Tag: restaurant review

Woomi Dakgalbi, Chuncheon, Korea
Woomi is an old-school 닭갈비 dakgalbi restaurant that has been in the mountain lakeside city of 춘천 Chuncheon, South Korea, since 1970.
If you see the wagon wheel, you know you’re in chicken heaven. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
This was the Chuncheon dakgalbi I remember from my teaching English in the city in 1997. That was before the 2002 Korean TV drama 겨울연가 Gyeoun Yeonga (Winter Sonata) turned the sites used for filming into a foreign tourism magnet as well as the 2005 closure of the U.S. Army’s Camp Page carried the city’s destiny in a totally different direction.
“Authentic” ingredients for the spicy marinaded chicken stir-fried dish Chuncheon is known for are 가래떡 garaedeok (large rice noodle), julienned sweet potato, diced Nappa cabbage, 껫잎 kkaenip (Perilla frutescens var. japonica), green onion, garlic and onion. Key components of the marinade are 고추가루 gochugaru (spicy red pepper powder), ginger, soy sauce and a dash of Korean- or Japanese-style curry powder.
More recent variations of Chuncheon dakgalbi include finishing touches of rice or noodles and lots of cheese.
This is where the tasty begins. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
반찬 Banchan (appetizer or side dish) for our dakgalbi at Woomi was a small bowl of 동치미 dongchimi (“winter kimchi”) to refresh the palate. Leaves of romaine lettuce to slather with 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) and wrap around the dakgalbi, raw onion and raw garlic.
This is where the tasty chicken ends up, laying on a bed of gorgeous lettuce with some raw onion tucked inside. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
Going back to Chuncheon
Attending a friend’s wedding in mid-May was a good excuse to indulge in the many good reasons to visit Korea. For me, the most exciting reason was a return after 15 years to my Korean “hometown” of Chuncheon, located about 75 kilometers east-northeast of Seoul in 강원도 Gangwon province.
It used to be a two-hour train ride between Seoul and Chuncheon, but now there’s both ITX high speed rail — takes about an hour and has mostly reserved seats for ₩6,700 (about $7) — and a subway line — takes about 90 minutes with first-come seating for ₩2,800 (about $3).
If you have any doubt as to which train to catch, just follow the throngs of middle-aged men and women decked out in their matching hiking clothes and equipment. Most likely, they’re heading toward Gangwon for some prime hiking and camping somewhere in between.
For the possibly under-equipped hiker, an ajumma walked through the subway cars, selling wide-brimmed hiking hats, gloves and face guards.
This is not Joon-Sang and Yu-Jin’s Chuncheon station. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
The first thing we noticed about Chuncheon’s ongoing facelift was the train station itself. The simple train platform we frequented, and seen in Winter Sonata, had been replaced by a architecturally modern glass-and-stainless-steel building.
This is what is left of Camp Page in May 2013: a water tower and a large green field. The imposing concrete wall topped with razor wire is long gone. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
A second major difference: The tall razor-wire-topped concrete walls of Camp Page no longer blocks your entry into Chuncheon. Instead of spending an extra ₩2,000 in taxi fare to circumnavigate the base as we used to, we had a straight shot from the station through the former base grounds to downtown and 명동 Myeong-dong (the main shopping district).
We walked from the train station straight up 평화로 Pyeonghwa-ro/금강로 Geumgang-ro to the Myeong-dong plaza (on the right, just past 정강로 Jungang-ro). It would have been a 20-minute walk or a few minutes by taxi, but on the way we meandered through the underground shopping bazaar, which was under construction when we were last there.
“Dakgalbi Street,” an alley dakgalbi restaurants side by side, is off the central Myeong-dong plaza, with its Winter Sonata memorial Christmas trees on each light pole. (The trees recall a scene from the drama.)
Hubby and I would come to Dakgalbi Street after our morning classes, so being back there was like 1997 all over again. But at that time, rather than trees on light poles, the recurring motif in the shopping court was the soundtrack to the hit TV drama of the time, Star in My Heart, seemingly on a continual loop from music store outdoor speakers.
Woomi Dakgalbi (우미닭갈비)
Dakgalbi Street in Chuncheon’s Myeong-dong
50-5 Joyangdong (Chuncheon Myeongdong District), Chuncheon-ssi, Gangwon-do
조양동 50-5 (@ 춘천명동점), 춘천시, 강원도, KR
www.ccwoomi.com
October 25, 2013
Visiting Jackey’s Seafood at Jagalchi Market, Busan
If you visit Busan 부산 and skip Jagalchi Shijang (Market) 자갈치시장, you haven’t really visited Busan at all. The market opened in 1924 and gets its name from the nearby pebble beach—jagal 자갈 means pebble or gravel. In other words, Pebble Beach, Calif., is not the only famous pebble beach in the world.
