Korean food. The food is on the pricier side of the spectrum, but worth it.

The hot stone rice (?not sure about its name) I had was just so so, not as good as the one in college in my hometown. Service was nice and staffs were friendly and helpful.

My last review was during their initial opening, but I don’t think things have gotten any better though I’ve been back 4,5 times. I’ve wavered between ²⁄₃ stars because the food simply isn’t that good, and there’s a lack of competition.
They do now offer Korean-​Chinese, and I ordered take out of Tang Soo Yuk today. The dish was placed in a styrofoam container WITH the sauce, so the fried pork was soggy. The sauce spilled outside the container so bringing it back was nerve-​wracking because I didn’t want the sauce to spill. Other than that situation, the sauce was pretty tangy, and I enjoyed that. The amount of pork was really, really small compared to the price, and the only veggies were onions and some slivers of red pepper– disappointing. I was looking for carrots, some green veggies, but nothing.
The Soon Dubu was still a little bland, and therefore I won’t be ordering it again if I go back. Banchans definitely got worse since their opening– some broccoli, kimchi, and fishcake.
Overall, this review was pretty negative coming from a Korean, but I was disappointed. I do enjoy their Pajeon and Boodae Jjigae, but this experience put a damper on this place for me.

The food is so good and prepared by the pleasant staff right in front of you. I also love that’s it’s byob with giant eagle right there with a huge selection of beer.

I am a fan of Korean food, and I have to say that this is the best Korean restaurant in Pittsburgh. I have been Korean Garden, Green Pepper and Sushi Kim. As for me, Nak Won Garden is the best.

The Korean restaurant is great! I will definitely visit again! I ordered fired rice last time. I really love the flavor!

Everything in here is great except for food. Bulgogi is too sweet, chicken soup is weird, seafood pancake is the only one I feel ok.

I stopped in here for lunch today. Since they don’t have a menu available online there was no ordering ahead. Also, once I got there I found out it was cash only unless you spent at least 25 dollars. So I put my order in for the Soondubu and headed to the ATM in Giant Eagle. Soondubu is a «silken tofu» in a «spicy, savory broth» with I got with beef and came with slices of pork and kimchi on the side as well as rice. I thought the Kim-​Chi and sliced pork was very good. The tofu and broth however left a lot to be desired as I found the broth to be neither savory nor spicy. As a lunch place I was somewhat disappointed that they did not have any options less than $ 10.99. I’d still like to come back and try their Korean BBQ sometime, but probably won’t be getting take-​out for lunch again.

I have already visited Nak Won Garden three times within two week after their reopening. I love the variety of authentic Korea dishes on their menu. I have had Tangsuyuk (Sweet and sour pork, the best one I’ve ever had in Pittsburgh), jjambbong (Korean-​Chinese Spicy Noodle Soup, well it’s actually a surprise order because I pointed at the wrong item on the menu but it turned out to be great! a lot of seafood and the portion is huge…), Galbi Dolsot Bibimbap (the meat is very tender and well-​marinated) and my favorite samgyetang (Ginseng chicken soup). I’ve always been carving for samgyetang ever since Green Pepper stopped offering it, therefore I’m so glad that it appears on Nak Won Garden’s menu! It definitely won’t disappoint you if you prefer the lighter side of Korean food like me. I would say this is the best Korean restaurant in Pittsburgh right now.

Went with a group of friends yesterday at 6pm, crowd started soon after we were sitted.
The food was very good: the thickness of the seafood pancake was just right and tasted very good, and bibimbap was normal. My friends shared a set of grilled meat, I did not try hence no comment about the taste.
The service was another matter. Restaurant was very short of staff, and there were only 2 servers on the floor, one presumably the owner. As one can imagine, the service was pretty erratic; we asked for ban chan refills thrice, and they came only around 15−20min later, water refills had to be asked and reminded as well. And it was a disaster at the cashier, as partly our fault, we did not inform the server we wanted to pay with more than 1 cards before bill was printed; did not realised it was an auto gratuity of 20% for a party of 6 and more (which did not justify the level of service we received), and the presumed owner had a problem with the program they used for cashier.
The experience was really stressed and I am not keen on returning. However, do go there if you’re looking for a job!

