Koreatown Galleria

Just a quick post (I have much to catch up on, and it's almost the new year..!), but one hot summer day, I decided to stop into Koreatown Galleria for a quick lunch after I had gotten my haircut.

Don't exactly remember what the name of the little stand was in the food mart, but I craved Korean cold noodles. This was a really great combo - Korean cold noodles and Korean bbq marinated beef ribs over rice combo. The springy, cold and tangy noodles make slurping them a joy...I am instantly refreshed after eating these. The beef was very tender, I didn't really finish all the rice but the meat was great, and with the kimchi-ed bean sprouts, kimchi cabbage, and pickled veggies, it was a perfect meal. I should have taken my leftovers back home but I had some more shopping to do, so I figured it would be a waste...I'll remember to do that next time.

Koreatown Galleria Food Court
3250 West Olympic Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90006-2367
(323) 733-6000
koreatowngalleria.com

Gyenari

I met up with Annette, for her birthday, at Gyenari, on a really hot day. Culver City was hopping, as usual – tons of people milling around for lunch on a weekday, which made it almost impossible to park in the lots around the area. I lucked out (squeezing in-between two huge SUVs…), snagged a table at the restaurant and sipped on an Arnold Palmer while waiting for Annette.

A decent Arnold Palmer, especially welcome on such a hot day!

Looking around the place, first thing I noticed, I felt really under dressed to be here – really trendy and contemporary, super clean lines, but the ambiance was nice, and the waitstaff weren’t acting snooty, so it was comforting.

Annette arrived soon after I was seated, so they brought some banchan (small plate appetizers) to the table. I’ve been to a lot more Korean restaurants over the years, and I admit, I am used to a lot more of a variety of banchan. I had to remind myself that this was more of an American style kind of place.

From the upper left, going clockwise – bean sprouts, broccoli, kimchi, and a scoop of potato salad. We polished these off pretty quick, as we were pretty hungry. The potato salad was the best, I’d say, with the broccoli a close second. The kimchi had a nice bite to it, not too shabby. Again, I would have liked more of a variety (maybe some daikon, or some spinach? Maybe some japchae? But I guess that’s a separate dish here.)

For an appetizer, I ordered some shrimp and kimchi Korean style pancakes. Not the best I’ve had, (I like more of a crunch on the outside, these were bigger, so they were softer all around) but these were flavorful enough, from the kimchi flavor. I can’t say I tasted any of the shrimp at all…maybe they pureed it so it was just the flavor? The dipping sauce was nice and tangy, the carrot shreds were a nice fresh and crunchy flavor contrast. Overall, filling and tasty, did a great job as an appetizer (even though it came as the same time as our main meal...)

Annette and I each ordered our own bimibap -Korean rice bowls. This is a picture of my choice, the bulgolgi style marinated meat. I love the presentation – all the different veggies neatly placed around the hot stone bowl, with a pretty sunny side up egg on top. I forgot to shoot a picture of the spicy paste that I added to the top of all this (the spicer the better!) and gave everything a quick mix. Rice plus veggies and meat, a perfect combination. I think if I had anything to complain about here, would be that I don’t remember the hot stone being very hot, so the rice didn’t crisp up very much (getting those crispy rice bits is one of the reasons why bimibap is so good!) , but it was a minor complaint.

The prices were pretty fair for lunch, although I suspect they skyrocket, come dinnertime. I might have to come back to try their real Korean bbq, just to see how it compares to my other more “authentic” experiences in K-Town.

Gyenari Korean BBQ
9540 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

(310) 838-3131
www.gyenari.com

Wako Restaurant

I met up with a few friends at Wako, at Ray and Kue's recommendation. I got there a bit early, so I wandered around a bit. The plaza that this place is in is directly transported from Korea - I was blown away at the arcade, where I really felt I was back in Hong Kong, when I visited there with my family long ago - they even had seats at the arcade terminals, so you could be comfortable while you kicked someones' ass at Street Fighter! Anyways, back to Wako...

The place was pretty well lit, and service was friendly and quick. We were seated and gave our orders - their signature dish - and were instantly given these bowls with sesame seeds at the bottom..

A mortar and pestle set, which we then used to crush all the sesame seeds while we talked. It was kinda fun, just absentmindedly mashing the seeds, and it gave off a nice aroma. Once we were done, our waiter came around and poured a very GENEROUS amount of donkatsu sauce over the crushed seeds. And then he brought this plate out...

A tray of awesomeness! My pork cutlet donkatsu, fried to perfection, conveniently pre-sliced so I don't have to bother with a knife. The little metal mesh that the donkatsu sits on is crucial to the secret of keeping the fried pork crispy, as the bottom of the cutlet doesn't get soggy if it's slightly off the plate. Ingenious! The salad is quite simple, shredded cabbage with a bit of dressing, I wasn't wowed by this dressing but it wasn't horrible. Side dishes include a bowl or white rice, a bowl of miso soup, and some kimchi-ed radish bites. I really like the combination of kimchi to this dish, it added some needed spice and heat.