On a mid-May visit to Busan, Hubby and I had snacked our way through ssiat hotteok 씨앗호떡 and mandu 만두 stands in Busan International Film Festival Plaza then crossed the Gudeok-ro 구덕로 thoroughfare to Jagalchi Market.
Busan is blessed with easy access to all kinds of fresh seafood. The best deals come from those selling fish in the outdoor part of the market. But unless your Korean skills are as fresh as the fare, you’ll find it difficult to bargain or ask for what you want.
Already having walked off the hotteok breakfast, we went into the six-story market building. There are a number of restaurants on the second floor. To the uninitiated, one restaurant area can blend into the other, but waymarker signs help you orient yourself and find your way around.
In section C1, is a restaurant called Dwejichobap 돼지초밥, also known as Jackey’s Seafood. Jackey starred in a couple of food shows on the KBS TV network and displays screenshots from those appearances around his section of the floor.
Don’t worry about finding this place; Jackey probably will see you first and introduce himself in English. He has a teaching aid with him at all times that has photos of which fish and seafood items are in season and can help guide you to the best choice. He can also offer you either Korean style seating (on the floor) or Western style seating (on chairs).
Grilled flounder at Jagalchi Market, caught and grilled the same day, can’t get much fresher than that. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
Jackey’s is best-known for sushi — chobap 초밥 is the Korean term for the vinegar-flavored rice used in sushi. We weren’t in the mood for raw fish, so Jackey recommended grilled flounder, since it was in season at the time.
Served with banchan, the meal cost ₩40,000 (roughly $40) for two people. It was grilled and seasoned with lemon. A simply prepared fresh fish is much more delicious than a overly seasoned fish any day.
Dwejichobap (aka Pork Sushi)
37-1 Nampodong 4(sa)-ga, Jung-gu, Busan, South Korea
중구 남포동4가 37-1, 부산광역시
Directions
1. Take Busan subway line 1 to 자갈치역 Jagalchi Station, and use Exit 10. Alternatively, get off at 남포역 Nampo Station, and use Exit 2.
2. From Exit 10, walk straight (east).
3. At the second street, 자갈치로37번길 Jagalchi-ro 37-gil, turn right. You will walk under the Jagalchi Market sign over the road.
4. Walk for three blocks. The road will curve to the left in front of the market.
August 23, 2013
Restaurant: Kristalbelli, New York
The opening of “the next Korean barbecue restaurant” in midtown Manhattan by K-pop star and producer Jin Young Park has generated some controversy. Some think the restaurant’s aesthetic is too antiseptic to provide an authentic Korean experience.
Some reviews have viciously criticized the atmosphere, exemplified by the restaurant’s namesake crystal barbecue grills. Meat is cooked on a gas-heated, 99 percent crystal griddle in the “belly” of a golden Buddha-shaped frame embedded in the center of each table. The sloped griddle drains grease away from the meat into an under-table trap, and an exhaust fan incorporated in the griddle frame keeps much of the smoke of cooking meat from filling the restaurant and the clothes of patrons.
Reviewers claim the environment is overly elegant, even sanitized, in comparison to the more rustic feel of many all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurants. To those people I would say, it’s not about you.
Kristalbelli does not indulge those who have a fever for the food of Korea’s third-world past of 50 years ago, or even a decade or two past. It’s for Korean food virgins and neophytes, many of who are non-Korean fans of JYP’s K-pop bands.
Readers of my restaurant reviews may remember that my family aren’t hardcore Korean food fanatics like myself and my dear husband. That’s why I enjoy taking them — they might say, dragging them — to Korean restaurants, especially when I really need the perspective of those with little to no understanding or appreciation of Korean food.
To make sure everyone would have a chance to pass some degree of judgment on it, we asked to eat each dish “family-style.”
This is the first Korean restaurant I’ve been to in a long time where the wait staff was eager to answer any and all questions about dish ingredients and preparation. And in a first for me States-side, I didn’t have to be the one explaining all the dishes.
And there was a lot of explaining to do, with multiple 반찬 banchan items (side dishes served with the meal), appetizers and main dishes. My father-in-law counted 50 plates of various sizes on the table for the five of us.
The spread was more typical of a leisurely dinner setting than a rushed work week lunch. If you are really craving barbecue, going at lunch vs. dinner won’t save you any money. But, satiating your craving earlier in the day may save you time. The restaurant wasn’t crowded when we went after the lunch hour.
Each of us received banchan. That included bamboo shoots, seaweed salad and pickled cucumbers. Interestingly, the pickled cucumbers had a pleasant combination of soy sauce, sesame oil and a slightly smoky flavor.
Also among the banchan were two kinds of kimchi: 배추김치 baechu (the most commonly seen kind, made from Nappa cabbage) and 총각김치 chonggak (ponytail radish). The ponytail radish was a little on the spicy side. Yet it was pretty fresh, no more than a couple of weeks old in my estimation.