Compared to the other Korean restaurants in Pittsburgh, I would say Nakwon comes out to lead the pack. The food offers a more authentic taste and menu compared to other local places. Especially for being a new restaurants, I was fairly impressed.
SEAFOOD PANCAKE (Haemul Pajon) –
Started out with the seafood pancake as an appetizer and it was delicious. The pancake wasn’t too battery or soggy. It had a nice crisp on the outside from the pan frying. Also, there was surprisingly a lot of seafood in it. They definitely did not skimp on the squid or the shrimp. The green and red peppers were also still a nice crunch and not over cooked. I didn’t care much for the sauce they have with it — I personally thought it tasted better in it’s own.
CASSEROLE –
One word — YUM! So good — all their soup based dishes seemed to be prettty delicious in general. I don’t remember which one I had specifically but I would imagine that any of them would be great. The broth was a really good flavor — nice and spicy. Definitely makes you sweat. Definitely made me sweat. Filled with sausages, rice cake, onions, kimchi, and ramen! We ordered a lot but the sheer size of this dish alone could easily feed 3 – 4 people.
MARINATED BEEF (So Bulgoki) –
I wasn’t particularly impressed with their bulgogi. It was a bit bland for my tastes and I thought that the meat could be more tender. It was a bit too chewy as well.
STEAMED EGG (Gyeran Jjim) –
I don’t even remember if we ordered this, but it was quite good. The end was nice and fluffy. Extremely light and sweet… and hot. Gosh that egg holds it’s heat in the stone pot.
SPICY PORK BELLY (Gochujang Samgyeop) –
Pork belly marinated in Korean pepper paste, or gochu. Possibly better in theory. I didn’t particularly enjoy this dish from here if were being honest. I found the meat to be quite chewy like the beef. It was a bit hard to eat. The pork belly also wasn’t as spicy or have enough kick, not as much as I expected anyway.
I’m interested to see how their KBBQ is. They’re one of the few places in Pittsburgh that have you cook it yourself at your table. (There needs to be more places!) I would come back and try their KBBQ though.
Side note– they have whole clementines post-​dinner, which I actually absolutely loved.
The service was great. Everyone was very friendly and attentive. They even offered «service» aka on the house items.
The restaurant isn’t huge, but would be good for small group get together. It’s BYOB with a $ 2 fee per person, pretty reasonable in my opinion. Overall prices are still expensive. All Korean food in Pittsburgh is fairly overpriced though, so I guess it’s ‘competitive’ in the market. Suggest going with a group and splitting the bill/​meal. It’s definitely a family style restaurant not a 1:1.

We came here late on a Tuesday night, excited to enjoy some authentic Korean food. I grew up near Annandale, a town in northern VA with a huge korean population, so I have been very much spoiled by the korean food there for much of my life. It is some of the best you will ever have. Here in Pittsburgh, I’ve only ever been to Green Pepper, which I think is just OK.
Nak Won Garden’s interior is small and unassuming. There is one long row of tables lining the wall. The tables themselves are cute; they contain drawers where the clean utensils are kept (so you can grab them yourself). The service was very competent, and I enjoyed the dish that one of the servers (who was korean) recommended: Jukgaejang, shredded beef in a spicy broth with scallions. The broth itself was delicious, full of flavor and excitingly spicy but not so much so that I couldn’t enjoy the other flavors.
My boyfriend had the dolsot bibimbap (the one that comes in the clay bowl and is a few dollars more expensive), and he was pretty disappointed. I agreed that, compared to other places we’ve had bibimbap, it was pretty lacking in both flavor and quantity of meat/​veggies.
Our banchan were alright, but it seems like we got fewer of them than I’ve seen in some of the pictures posted on Unilocal.No kimchi, japchae noodles, cucumber, or mashed-​potato banchan.
Since I enjoyed my Jukgaejang and there are many more positive reviews of this place, I would like to come back again. Maybe earlier in the day in case they run out of dishes by the end of the night!