This was a delicious choice. However, the only cruddy thing is the parking - it's a minimal fee valet situation in the parking lot with validation, but they were extremely slow and quite...angry. Someone got so fed up they angrily grabbed their own keys while the parking attendant owner was telling him off...I dunno, I'd say if you can score street parking it might be suggested but maybe it's just because I was there on a really busy night.

Wako Donkatsu Restaurant
3377 Wilshire Blvd
Ste 112
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 381-9256

Ma Dang Gook Soo

We had lunchtime adventure in Koreatown the other day, and I got to try Sul Lung Tang for the first time. Kurt wasn't feeling so well, and sul lung tang is his version of chicken noodle soup. Ma Dang Gook Soo doesn't have any english signs in the front - is that a good sign?

Ordering was a bit difficult, I didn't really know what to order, so I just got the most popular thing according to Ray and Kurt. This is the stuff sitting at the table...

Spicy paste, a huge bowl of salt, spicy seasonings, and special pink salt from Australia. I think they expect you to use a bunch of salt here.

A pitcher of barley tea was set down for the table, and poured into these cool metal cups. I like that the pitcher had a faded picture of Snoopy on it - Snoopy rules! This tea was nice and refreshing.

Now here's my bowl of sul lung tang. The flavor was very light, it actually tastes a lot like many other Chinese soups I've had in the past. Adding salt was definitely necessary. Rice noodles floated around the soup, which were light and slurpable. I added a ton of...

...green onion to the soup as well. It added a nice texture and flavor to the mild soup.

Here's a close up of the huge bowl of salt, and in the backgroun, kimchi of two kinds - cabbage style and radish style. Both were good and had that nice tingle when it hit the tongue, from fermentation. We got refills of this...I think twice.

Kurt got the hotter kimichi style of noodles. This stuff was super spicy, I tried a small taste and my whole mouth was on fire. He finished this and was whole face was sweating. I think this would burn a whole in my stomach, and even I have a pretty big tolerance to spicy!

All in all, cute place that has a very mom and pop type feeling to it. Not my favorite kind of Korean food but maybe I'll have it again when I'm feeling under the weather.

Ma Dang Gook Soo
869 S Western Ave
Ste 1
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 487-6008

Toe Bang

A birthday celebration for my coworker Kue ended up being a great culinary trip for me - I only know the outer limits of Korean cuisine, and have barely begun to experience the full force of what Korean food has to offer to me. Initially, we were going to go to a more, ah, upscale looking place, but all of us felt like we were underdressed to eat there (It was more like being in a club and being watched while you eat in clubbing clothes). Kue took one look at the place, then went back down the stairs and headed to this place....Toe Bang.

Yes. Toe. Bang. Weird name. Good food. We all ordered a bunch of dishes to share with everyone at the table (like, 10 of us!) Here's how it all started...

Chopped cucumber and carrot wedges in little dishes, with a salty bean paste as dip. They had a few plates of these sitting out on the table as we were sitting down. Next to the cucumber and carrots were the radishes and salt that go with Korean fried chicken, which you will see later on...

The first dish of the night: Spicy rice cake with ramen noodle, cabbage, fish balls and green onion. The spice on this is much more spicy than I'm used to for dishes, so it got my tongue burning already. I made sure to only eat sparingly of this dish, as rice cakes expand in your stomach, and I knew we had a lot of courses to go, however, this dish was very tasty and a good start to the dinner.

Korean fried chicken, we meet again...still seems like Chinese fried chicken to me, but fried chicken, regardless of nationality, is always welcome in my book! This went along with the seasoned salt and radishes in the first picture. I had a small piece of this, and it was pretty solid.

This is one of the weirder dishes I've seen at a restaurant, something I would maybe make at home if I had nothing in the fridge. This is a ramen dish, with spam, hot dogs, spinach, tofu, green onions and enoki mushrooms. I guess this is a "wartime" treat, where there actually wouldn't be any access to regular meats or poultry. It was actually pretty good, as good as any spam/hot dog dish can be. It's just such a novelty to see it being served here!

Korean sausage up next. I was warned by the others that this sausage is an acquired taste, but I thought it would taste more like chinese sausage. It didn't. It was...odd. I don't think I have acquired that taste yet, but at least I tried it. I think it tasted like...dry organ meats with vermicelli noodles running through it as the thing keeping it together. That's what I remember it tasting like, anyways.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but I was in a rush to take this one - a Korean seafood pancake. I was excited to try this, as Korean pancakes are super delicious, but I think this one fell a bit flat. The seafood was ok, but the edges weren't crispy enough, just barely browned really. The pancake texture was just soft and yuck. I still ate it but...eh. Could have been better. Maybe if the pancake diameter hadn't been so big. The dipping sauce was okay, soy sauce and green onion and minced garlic and stuff.