The first appetizer tray brought to our table had delicately sliced raw tuna set on a bed of lime slices, dabbed with citrus sauce. The tuna was fresh and seemed to melt in my mouth.
The second appetizer was a small serving of rice wrapped in tofu skin and drizzled with a mustard citrus sauce.
The third appetizer was tempura-fried crab legs surrounded by squiggly trails of spicy mayonnaise and savory, okonomyaki-type sauce on the small platter.
For the main dishes, we ordered Wagyu 갈비 galbi (grilled beef, $31), 두부 잡채 tofu japchae (savory cellophane noodle dish, $13), 크리스탈 비빔밥 Kristal bibimbap with tofu ($15) and 두부 된장찌개 tofu doenjang jjigae (fermented-soybean stew, $12).
This japchae was somewhat unconventional. It had the typical mix of mushrooms, tofu and shredded carrots, but it also had shiitake (aka 표고 pyogo) mushrooms and asparagus. The flavors were balanced, none overpowering the others.
Japchae is a common item on Korean restaurant menus. Yet, I never know what I’m going to get, because it is pretty easy to mess up the delicate balance of bold flavors: sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and black pepper. Sometimes, the soy sauce is dominant, and other times, it’s the sesame oil that terrorizes the tongue. One restaurant used a black pepper–forward sauce — unforgettable, not in a good way.
We asked for the Wagyu galbi to be grilled medium-well, basically between medium rare and well done. The meat was well-marbled and tender. The waiter cooked it, so we wouldn’t be distracted from our conversation with the task of grilling. The 쌈장 ssamjang (spicy, savory sauce spread on 깻잎 kkaenip/perilla or lettuce leaves wrapped around grilled meat) had a wonderful robust doenjang component, but it was not overly salty.
Accompanying the kalbi was a little dishful of Nagui sea salt. It’s an unrefined sea salt from harvested from filtered salt water at Docho Island in Korea. It has 20 percent less sodium than Guérande sea salt of France and three times its mineral content, according to the restaurant’s blog. Our waiter pointed out those attributes and recommended we dip at least one piece of galbi in the salt. It was a pleasant, new experience.
The bibimbap had the traditional mix of veggies, which we ordered with tofu. It also had two different kinds of seaweed:kim (aka nori) and seaweed stem called miyeok julgi, and yet seaweed flavor did not overwhelm the dish. Since we were eating the meal family-style, they were kind enough to bring out separate little dishes of gochujang so we could decide whether to spice up the bibimbap individually.
Korean restaurants in the States I’ve visited offer 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper sauce) separately, allowing diners to apply as much pain as desired. In keeping with the upper-scale setting, Kristalbelli also offered the sauce separately but in a small dish, rather than in the refillable plastic squeeze bottle of the typical barbecue house. This version of the sauce was sweet, as is common for bibimbap gochujang, but the amount of spiciness was milder that the conventional preparation.
The one adjective that circulated over and again through my mind during the meal was “balanced.” Balancing favors is really a difficult task, especially for Korean cuisine, which is known for its bold flavors. Kristalbelli does that well, maybe too well for some people’s tastes.
Yet, one can’t accuse Kristalbelli of false advertising. One of its goals stated on their website is to “to spotlight the delicate aspects of Korean cooking.”
When we entered the restaurant, it was hard not to notice the wine collection, prominently displayed near the front desk. It’s quite the wine list for a Korean restaurant, with wines from major wine regions all over the wine world: Oregon, Australia, the Napa/Sonoma region of California and Europe. We did not order any wine with our meal, so I would have to leave it to someone with more wine experience to judge the wine and food pairing experience.
If you’re up for it, Kristalbelli currently is hosting a food and wine pairing every Wednesday at 3 p.m. New York time, according to the restaurant’s Facebook page.
Kristalbelli’s second floor has a bar and lounge. We didn’t have an opportunity to go up there on this trip. Someday, I would like to try the 복분자 스테이크 Bokbunja steak ($23), described as a “steak with black raspberry reduction.” I think this is the first dish I’ve seen in a Korean restaurant using 복분자 bukbunjaju (black raspberry liqueur) for cooking.
Long-term success for this restaurant won’t be on the coattails of Mr. Park’s K-pop fame. Kristalbelli will have to win customers with great food and superior customer service.
The latter seemed to be a priority. My family’s relatively virgin palates were treated with respect rather than condescension. And it was the first time I’ve seen a Korean restaurant actively solicit comments via a customer-service survey handed to each of us at the end of the meal. For many diners, especially JYP’s target audience, the emphasis on service will cover alleged culinary faux-pas.