Being rather new, Nak Won may have a few kinks to sort out, but I am confident that they can grow to be another one of the good Korean restaurants in town (of which there aren’t many). Their menu is quite extensive, ranging from barbecue to soups and stews. Prices are reasonable as well – if I recall correctly, the barbecues seem to be cheaper than Korea Garden and unlike the competitor seem to come in different serving arrangements, so that you can do a per-​person or per-​table basis. I didn’t get any this time, but I would want to come back for lunch on weekdays, which offer more affordable versions of stuff like bulgogi. Other menu differences are that Korea Garden does more Chinese (noodles) and even Japanese (bentos) menu items.
This time we had the soondubu, the beef and seafood versions. Very nice portions of meat and tofu in the soup, while the soup itself was extremely flavorful. Maybe the one at Korea Garden gives even more in terms of seafood, but I definitely prefer the soup here.
Banchan was good too, although we were left a bit dissatisfied with our selection. Both tables on either side of us clearly got more than 4 different choices (e.g. we didn’t get kimchi, seaweed, or potato), and when we asked a waitress if we could have some more she kinda stumbled and said «umm how about cucumber?» Not that what we got wasn’t good (it was all tasty, including the cucumber), but it was just not a great feeling seeing other tables get more appetizers in terms of variety and quantity than we did. Not sure if it had to do with the items we ordered, but I never found this to be the case in other Korean restaurants I’ve visited. Hopefully won’t happen again next time.

We got here around 7 pm on a Tuesday evening, a party of 5. Unfortunately they had no tables open but we walked over to giant eagle to get a six pack since it is byob there. Before we finished buying our beer they called to say they had a table, so the wait was short.
Once there, we waited at least 5 minutes before we were brought water or even a bottle opener to start drinking our beer. The service was slow, but I’m willing to overlook that since they only recently opened and probably have been getting more business than they could have guessed.
We started with a big kimchi pancake and it was crispy and flavorful. Great sharing size. I got the haemul soondubu – there was so much seafood in it! Tiny shrimps and squid legs, little clams, and of course the ever tender pieces of silken tofu, with a raw egg tenderly placed on top of it all. It was super delicious and I was pretty happy with the price, which is $ 1 – 2 cheaper than the one at Korea Garden.
The banchan was varied and some that I had never had before. Fresh kimchi, burdock root, spinach, celery, and bean sprouts. They were happy to replenish it once we had gobbled it all up. The burdock root was my favorite – their seasoning was excellent.
I definitely plan on going there again. The quality of their food was solid and the prices were very reasonable. The seating area is small, however, so I will probably stick to visiting on weekdays. Wonderful new addition to Pittsburgh dining!

They’re a solid 3.5 but I’ll tend down toward the 3 just because the dinner prices are pretty high – I’ve heard lunch is a good $ 5 cheaper so we’ll have to head back to check it out.
When we walked in, we were the only completely non-​Asian table, which seemed to be a good sign. We were promptly poured hot tea, and given water upon request (yeaaaah some habits die hard). We opted for a spicy pork belly dish (tasty, although not super spicy) and bibimbap. The bibimbap was very flavorful, and the housemade gochujang (occupying large ketchup-​style bottles on the table) was really tasty – I was tempted to pour some out into my doggy bag! My biggest critique was that despite being served in the traditional iron pot, the bottom rice was not anything close to crunchy, which is one of my favorite parts of the dish. There was also not very much meat in this dish.
The banchan were good – we were pleasantly surprised to receive it without ordering a tableside cooked item. However, most, if not all, of the items were pickled – no steamed eggs, japchae, or jeon. I’m not sure if these offerings rotate or if this is all they ever have.
At any rate, we’ll be back for lunch, and possibly with a group to try some of the tableside-​cooked food… but I miss Flushing!