Your favorite Korean Restaurant
 

I highly recommend "Hana" on Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti, Michigan. A small Korean restaurant I found by accident during college. I still take all my business clients for their spicy octopus dish.

nahkji bokum = spicy octupus = yum :) i have had the thai owner/chef of a japanese restaurant i frequented make it for me, and he used much better quality octopus than the few korean places where ive tried it. double yum.

Woo Lae Oak, Tysons Corner VA - best kalbi ive ever had by far, and ive had a lot in DC Metro and VA Beach areas, including Annandale, Rockville, Clinton (im no expert, but i dont think its unfair to say ive had a lot in the DC area) nicer more upscale place for the DC area, complementing the original Arlington location. sushi was terrible and overpriced though, and service was also poor, although that might have been because the waiter was newer, and felt intimidated by my friend who was hosting :D

also regularly order yook hwe bibimbap (raw beef rice bowl) at Ye Chon in Annandale, VA. incredible stuff. i actually prefer it to steak tartare. although raw kobe would trump all ;)

only other korean dish that comes to mind right now is tang soo yook. the "chinese" chicken dish, kind of batter fried, with really goopy sweet and sour ish sauce. quality seems fairly consistent wherever i order it, even at Super H Mart :D definitely not bad food there at all considering its a grocery store.

I've been very eager to try Korean food lately. If all of you were to recommend a couple classic Korean dishes to a newbie - what would they be?

A good way to start is Grilled Beef Short Ribs / Gal-Bi. Similar is Grilled Marinated Beef / Bul-Go-Gi. These are the Korean verison of BBQ.

Chicken Ginseng Soup / Sam-Gye-Tang is also a good one to start.

A good website to check out is http://www.trifood.com/food.html

My favorite does change as I find new ones or owners change. It has been a year since I have been but Jang Tuh Sutbulgui in Flushing, NY served some great food.

The Korea House in Dallas, TX is always good.

For the price it is hard to beat H-Mart or Komart.

I would advise that any newbie try Bi-bim-Bhap. Its a good starter dish, and really delicious. A bed of rice covered in sliced veggies with a fried egg on top.

the tang soo yook that kagehitokiri is basically sweet and sour. you can get it with chicken, beef, or pork. it is a chinese dish, although many places it's "koreanized." very tasty.

as for traditional korean, powerplantop has the first 2 nailed - kalbi (or galbi) and bulgogi. the best kalbi places will have a grill at your table and will use hot coals rather than gas. it really does make it taste better, imo. note, though, that you WILL leave the restaurant smelling like meat! a couple notes to add re: bulgogi - it is thinly sliced marinated beef and they generally cook it in the kitchen, not at your table.

another accessible dish is bibimbop. kagehitokiri mentioned "yook hwe bibimbop." the "yook hwe" part indicates the raw beef. you can get regular bibimbop which is the same, but with bulgogi. you can also get dol-sot bibimbop which is in a hot stone bowl (yellows and hardens the rice on the sides) and hwe dup bop, which is basically sashimi bibimbop.

if you don't mind spicy, go for some soon dooboo jji gae (soon dooboo = soft tofu, jji gae = stew). hot (temp) and spicy and can get with beef, seafood (prawns, muscles, clams, etc), mixed (seafood + beef) or plain. there are a few other varieties and you can request varying levels of spiciness, from white to medium to hot to very hot. don't forget to break your egg in the bowl right when it comes out!

a very good summer dish is mool naeng myun (mool = water, nang myun = buckwheat noodles). it's basically buckwheat noodles in cold soup with some sliced beef, cucumbers, a slice of pear, a boiled egg, and maybe a few other veggies. you typically add some hot mustard and/or hot pepper paste and some white vinegar. VERY good and refreshing on a hot day.

as for restaurants i like:

in detroit or ann arbor, seoul garden was always the "nice" korean restaurant when i was a student at U of M. kana in downtown ann arbor (west liberty, was it? been a while) was also pretty good (knew the owners back in the day).

in atlanta, i really like chodang soondooboo (cho dang tofu house) in doraville on buford highway. just south of chodang is a place called haw woon dae kalbi, also on buford. the owner is a friend of my father and the kalbi is excellent. both are outside the perimeter. for korean-style chinese food, i recommend pung-mie or yen-jing, both on buford in doraville, but inside the perimeter. yen-jing has better jja-jiang-myun (noodles with blackbean sauce), imo, but can't go wrong with either. they also have traditional chinese dishes, too, of course.

haemul pajeon is also good, although quality varies, and i prefer the japanese okonomiyaki.

Slightly different stuff as the former is just a bar snack or side dish while the Japanese pancake is a meal in itself.

good point, although i think thats because okonomiyaki uses cabbage instead of scallions. the preference for me comes in more for being fried/not fried id say. ive personally eaten both as meals.

also for noodle people > jap chae.

Ko-Hyang San-Chun on Homestead in Santa Clara, CA...very unassuming and easy to miss, which will guarantee it won't be ruined by "tastemakers" and weekenders

Aren't the Woo Lae Oak locations sort of Korean Lite ? In other words a good way to introduce a timid someone to Korean food yet not "the real stuff" ?

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I love San Soo Gab San in Chicago for wood-fired, barbecue-it-yourself good times. It's great fun in the winter. They have the best selection of banchan (free side dishes) I've ever seen; they cover the table with 20 or more different small plates. The price is right, too.

Be forewarned, though, that the service can be downright mean. They'll usually bring what you want correctly and promptly, but they do it with a scowl, and once they actually flashed the lights on and off above our table to push us to leave seconds after we got the bill. But as long as you're prepared in advance to get some attitude, I still love the restaurant.

The Korean restaurant in the basement of the Star Hill Shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur was very very good. Excellent ventilation meant that we didn't stink of grilled meat. Restaurant was packed with visiting Koreans. The kalbi, bibimbap, and yuk khwe were particularly tasty.

What a great thread. ^

Among the DC area Korean restaurants, my vote goes to Palace Restaurant in Annandale. Their real strength is the very natural and herbal ingredients they use.

Then, for a great refreshing summertime dessert, hop across the Little River Turnpike for some pat bing su at the Korean Paris cafe.

-FlyerBeek