Kristalbelli
8 W. 36th St.
New York, NY 10018
(212) 290-2211
www.kristalbelli.com
Lunch: Monday–Saturday, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
Dinner: Sunday–Thursday, 5–10:30 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5–11 p.m.
Lounge: Monday–Thursday, 5 p.m.–1 a.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5 p.m.–3 a.m.; Sunday, 5–10:30 p.m.
September 16, 2012
Restaurant: Korean BBQ Plus!, Concord, Calif.
Serendipity brought me to this restaurant on the east side of the San Francisco Bay area. I had an appointment with friends in Concord early one February morning. By noon, our meeting was over, and I was hungry.
Rather than waiting until I returned to more familiar territory to eat, I followed my instinct — and my insistent stomach. Tapping “Korean restaurant” into my smartphone map app pointed me toward Korean BBQ Plus!. It was less than a mile from where I was and from an onramp for Interstate 680, my ticket home. That recommendation hit the spot.
One of my brave friends came with me. She has very limited experience with Korean food and felt more comfortable with an “expert.” Since I had not done any preliminary research on this restaurant, I had no idea what we would find.

Korean BBQ Plus! is tucked into a small shopping center and was a little challenging to find. The restaurant shares a building with a small Korean grocery store and a Mexican restaurant. Across the parking lot is a larger Mexican grocer.
As we walked in the Korean restaurant, I quickly noticed that almost every table was full at 12:30 on a Friday afternoon. That was a promising sign.
The waitress quickly brought menus and cups of hot barley tea — a beverage I’ve had to ask for at other restaurants. That was promising sign No. 2.
The lunch menu had a good assortment of standards such as 비빔밥 bibimbap (a bowl full of meat or dubu (tofu) as well as vegetables over rice), 닭구이 dak gui (spicy sweet marinaded chicken) and 된장 찌개 doenjang jjigae (fermented soybean paste stew). However, my friend and I ordered 돌솥 비빔밥 dolsot bibimbap (bibimbap in a hot rock bowl; $12.95) off the dinner menu.
Among the dozen-plus bowls of 반찬 banchan (side dishes) that came out first were baechu kimchi (cabbage kimchi), radish kimchi, egg omelette with ham, cucumber pickle, mung bean sprouts, soybean sprouts and soy sauce–marinaded sweet potatoes.
Dolsot bibimbap came with topped with bulgogi, cucumber pickle, soybean sprouts, enoki mushroom, shredded carrot, mushroom, spinach and a raw egg cracked open on top.
The raw egg excited me way too much, because it was an authentic touch. Most Korean restaurants I’ve visited in the Bay Area fried the egg sunny side up then add it to the bowl, so only the yolk needs to be cooked on the side of the hot bowl.
My friend was far more excited about the crunchy rice at the bottom of the bowl. It gets that way when the cooked rice fries in a little oil put in the bottom of the very hot bowl.
I squirted onto the fixings in my bowl a generous amount of 고추장 gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) from the squeeze bottle. (Red squeeze bottles on Korean restaurant tables likely aren’t filled with ketchup.) My friend made a tamer mix of soy sauce and gochujang.
It also came with a small bowl of 미역국 miyeok guk (seaweed soup). The soup had a full body to it with a little touch of beef.
Between the dolsot bibimbap, generous banchan and the soup, I left the restaurant satisfied. Korean BBQ Plus! is a good ambassador for traditional Korean cuisine.
As we were finishing our meal, my friend asked me, “Would you come down here again just go to this restaurant?”
“No,” I answered honestly. Concord is a 90-minute drive from my home, and there is a traditional Korean restaurant just 20 minutes away.
However, when I’m in Concord area on business, I will arrange my schedule so I can return for lunch or dinner, hopefully with my patient photography-loving husband in tow.
Is there a Korean food experience that you would drive (or even fly) a long distance just to experience repeatedly? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Korean BBQ Plus!
1450 Monument Blvd
Concord, CA 94520
(925) 680-9090
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.
koreanbbqplus.com
February 23, 2012
Hidden kimchi: Java Hub, San Anselmo, Calif.
Many assume the territory between San Francisco and Sonoma County wine country an hour’s drive north is bereft of Korean cuisine. I did, too, until I discovered one long-disguised as a coffee shop.
Java Hub Cafe is Marin County’s only noted venue for Korean victuals. It’s a simple coffee shop in San Anselmo, Calif., a suburb of San Rafael located about 10 minutes north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. And it is well off the beaten tourism path of Highway 101, the Marin-Sonoma thoroughfare.
On entering the little cafe, I noticed the subtle sounds of acoustic modern folk and alternative music playing subtly from speakers. The large counter has a big posted menu from which to order.
Indoor seating is on barstools with a long table facing a large window. That’s nice natural lighting for food photography, but it offers an unimpressive view of the regular stream of traffic.
