Naru Asian Restaurant

No Panchan! The Kimchi Tofu Soup has NO TOFU (none whatsoever)! Why did you write that on the menu then?! The amount of oil in the dumplings made me gag after the first bite. I was still hungry by the end of the meal since there was nothing edible despite spending $ 20+. I will justify this with giving charity to a poor Chinese family who doesn’t know how to run a restaurant. Their kids are cute, so I hope they will use my money to fund the kids’ education.

I don’t really remember anything good about the time I ate here.
What I do remember is that I had to fetch a water bottle from my car because the glasses they served our water in looked dirty… Food wasn’t good. There weren’t many customers but they seemed to have a couple of take out/​delivery orders.
It was good to try a different restaurant but I’ll stick to the ones in Burlington if I’m looking for some Asian food.

My husband and I go to Naru every chance we get. We pretty much get the same thing every single time; steamed dumplings, and bibinbob.
While I do agree with the other reviewer’s observations of the slow/​inattentive waitstaff, my experience with the food has been very pleasant every single time. The stone bowl for the bibinbob is always hot, and the ingredients are always fresh.
I don’t have a lot of Korean restaurants to compare this to, but I have never been disappointed at Naru, and will continue to go there regularly.
Our favorite time to go is during the warm season when we can sit outside.

I hardly ever give one stars, but this place was definitely terrible. The food was definitely unacceptably terrible. A child could have cooked better food by looking at a YouTube video. We went into the restaurant, and wait probably 20 minutes before anybody acknowledged that we were there. The General Tso’s Chicken was burnt. Luckily, she didn’t charge us for it. I will NEVER go back here even if you paid me.

I have never ordered anything but bibimbob and their kimchi pancakes, but let me tell you something… It’s sooooooo gooodd! The bibimbob came out sizzling hot and kimchi pancake was crunchy! Definitely got to put the red sauce that comes with the bibimbop. I personally, don’t like my food too spicy but you should definitely try the sauce! I can tell you that a lot of people comes in and order to-​Gos so it may look dead in here. However they are busy making those to-​gos! It also looks a bit to dark from the outside in the evening but when you’re sitting at the table the lightening isn’t too bad. My boyfriend orders the Chinese food here and it’s really good! Crab ragoon, amazing!!! Oh yeah, I have tried their bbq short ribs and that is really good! This place is a must try if you wanna step away from eating american food or whatever that you always eat etc. Plus the price isn’t too bad either! Anddddd the food is very consistent!!! I def recommend this place! I’m giving this a 4 star since it was busy and it seemed like there was only 1 chef back there. Food took a little longer than usual but still definitely I would recommend this place to anyone!

I’ve never had a kimchi pancake prior to coming to Naru, but let me tell you, it will blow your mind! There is no other restaurant in Vermont that serves Korean food and although I’ve been to better restaurants with more Korean options, this place makes up for it in quality and consistency. They also have a Chinese menu that you can order from and it is pretty good too. This is probably one of the better Chinese food places I’ve been to while in Vermont. It probably isn’t a good place to eat if you have a party more than 8, since there is only about 20 seats, but definitely good place for a date!

My family and I were excited to have found a Korean restaurant. Expectations were HIGH. My mother is full Korean, and spoke to the waitress in Korean, who looked confused and did not attempt to clarify that she was not not Korean; she meekly stated that she did not understand. We noticed that the restaurant was freezing, and kept our coats on. We asked for hot tea, expecting hot Green tea. AS it turns out, the tea was jasmine green tea, yuck. We ordered our meal, expecting that we would have a multitude of small side dishes with our meal. We received something that resembled Kimchi, but it didn’t taste like Kimchi. We ordered the Kimchi pancake and it was totally Over cooked-​crunchy to be exact. My dad ordered Bulgoki, it didn’t even taste like Bulgoki. My husband who is a huge fan of General Tso’s chicken, got fried dough with sauce. The Kimchi Jjigae (kimchi stew), was overwhelming with red pepper. I have never had Bibimbop with ground beef. The soy sauce was questionable. I feel absolutely terrible for bringing my family out on anabsolutely Freezing night, to sit in a restaurant, Freezing and eating a TERRIBLE meal. My dad told the waitress, that she would not receive a tip, because the food was poor. She barely acknowledged my dad with a meek «I’m sorry», and we still ended up paying a large bill.
Please Do NOT eat here. All I kept thinking about was «Restaurant Impossible», because this restaurant needs HELP. Shall I also say, that the teaky bar look was totally out of place.
There appears to be a strong Take Out business. I wouldn’t even get the take out.

After reading the reviews I knew is was going to be just «ok».(needed lunch while friend was getting a root canal) My expectations are met of being «ok». Had the pork bulgogi box lunch. The only thing worth eating was the bulgogi and rice. Everything else was below ok or not edible. If you go just get the meat and rice and pass on everything else. Especially the kimchi which is sad cuz I love me some kimchi. If your a Korean place and you can’t do kimchi that’s edible you’ve got problems.

I tried this spot when my regular Chinese take out was renovating. The servers were sweet but so so slow. My food was stone cold by the time I got it home. Everything had too much pepper. I noticed that they were the only place I had seen with Korean on the menu. I don’t know how good it would have been hot, but it was pretty disappointing cold. And that time, I ate in…

I went back and ordered the Korean spare ribs – surely, this meat had been frozen, and quite possibly for so long that the meat was rotten. Sigh. All my hopes, dashed…

I have the Chinese food and it was very good. My friend had the bebimbop and said it was excellent.

As of 4÷11÷13 it no longer appears to be open. I was bummed.

