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Koreatown is blessed with more all-night restaurants than the rest of Los Angeles put together: noodle parlors and soup dens, greasy spoons, unremarkable grills and after-hours joints where soju sometimes mysteriously makes its way into teacups. But at 4 in the morning, Hodori, named for the dweeby cartoon tiger that was the mascot for the ’88 Seoul Olympics, may as well be the only place in town: brightly lit as any McDonald’s, hazy with steam from the kitchen, and jammed with young people who sit 12 to a table, sobering themselves up with kimchi fried rice. For better or for worse, Hodori is the Canter’s of Koreatown. 1001 S. Vermont Ave., No. 102, (213) 383-3554.
CAKES ALIVE
We have already discussed, I believe, the kimchi pancake, the seafood pancake, the mung bean pancake, the scallion pancake, and the potato pancake with a single chrysanthemum leaf impressed upon its bosom. But as Dr. Freud might have said had he lived in Koreatown instead of dank old Vienna, sometimes a pancake is just a pancake. At these moments, we are always comforted by the knowledge that at Koo’s Grill, a sort of shed set up near the entrance to the California Supermarket on Western Avenue at Fifth Street, a buck will buy us what appears to be a plain, old, ordinary pancake, with a sweet bean or two in the batter, sure, but drizzled with syrup and served mouth-
sizzlingly hot on a napkin.
DUCK, YOU SUCKER!
You will find no duck recipes in any of the dozen or so Korean cookbooks I own, no mention of duck in the guides to Seoul cafés, no duck on most Koreatown menus. Still, there is Il San Duck to consider, a restaurant that not only serves duck but serves nothing but duck: spicy duck noodles, spicy duck stew and, above all, duck stuffed with nuts, roots and other various goodies before being slow-baked in clay. 3700 W. Olympic Blvd., (323) 735-9100.
NOODLE STORIES
Ten years ago, there were maybe two or three places to get great gook soo, the thin, handcut, wheaten noodles customarily served in a stock based on dried anchovies and garnished with seaweed, kimchi or bits of meat, maybe a few chunks of boiled potato. Gook soo may be the ultimate Korean comfort food. For years I satisfied most of my gook soo yearnings at Ma Dang Gook Soo (869 S. Western Ave., 213-487-6008), where the texture of the noodles resembles perfect Italian fettuccine. But recently, my loyalties have begun to shift toward Wang Simri Noodle House, where the noodles have a firmer bite, the broth has a delicacy it is hard to believe derives from dried anchovies, and it is possible to order the noodles tinted with green tea, which softens their texture but adds a subtle bitterness that is not at all unpleasant. The mandoo, herb-stuffed Korean dumplings, are pretty good too. 474 N. Western Ave., (323) 467-2900.
HANDS ON DECKLE
Food fads sweep like brazier-fed wildfires through Koreatown’s barbecue scene, which may be one of the most competitive restaurant environments on Earth. A few years ago, nobody could get enough of coconut-shell charcoal on which to grill their bulgogi. Last year saw the rise of the rice noodle wrappers called dduk bo sam. The year before, I think it was all about the Canadian black pigs. The new meat of choice these days seems to be deckle, that fatty cap of beef that nestles up to a steer’s brisket, and the cut of choice for pastrami. In Korean restaurants, deckle is shaved into thin, pale curls and cooked on a custom-purposed tabletop grill shaped like an inverted iron cone. Deckle sizzling with onions gives off one of the great cooking smells of all time, a distillation of what could be thought of as Philadelphia-diner funk, and when you dress the meat with chiles, wrap it in a rice noodle and drag it through a dipping sauce, you’ve got one of the great all-time mouthfuls of food.
The venerable Soowon Kalbi does a decent job with deckle, and Shik Do Rak includes deckle in most of its combination dinners. Still, Castle BBQ, a fine edifice built on the twin virtues of deckle and Seagram’s Crown Royal, is a veritable palace of fatty meat — and dduk bo sam. Pop an extra Lipitor or two and try the combo of deckle and pork belly, a cholesterol feat for the ages. 473 N. Western Ave., No. 1, (323) 467-3813.
BLEAT HOUSE
Oddly enough, the best part of a meal at Chin-Go-Gae is not the goat soup, a bubbling orange cauldronful of kid meat, chile and as many fresh sesame leaves as you can stuff down into the broth. Just after the meal, the waitress enriches the dregs of the soup with an egg and some rice, and cooks it down to a thick, goaty porridge seared black and crisp at the edges. Incredible. 3063 W. Eighth St., (213) 480-8071.
KOREAN PENICILLIN
Samgyetang is yet another in the long line of Korean tonic soups: a small hen, usually stuffed with sticky rice, jujubes and maybe a little ginseng, simmered in a mild chicken broth. You could consider it the Korean equivalent of Jewish chicken-in-a-pot, if you could imagine a matzoh ball actually stuffed into a chicken. It’s pretty easy to find samgyetang in Koreatown — Kobawoo and the genteel diner Matinee have good versions. But almost everybody in the neighborhood will point you to the chic, new L.A. Chicken Center, an all-chicken restaurant that has practically made a religion out of its clean-lined, classic rendering of the dish. L.A. Chicken Center also serves a take on the roasted Zankou-style bird as well as jang dori chang, a sweet, spicy chicken stew flavored with citrus peel and what must be a double handful of finely minced garlic. Cock a doodle doo. 3400 W. Eighth St., (213) 380-0256.