Outside there are more than half-dozen tables. It would be nice to enjoy coffee and a meal alfresco in the summertime. However, it’s now winter in California. Even though our winter days are mild compared to Korea’s, I still didn’t want to eat outside.
Tucked behind the coffee shop edifice is a restaurant serving all sorts of North Asian cuisine, including 갈비 kalbi, 비빔면 bibimmyun and miso udon.
After waffling between ordering bibimmyun or bibimbap, I initially ordered the spicy bibim noodles (called bibimmyun in Korean, $7.25 USD). But owner Joyce Jung immediately advised me it would take about 20 minutes to make it. I asked if the bibimbap ($6.50 USD) would arrive more quickly, and she said “yes.” So I opted for the popular Korean dish.
The bibimbap arrived in a regular ceramic bowl — not the oven-heated stone bowls of dolsot bibimbap — with steamed white rice, raw shredded carrot, sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, a sunny-side-up fried egg and a couple of tablespoons of 고추장 gochujang.
After thoroughly mixing items together with the supplied fork. The raw carrots and lack of marination of the ingredients made the Java Hub version not as sweet and garlicy as the dish often is in traditional Korean restaurants.
Non-Korean vegetables such as broccoli may surprise some, but as a big fan of broccoli I enjoyed it very much.
Jung told me Java Hub has been open at this location for 10 years. Originally she only served coffee, tea and typical coffee shop fare like bagels and sandwiches. However, she soon found she needed to offer something more to keep the doors open.
“I noticed that business dropped off in the winter, and I started offering hot meal options to draw winter business,” she said.
So she began offering familiar Korean and Japanese dishes to her menu as well as other hot items like hamburgers.
The mix of coffee joint and Korean restaurant may seem eclectic. Yet while I was talking to Jung after my meal, one of her customers, waiting for his “usual order” of a bacon cheeseburger, opined, “Her burgers are the best anywhere.”
If 빨리 빨리 bbali bbali (“Hurry, hurry!”) is your battlecry and you just want a quick coffee to go, you can place your order from the drive-through window. Jung makes the coffee herself and will bring your order to your car.
[googleMap name=”Java Hub”]60 Greenfield Avenue, San Anselmo, CA[/googleMap][googleMap name=”Java Hub”]60 Greenfield Avenue, San Anselmo, CA[/googleMap]
Java Hub Cafe
60 Greenfield Ave.
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 451-4928
January 18, 2012
Seoul Garden, St. Louis
I haven’t visited St. Louis in 18 years, and I certainly don’t remember the city for its Asian food. So it was a treat to eat at a Korean restaurant there during a recent 20th high school reunion trip to rural southern Illinois.
St. Louis is the nearest major metropolitan area with a sizable airport to my little hometown, located more than an hour east. After a long flight, my husband and I were hungry. On my asking about nearby Korean restaurants, the hotel clerk directed us to one about a mile away in the suburb of St. Ann.
The first thing we noticed at Seoul Garden was the full parking lot on a Friday night. This was the first good omen; the second, a dining room full of Korean-speakers. Many were feasting on the $20 all-you-can-eat beef, chicken or pork Korean barbecue.
More tired than hungry, we chose lighter meals. I ordered chicken fried rice (닭복음밥 dak bokeumbap) made with peppery grilled chicken, Chinese restaurant–style peas and diced vegetables (carrots, corn, green and red bell pepper). I was a little disappointed they didn’t sneak any kimchi into the fried rice. The dish came with a small salad.
Kimchi Jjigae at Seoul Garden (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
My husband ordered a hanshik (Korean food) standard, kimchi stew (김치찌개 kimchi jjigae). This one contained enoki mushrooms, a couple of slices of fish cake as garnish and hidden slices of rice cake (가래떡 garae tteok). It had the expected spiciness and sourness as well as welcome warmth for that cool fall evening.
Thanks to the mealtime custom of multiple side dishes (반착 banchan), diners at many of the more traditional restaurants can sample the multiple personalities of Korean cuisine. Every time I visit a restaurant for the first time, I get more excited to discover the banchan than my main course.
Among the banchan at Seoul Garden was a bowl of Gyeran Jjim (계란찜), which is a Korean egg custard. This was the first time on either side of the Pacific I’ve had it served as banchan. It was as comforting a dish as it was simple — two scrambled eggs and one cup of a simple broth (such as anchovy or dashida), baked or steamed until set.
Yongeun Jorim as banchan (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
Another side dish surprise was marinated sliced lotus root, called Yongeun Jorim (연근 조림). It was pleasantly crunchy, sweet and salty.
It’s a pity we had to leave the next morning for my reunion. It’s even more of a pity the early time of our return flight precluded our stopping there for one more meal.