You can tell if a restaurant serves authentic Korean cuisine if you leave smelling like Korean food. The first red flag about Naru was that the entire place reeked of an old pizzeria. The second was the lone inattentive waitress taking phone orders as well as waiting all the tables. Then came the food and it was all over.
Naru has got to be one of the worst Korean restaurants of all time. First, the banchan consisted of only three tiny dishes. The kimchi was terrible because it seemed like it had only been fermented for a day. It lacked all and any flavor. That must have explained why the kimchi pancakes were one of the worst abominations to come to Asian cuisine since crab rangoon. The cooks must have lost the memo that these were supposed to be pan fried because they dropped the entire thing into the deep fryer. It tasted like a really terrible blooming onion. Again, there was no kimchi flavor. We also ordered bean sprouts as an appetizer, which came out raw. You could literally go to a supermarket, grab a handful of sprouts, and that’s what we got.
The main dishes were nearly as bad as the appetizers. The beef bulgogi lacked onions, wasn’t marinated, and sat in a pool of beef juice. The waitress had the nerve to ask if we wanted a container for that «sauce.» The one thing they did right was the bibimbap in a stone pot. The rice came out nice and crispy and the spicy sauce saved the rest of the dish. On top of all the terrible food, the service was just as bad. The food took forever to come out and the waitress came out once at the end to refill our waters. Empty tables were left uncleared left and right. Avoid Naru at all costs if you want to keep a good memory of what Korean food should be.

I have been eating at Naru since 2006.
I moved down to NYC and wasn’t able to make regular visits, but whenever I came home for vacations, the first thing I would do is order from Naru to the point that when a family member picked me up from the airport, we went directly to Naru because they knew I had ordered takeout the moment the wheels hit the tarmac.
The items that kept me coming back for the last 5 years were the chicken wings, beef teriyaki, and the pork fried rice. I discovered the ginger scallion beef late in the game, but WOW, is that dish good.
Or maybe, is, isn’t the word I should be using. Was – would be more operative.
This place is falling apart. And it breaks my heart to say that, but my sister and I recently ordered from there and were wildly disappointed. I did not finish my beef teriyaki and the rice was old and mushy. The only thing that was decent were the chicken wings.
My sister threw out her crab rangoon as well as the egg roll.
This is NOT the Naru I have known and loved — so, c’mon guys! Ya gotta pick up your game, here!
Please, because I have always been loyal, give me a reason to return!
p. s. I gave 2 stars because I believe you can be better, but you really deserve 1 for that last meal.

I understand there is no other Korean place in VT. But if you are Korean, please do not go this place. You will be very upset after all. I wonder if chef ever had real Korean food. Whatever you have, it will be worse than whatever you expect. My friend who is Korean food virgin didn’t hate this place though. We had Pajeon/​Kimchijeon, Bibimbab, bulgogi and jabchae and all of them were off. I would like to teach chef how to cook real Korean food. Seriously, I went to plenty of Korean places in East coast, this place was the worst. I felt almost insulted. Also menu was wrong. They show pajeon (pancake) in picture but named jjigae (soup). Side dish (Banchan) was awful either.
Price is not bad. Place is not fancy at all. The waitress was nice.

Yummy food, great value, great selection. Love it.

To quote my friend «found her home at Naru, where the scallion pancakes smell like heaven and the meat platters are never diminishing…»
The food was good, but it’s possible the gossiping we were busy doing about our love lives was better.
WHATEVER, I’ll still be back.

The appeal that one should go to Naru is for their Korean food. As a Korean food addict, Naru is the only place I have been able to find Korean food in the state of Vermont.
Having experienced many different Korean foods, Naru is definitely headed in the right direction. Their Korean menu is quite limited prob due to the accessibility of ingredients, but def. has the standard dishes such as bulgogi, pork bulgogi, kalbi, bi bam bop, kimchi friend rice, and paejon.
Their paejon dishes (seafood, kimchi and regular) are good but more oily than it should be.
Their pork bulgogi is pretty spot on with other restaurants where I have had it. Could also be much spicier.
Their bulgogi, I tried once wasn’t a huge fan and non-​traditional as in it doesn’t come with any lettuce.
Their kimchi jigae was quite delicious as well.
As a note, I haven’t been able to order their kalbi yet, as they always seem to run out.
Bottom line, if you have never had Korean food, Naru is definitely a great place to try it out. However, for those who have had more traditional Korean food, expect something different as they have put their own spin it.

This restaurant serves Chinese & Korean Food. I tried the Beef Bulgogi & If this is what they call «Korean» food then it is an insult to the cuisine!!!
The side dishes are a joke & the beef bulgogi is just meat swimming in it’s own cooked soupy blood! It was so bland and it smelled like a live cow. Flavors are all wrong & even the fortune cookie sucks!!! Service was bad and took a while for the server to take your order and to get your food.
I have not tried their Chinese food nor will I ever… once was enough. Bad food & bad experience that it made me mad the whole day.

I haven’t seen many korean food places in the Burlington area so I was definitely surprised when I came across a menu for Naru, a chinese & korean establishment in Williston.
I looked over the menu once and my friends & I drove straightaway to this restaurant.
We were seated right away and given menus that looked nothing like their delivery menus but still had most of the same food.
We got everything to share more or less and everything was korean– an order of pa jeon (which was one of the best I’ve ever had), kim chi fried rice, bulgogi, bibimbap & soondubu.
The food was very to par, something I didn’t really expect so that was definitely good.
Only complaint is that the interior is quite small and it doesn’t appear to have enough tables to fit beyond 7 moderately sized groups of people. Other than that, be prepared for some tasty korean!