SUDS
Through the streets of Koreatown, foaming, unchecked rivers of OB and Hite beer flow. So it is only fitting that Koreatown play host to a brewery of its own, a brew-pub sporting enormous vats of Koreatown Ale and Sunset Red, as well as concert-volume Madonna videos and enough spinning, flashing lights to make Disco Stu a happy man indeed. The menu of fried calamari and cheeseburgers could make Rosen Brewery more or less the T.G.I. Friday’s of Koreatown, except that as far as I know, T.G.I. Friday’s has never served much in the way of spicy sea snail salad. 400 S. Western Ave., (213) 388-0061.
ROE VERSUS
O-Dae San is undoubtedly the best fish restaurant in Koreatown, a vast, sleek space with a Korean-style sushi bar running the length of the dining room, waitresses in traditional dress, and a parking lot filled with more $150,000 Mercedes sedans than you’ll find anywhere this side of Stuttgart. There are subtleties to O-Dae San’s long menu that we wouldn’t even try to address. Because, peasants that we are, we can never tear ourselves away from the ever-fascinating al bap, a big bowl of sushi rice frosted — frosted! — with a half-dozen different kinds of fish eggs, laid out in contrasting streaks radiating from the center of the bowl like rays from the sun. Plus, you get to say: al bap. But still, we know nothing goes better with a brimming glass of soju than something like O-Dae San’s hwe do bap, which is to say bits of impeccably fresh sashimi topped with vinegared slivers of cucumber, strips of toasted seaweed, black sesame seeds, tossed at the table with sweet bean sauce and a raw egg. We may be peasants, but we’re not crazy. 2889 W. Olympic Blvd., (213) 383-9800.
LOVE, PYONGYANG STYLE
If you are nostalgic for the days of old-fashioned Communist hospitality, you could do worse than to visit this Los Angeles branch of Morangak, a North Korean restaurant popular in Seoul. Nobody will bother to seat you, and one suspects that the waiter who does eventually show up at your table has just lost a game of rock, paper, scissors. You wouldn’t think it was possible to disdainfully toss down a heavy bowl of lava-hot kimchi stew without actually injuring anyone at the table, but these guys are pros. Still — there are those pheasant dumplings. And the complex fragrance of the wild mushroom soup. And the severely attractive bibimbap. This could be one of the best meals you’ll never love. 3377 Wilshire Blvd., No. 100, (213) 381-8243.
HOOFIN’ IT
The basic unit of consumption at Toad is the combination meal for two, a sort of porcine tasting menu designed to take you on a tour of the tiny black pig and all of its constituent parts: red-cooked trotters, sautéed pork skin with vegetables, maybe a simmered innard or two. But you are here for barbecued pork belly, the meaty, streaky, especially succulent strips of fat meat that you sizzle into crispness yourself on a tabletop grill. When they are crisp, you roll the squares of belly into a slippery square of rice noodle with scallions, swab the bundles with what appears to be an elegant dust made from powdered beans, and dip them into a chile-spiked Korean ponzu sauce. The little belly rolls are fantastic things, spicy and sweet, soft and crisp, and crammed with enough vegetables to make even Dr. Dean Ornish smile. 4503 Beverly Blvd., (323) 460-7037.
BOSSAM BUDDIES
Han River, named after the waterway that cuts through Seoul, is a nice place, with inexpensive lunches, a delicious panchan of fried fish cake, and an urbane roster of sophisticated dishes that go especially well with soju or even bekseju, which is soju flavored with ginseng. The monkfish sautéed with bean sprouts and a pickled kiwi-like Korean fruit is compelling; the iced baby octopus noodles are fine. But what brings in the crowds is Han River’s truly wonderful version of bossam, a dish of steamed, pressed pork, flanked by lightly pickled leaves of cabbage, a fiery root-vegetable kimchi, and an amazing dipping sauce that involves vinegar, chiles and what appear to be highly salted fish hatchlings no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. 2561 W. Olympic Blvd., (213) 388-5999.
HAUTE
Korean cooking, at least as it is presented in Los Angeles, is not an especially refined cuisine. Korean restaurants here tend to be either homey or raffish, Mom’s cooking or sophisticated bar snacks. Nobody seems especially concerned with royal delicacies from the Koryo empire: Korean restaurants, even the expensive ones, serve people’s food. The Kaesong-style restaurant Yongsusan may be in a class by itself, an elegant warren of discreet, private dining rooms, a redoubt of what seems very much like Korean haute cuisine. I have never tasted anything like the bo sam kimchi here, a green, round cabbage that has been hollowed out and stuffed, then wrapped up again and left to ferment whole. Roast pork is almost Italian in its voluptuousness, noodles are light as air, and the oyster porridge is divine. 950 S. Vermont Ave., (213) 388-3042.
CAFE SOCIETY
Desserts are pretty uncommon in Korean restaurants, coffee is rare, after-dinner liqueurs all but unknown. Luckily, Koreatown is richly endowed with cafés, although places to loiter in comfortable chairs with expensive cups of coffee are far more common than places to catch a quick jolt. Koffea (610 S. Berendo St., 213-427-1441) is a classic Korean coffeehouse, with beautiful chinaware, a ton of hidden rooms, and a wide selection of syrupy, freshly brewed Korean fruit teas — we like the ginger. Mr. Coffee (537 S. Western Ave., No. G, 213-389-6767) is decorated like a ’20s Paris salon, with faux Magrittes painted on almost every wall surface, and absurdly oversize chairs. The last time we visited Antique (3465 W. Sixth St., 213-383-4994), we felt as if the only antiques in the room were us: It’s a good place to scope out 22-year-olds with unbelievably fashionable hair. Montecarlo (3450 W Sixth St., No. 111, 213-389-4553), open 24 hours, is popular with USC students and insomniacs.