Seoul Garden
10678 St. Charles Rock Road
St. Ann, MO 63074
(314) 429-4255
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

November 12, 2011
Review: Korean Village Wooden Charcoal BBQ House, San Francisco
The restaurant was nearly empty when we sauntered in at 1:45 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. Two men were engaged in an animated conversation in a Chinese language at a table on the opposite side of the restaurant, their words echoing off the walls and the mirror that stretched the length of one side of the restaurant and over the din of the sports color commentators on the big-screen TV.

Because of the name of the restaurant, we ordered broiled 불고기 bulgogi and broiled barbecued chicken (닭구이) from the lunch menu, which bundles the items with 밥 bap (rice), 반찬 banchan (side dishes) and a bowl of soup. Both entrees were $9.99 each.

The banchan were typical Korean restaurant fare: baechu kimchi, lightly pickled cucumbers, marinaded soybean sprouts, marinaded mung bean sprouts, soy sauce–brined jalapeños, and two kinds of daikon kimchi (one was fresh and the other was made from dried daikon). They were tasty but not surprising.

Miyukguk, a simple Korean seaweed soup (Tammy Quackenbush photos)

The surprise for us were the small bowls of 미역국 miyukguk, which is a Korean seaweed soup made with wakame in a simple broth. Of all the soups in Korea’s culinary repertoire, few are more Korean than miyukguk. I have to give the restaurateurs credit for serving such a bold, unusual dish to a couple of non-Koreans, since many non-Koreans are still somewhat squeamish about seaweed in its leafy form.
Korean women recovering from childbirth are served this soup morning, day and night for the first couple of weeks after giving birth. Some Korean women are also compelled by well-meaning relatives to eat lots of it leading up to childbirth, since is it believed to purify the blood and help women with lactation.
The waitress set the bowls down, I looked at my husband and said “Happy Birthday,” though neither of us have a birthday coming. He doesn’t like seaweed in soup or 김밥 kimbap (sushi).
“It’s good for me, right?” he asked me while stirring the leaves and looking skeptically into the bowl. He ended up liking the flavor of the soup.
The service was prompt. The waitress took our order shortly after we sat down and brought the banchan, rice and soup within a few minutes. The bulgogi and grilled chicken arrived a few minutes after that.
The bulgogi was quite dry, and the smoke flavor from the real wood oven was pronounced. We dipped the meat in the miyukguk and wrapped it in moist rice, which helped.
The chicken, however, was moist, the “special house sauce” more obvious than on the bulgogi, and the smokiness more subtle.
Korean Village Wooden Charcoal BBQ House, or Wooden Charcoal BBQ, is located in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood at 4609 Geary Blvd.
It is easy to find from Highway 1, commonly known as 19th Avenue, a major north-south thoroughfare on the west side of the city. If you’re traveling north on 19th Avenue (coming north from San Francisco International Airport and San Jose on Interstate 280), turn right on Geary Boulevard. The restaurant will be on your right between 10th and 11th avenues.
Making left turns on a number of streets of San Francisco is difficult. If you are traveling south on Park Presidio (from Napa-Sonoma wine country and the Golden Gate Bridge), you can’t turn left onto Geary. Travel a block south of Geary, turn right onto Anza, turn right at 14th Avenue then turn right a third time, onto Geary
This restaurant is worth the hastle. Parking is available along Geary or side streets.
Geary Boulevard has a string of Korean shops, grocers and restaurants. Wooden Charcoal BBQ is about a block away from longstanding Korean barbecue master Brothers Restaurant and several blocks from the Korean establishments in Japantown.
September 22, 2011
How to Avoid Jail Time Over a Restaurant Review
Any food blogger worth his/her salt has to be careful and make sure their salty commentary doesn't cross the line. (Elisabetta Grondona photo via Creative Commons license)

ATaiwanese blogger with a family name of Liu was sentenced to 30 days in jail, two years of probation and was ordered to pay roughly $6,900 in compensation to a restaurant owner (named Yang) over a review, according to The Daily Mail of London.
Three of her comments were the focus of the legal action:
1. The beef noodles, which are supposed to be the specialty of the restaurant, were “too salty.”
2. The restaurant had cockroaches and was, therefore, unsanitary.
3. She called the owner of the restaurant a “bully” because he allowed customers to park their cars “haphazardly” in the parking area, causing traffic jams.
According to the article, Taiwan’s High Court, which heard the case on appeal from a lower court, found that Liu’s criticism about cockroaches and the parking situation at the restaurant was a narration of facts, not intentional slander.
The High Court’s main objection, surprisingly, was that Liu painted too broad of a brushed when she criticized the restaurant’s “salty” cuisine because she only eaten only one meal and paid the restaurant only one visit before publishing her review.