A massive, impressive plate was placed in the middle of the table, containing an order of their skewer combination. From the salad, going clockwise - rice cakes with hot sauce drizzled on it, prawns, mini wieners, beef skewer, goji berries (I think), halved fishcake balls, mushroom and bell pepper, chicken hearts, chicken white meat with teriyaki sweet sauce on it, roasted garlic cloves, intestine of some sort, and scallops. Whew. That's a lot of skewers. Everything I tried (a little of this, a little of that) was pretty tasty. I did NOT try the intestine. Eh. I've had it, I only like the chinese version of it. Otherwise, everything was good.

Kalbi Ribs over onions on a skillet. Can't go wrong with that. A little chewy, which made it a bit harder to eat but decent marinade. Again, can't go wrong.

Here's a remnant of a spicy kimchi pancake that I had forgotten to take a picture of before it became a pale shadow if its' former self - you can see how it broke apart really easily (a shame), and how it is completely embedded with jalepeno slices, making this a minefield for your tongue. I thought I could take it, but I really couldn't - my eyes were watering with pain. This is a REALLY spicy pancake.

The last savory dish of the night - some sort of "Chinese inspired" beef stirfry thing - I'm kind of mystified as to why that they called it that, because I have never had anything like this in all my Chinese food filled life- they took slivers of beef, fried it in tempura, then stirfried it in a sweet savory sauce with mushrooms, zuccini and cabbage. Really random, not my favorite. The batter was just too much for the beef, the ratio of batter to beef was 2 to 1.

This was our dessert of the night, fresh lychee and maraschino cherries over ice, which was treated to us by the manager, along with a bottle of soju. The ice kept the fruit really refreshingly cold, and every piece of lychee I had was really good. This is a great way to end quite a marathon of eating (and drinking, but since I'm allergic to the alcohol, I'm resigned to being the designated driver, not that I mind too much). Thanks to everyone who went and picked out the food to eat, and happy birthday again, Kue!

Toe Bang
3465 W Sixth Street
(inside Chapman Plaza)
Los Angeles, CA 90020

Tofu Villa

Owen and I went to an art show opening at GR2 a few weeks back - for an artist I really like (BoyGirlParty). So cute! I love her stuff. Anyways, afterwards, we wanted to get a quick bite to eat, around Sawtelle. A new place, called Tofu Villa, (which had taken the place of a boba shop that used to be there) had opened up near Beard Papa, so I decided to give it a shot. Owen was a bit skeptical, as he thought it was only going to be tofu, but I assured him it was not. We were quickly seated inside, made our decisions quickly and made our order, and instantly, this arrived at the table...

Amazing Korean Pancakes and a sort of salad with tasty dressing. I say amazing, because these pancakes were perfectly crispy but soft and gooey in the middle, and freshly served off the grill (they were pretty hot when they got to our table.) They were the right size, the big ones get a little too undercooked and flabby, whereas these had that extra crunch from being small enough to be cooked to a crisp exterior. Owen and I loved these, I could say that these are the best Korean pancakes I've had yet.

Tons of banchan arrived, enough to cover almost every bit of retail space we had on our small 2 person table. There's pleny to see here, but Owen especially seemed to like the black beans (not pictured), and the tofu spinach (upper left), I liked the japchae (middle), but really we liked everything and getting to try a variety of little dishes.

I got the Korean bbq rib bimibap, a simple platter with two pieces of Korean style rib meat, different kinds of chopped veggies, two pieces of tofu and a perfect sunny side up egg. I prefer the bimibap where it's mixed in a hot stone, so the rice gets a bit crispy, but this version wasn't bad either. I wish there had been more of the spicy red paste to mix everything together (I like my bimibap SPICY) but everything was fresh, so I couldn't complain too much.

Owen got a sizzling platter of bulgolgi. It was basically Korean style fajitas, and you can't go wrong with fajitas, heh. This also came with a small metal bowl of white rice. This was pretty tasty, as marinated meat goes, but not the best bulgolgi I've ever had. Still good though.

When we finished and asked for the check, we were each given one of these - a small looking, but deceptively large amount of frozen yogurt (pinkberry style, "natural" yogurt) in a sampler cup. I actually liked this yogurt better than pinkberry! The yogurt, when eaten, had the first taste of the sourish yogurt, but then sweetened to a honey aftertaste. Owen loved this, and I agreed, it was a very nice surprise ending to our meal.

The service was really good, but I wish they had refilled our waters at least once. They were attentive otherwise. I think we'll be back, as this is a much more convenient place to get our Korean food fix on, instead of Koreatown.

Tofu Villa
2130 Sawtelle Blvd
Ste 112A
Los Angeles, CA 90025