All food bloggers — even ones in the U.S., where legal thresholds for libel and product disparagement are much higher — are one caustic comment away from a lawsuit. Without the deep pockets of a large newspaper or magazine paying the free-speech attorney fees, a blogger can face bankruptcy from even the most frivolous slander or libel suit. Restaurateurs, and businesses in general, can worry just as much about what a blogger may say on the Internet about their product as they are about a review from a respected food writer in their local newspaper.
Blog posts can live on long after publication. Reviews in traditional media also are getting longer shelf lives online. Discovery, via the right search terms, is just a mouse click away. One can even find reviews easily for restaurants long since closed.
I discussed this story with several food and beverage bloggers. All said the court’s decision was over-reaching. A restaurant review, whether on a blog post or in a high-revenue commercial publication, is understood to be simply a snapshot in time, the opinion of one person on one day at one meal. Readers understand that and take note accordingly.
In the U.S., a libel or product disparagement lawsuit can bring even far more attention to the unfavorable review than if it were allowed to go into obscurity. Marketing-savvy businesses simply post a rebuttal comment with the original review and let readers decide whether the review’s conclusions are warranted. Bloggers and traditional publications worth reading — i.e., managed by staff mature enough to welcome criticism — will approve the rebuttal comments. (Print media often publish the rebuttals as letters to the editor.)
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers far more protection than the free speech codes of other countries, including South Korea. However, there still are lessons for American food bloggers to help avoid trouble.
1. Take a lesson from reviewers of durable consumer products, such as electronics. Reviewers will contact the manufacturer with a list of complaints or problems and ask for clarification or help. Sometimes, the problem is the reviewer’s, and sometimes it’s a defect. In other words, if you suspect a problem with a dish or service. Verify that the problem actually exists and wasn’t a fluke (a tragic accident killed one of the staff, leaving them short-handed during the lunch or dinner rush) or a matter of personally preference (salt or spiciness sensitivity).
2. During those visits, pick a different entree each time.
3. If you can’t go more than one time because of time or monetary restraints, invite a few of your family, friends or co-workers with you so you can sample more dishes and also get an opportunity to see how well they serve your larger table.
4. Never, ever, forget your camera. If you witness health code violations or something illegal, such as cockroaches, rats or “recycling” of banchan, take photos at that moment.
  In the U.S., truth is an absolute defense against libel, although there is no defense against costly, fruitless legal battles.
  In other countries, such as South Korea, this may offer only limited protection. Some protection is better than none.
5. Sometimes, the most appropriate venue to complain about health code violations is the local health department, rather than a paragraph in your food blog, accompanied with snarky adjectives and flowery prose. If the local agency takes action, then report on that action. At that point, it’s part of the public record.
6. Criticizing for an issue outside a restaurant’s control, such as how badly their customers park their vehicles, may create cute quips, but it mostly fails to provide constructive criticism for the proprietor or decision-making direction to the potential patron. Perhaps, the restaurateur could take corrective curbside action, if the problem actually existed.
Now, having said that, Mr. Yang, the restaurant owner seemed to have earned his “bully” moniker by taking her to court in the first place. The most damning accusation she made against the restaurant — visible cockroaches — actually was vindicated by the High Court. Yang took Liu to court, got her thrown in jail for 30 days and received nearly $7,000 in compensation for his “injury” over her comment that his cuisine was “too salty.”
Koreans call a stingy person “salty” as in 넌 너무 짜 nuhn nuhmu jja, “You’re too salty.” This restaurant owner seems to be “too salty” because of his own over-reaction to the original blog post.
The Taiwanese court’s decision to penalize this blogger so harshly for such a facile opinion has brought real disrepute on Taiwan, far more disrepute than Liu’s blog post brought on Yang’s noodle restaurant.
Food bloggers based in the People’s Republic of China have more freedom of speech than their Taiwanese counterparts.
“… man and we thought our speech was limited over on the mainland…. We find this pretty frightening. God knows we at Shanghaiist have written more damning things than that a dish was too salty. We hate to think what would happen if we were called Taipeiist instead.” —Tiffany Ap of Shanghaiist, commenting on the case
When people in the PRC have greater freedom of speech than the Taiwanese, that is a sad day for Taiwan’s standing in the free world.
June 26, 2011
Review: New Garden Restaurant, Los Angeles area
Written by Taeyang Yoon
Rowland Heights restaurant known for jajangmyeon
Continuing our journey down the ‘Korean’ section of Colima Road in Rowland Heights, we stop at one of my favorite places. I have been coming here on a fairly regular basis for a few months now. This restaurant is renowned for its ‘joonghwa yori’ (Chinese-Korean cooking), the people in the know go crazy over their jajangmyun (jajangmyeon) and tangsuyook – and I am one of them.
I found this place by asking some grocery store clerks nearby and almost unanimously they recommended this restaurant – New Garden Restaurant. It’s on Colima Road near the Paso Real Avenue intersection.
The restaurant itself is fairly large; it has a main dining area with about 100 seats and also a couple of private banquet rooms. The decor is clean and somewhat dominated by the two large big screen Samsung TV’s on either side of the dining area. Also, you can always find some customers slurping on some jajangmyun noodles at anytime of the day.
A huge plus for the restaurant is that the staff is excellent, probably some of the best service I receive in a ‘Chinese’ restaurant – they are very attentive and courteous. As soon as you sit down, they bring you some hot tea. After you order the food, they immediately serve you the dice onions with chunjang sauce (AKA jajang sauce) and joonghwa style cabbage kimchi. The main dishes come out not too long after the order. Just the scent of the food being served make the salivary glands instantly work in overtime, not unlike the Pavlov’s dogs.
Jjajamyun with kimchi and radish banchan served with a side of extra black bean sauce. (Photo by Taeyang Yoon)
The beauty of jajangmyun is in its simplicity. It’s just jajang sauce served over thick noodles. The sauce is made with onions, squash, and beef stir fried in black bean paste (chunjang) sauce which is thickened with some corn starch. Some gringos might call this the Chinese spaghetti, and they are not too far off in saying so. But we all know where the Italians got their noodles from…
The New Garden’s version of jajangmyun can be described as perfect sauce with machine extruded noodles. A true dish of jajangmyun is served with ‘sutamyun’, which is made by hand-pulling and beaten over the worktable. This type of noodles gives it a superior mouth-feel, but artisans who can create such noodles are getting rare today. At any rate, the New Garden’s offering gets a top-notch score in flavor, texture, and in preparation. The sauce is not sugary, not greasy, and not salty. It has just the right amount of savoriness, or umami. The noodles are cooked just right, although it is a shame that this great sauce does not get the deserved sutahmyun!
Their tangsuyook also deserves a very high praise. The meat is perfectly deep-fried with no funny, oily aftertaste. The meat actually stays crispy and the longer it sits in the sauce, the coating on the meat become chewy. At most restaurants, the tangsuyook goes soggy after a few minutes… not here. Also, to note, the sauce is not overly sweet as it often is at other places.
The ending verdict is that if you are a fan of jajangmyun, one of Korea’s national foods, or want to try it for the first time, New Garden Restaurant in Rowland Heights is one of the best.
New Garden Restaurant
18740 Colima Rd.
Rowland Heights, Calif.
(626) 912-9588
[googleMap name=”New Garden Restaurant”]18740 Colima Rd., Rowland Heights, CA[/googleMap]
December 1, 2010
Namu at the San Francisco Ferry Building
Namu is a Korean and Japanese fusion restaurant owned and operated by three Korean American brothers — chef Dennis Lee and his brothers, Daniel and David — who have established a presence at the Thursday and Saturday farmer’s markets at the San Francisco Ferry Building. They serve what they call “cutting-edge new California” cuisine.
The market menu (PDF) features kimchi fried rice, okonomiyaki and their own spin on Korean tacos (ssam in Korean), using toasted seaweed as the wrap.
Korean seaweed topped with rice, bulgogi and kimchi.
While there a recent Thursday, I tasted the Korean tacos, which cost $5 for two. Each have two sheets of Korean or Japanese seaweed with some sushi rice topped with teriyaki-marinated beef and kimchi salsa on top. Each taco is two or three bites of Korean fusion genius and more healthful than those wrapped in soft or fried tortillas.
Korean french fries topped with chopped kalbi and gochujang will fill you up.
The gamja (Korean for potato) fries are made from “hand-cut potatoes” and topped with kimchi relish, gochujang (Korean spicy red pepper paste), sweetened mayonnaise (Namu uses the popular Asian brand Kewpie), teriyaki, chopped short ribs and green onions. Orders for the fries were flying off the grill, especially in tandem with the Korean tacos.
The okonomiyaki, or Japanese savory grilled pancake, was in demand as well. Namu makes its “crispy and gooey flour pancake” with kimchi and market vegetables, topped with bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce and sweet mayo. Most ordered it with a sunnyside-up fried egg. I saw one brave soul pass me with a plate of okonomiyaki with a raw egg on it though.
The dish’s name comes from okonomi, which can be translated “as you like it,” and yaki, for “grilled” or “cooked.” A thinner version is similar to the Korean flatcake dish panjeon.
The okonomiyaki were made fresh and to order.
Namu, whose Korean name means “tree,” is at the Ferry Building on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — get there before the 1 p.m. rush — and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The brick-and-mortar restaurant is located at 439 Balboa St. in the city, near Golden Gate Park. The menu there also includes Korean fried chicken, ramen, bibimbap and additional Japanese-influenced items. Also served there are more than 30 selections of wine, sake and soju.
June 18, 2010