Madang621: Excellent Side Dishes But Mains Fail to Impress

I wasn't sure what to expect from the revamped Bann space in the CGV complex at the heart of Koreatown on Western and Wilshire. I had never been to the previous spot but Madang621 initially looked like style over substance from the outside. Even though it operates as Madang621, it doesn't have a new website or yelp page (I don't get why so few Korean restaurants have websites -- but let me save that for a rant or future business idea). Different priorities...

In any case, I wasn't blown away but I did enjoy some things and here are some highlights.

I can't recall the last time I had yookhoe, super quality raw meat cut in strips and seasoned with soy sauce, garlic and some sweetness, topped with a raw yolk (yes, just like steak tartare!) and garnished with crunchy slivers of Asian pear. The meat was good, if not hard from being frozen (it should be room temperature and soft), and tasted fresh enough. The marinade was just right and combination with the pears was divine. This place drizzled some spicy sauce around the plate but I'm not sure it needed it. Ditto for the greens on top. More for looks.

The meat and shrimp were all ok, nothing spectacular (meat was a bit tough). The real star of this place was hands down the banchan -- the side dishes that accompany every Korean meal.

The offerings were unusual for a barbecue place, including my personal favorites: duduk, an earthy root that's been pounded to soften it and smothered with spicy pepper paste, garlic and sesame oil; kkennip jjangajji, perilla leaves steamed with a spicy sauce; and chuinamul, an aromatic green that's often consumed with ogokbap (rice with five grains) during the full moon holiday after the Lunar New Year.

I also liked the blanched mini-squids (kkoltoogi) that came with the steamed broccoli and bright red spicy, sweet and tangy sauce. The baby squids were tender and dipped in the sauce, were addictive.

The banchan were all solid, just spicy and salty enough to complement the healthy white and black rice with beans.

The duenjang jjigae, or fermented soybean stew, was unremarkable. It tasted diluted -- not salty and hearty enough -- like it had no soul. Go here instead for that.

The dessert was a feeble attempt at replicating a classic Korean summer treat, patbingsoo, which is basically a red bean slush with all sorts of goodies on top, preferably fresh fruit.

It was grandiose in its presentation but besides coming in a bowl made out of slush, we found all of nine little pebbles of red beans. The vanilla ice cream tasted cheap. The red syrup looked and tasted ghastly. The canned fruits were sad-looking. For a place that spends so much dough on decoration, I think it can afford to do better. This didn't even do the namesake justice.

We also had Korean peppers (pootkochu) stuffed with white fish and deep fried but they were kind of bland and dry. The chicken legs that were presented as potstickers and seasoned like buffalo wings were hardly worth mentioning -- dry and too sweet.

If this place is serious about delivering good Korean food, it needs to 1) make up its mind about its identity -- is it a traditional BBQ place or fusion? 2) improve service (place more heat lamps in the patio) and most importantly, 3) improve the quality of the meat (the cooked meat was a bit tough) and the litmus test for many a Korean restaurant -- the soybean stew.

Palsaik Samgyeopsal: Take Your Pork Belly Pick (Choose Spicy)

Palsaik Samgyeopsal, translated as eight-colored pork belly in Korean, sounded a tad gimmicky. "Pork belly, marinated and seasoned EIGHT different ways!" The verdict is that it was good but there wasn't a big difference in flavor among the different marinades.

Adding to the gimmick radar was having a sloped grill, presumably to allow fat to slide into a receptacle; a wooden plate when all the pork belly slices first come out that is labeled in three languages (Korean, Japanese and English) what the marinade or seasoning is, suggesting the sequence in which they should consumed (from mild to spicy).

The eight kinds include red wine, plain, ginseng, garlic, herbs, curry, fermented soybean paste and spicy red pepper paste. I was ready to savor the pure flavor of the meat and fat, but I didn't like the milder ones. The wine didn't add anything, the meat wasn't flavorful enough to warrant a full-blown appreciation of the plain one; the ginseng was barely noticeable (read: bland); the herbs (I tasted some parsley but it was probably a mix) one wasn't that good either; the curry one wasn't bad but call me a traditionalist, my favorite was hand-down the last one -- the most strong flavored one. The dwenjang (fermented soybean paste) one was ok but not good enough to warrant anything more than a brief mention.

 Here are the things I liked most about this joint.

1) The spicy red pepper paste pork belly (gochujang): the spicy marinade hit the spot but I did miss the most complex marinade for pork ribs and bulgoki that also includes garlic mixed with some sweetness.
2) Upon pre-heating the sloped grill, the server dumps these huge heaps of kimchi on one side and another pile of semi-spicy kongnamul, or soybean sprouts.

3) Pickled daikon radish that you can use to wrap the morsels of pork with. As pretty as it looks, I didn't love the bright pink coloring action. But they tasted good and a must for any heavy meat fest like this one. It acts sort of like a cleanser to balance out the greasiness. Wonderful combo.

I wasn't impressed with:

1) Greens selection and quantity: They gave us lettuce, Korean green pepper and perilla leaves but unlike other joints, this place decided to skimp as much as possible and give out perilla leaves in multiples of three leaves. That was annyoing. We kept having to ask for more. "Please give us more than three sheets."

2) Anemic vegetables selection: The combo we ordered came with some vegetables but they merely included a single slice of sweet potato, an even smaller slice of yellow pumpkin, two sad slices of oyster mushroom, two button mushrooms and some garlic and pepper slices. Oh, and a radish cube on a stick our server used to flavor the grill. I couldn't taste but it was different, I guess.

3) Green onion and lettuce mix: This is the stringy green onion and shredded lettuce mix that also wasn't flavorful or as plentiful as I'm used to in other joints.

Did I mention the combination is a great deal? There's plenty of food for a party of four and after the meat-grilling is over, we got the seafood soup, which was good. It had some crab, which is always challenging to suck out the flesh from but a nice change from the usual fermented soybean paste stew. The seafood was fresh, which was a nice surprise.

Then, as if we weren't already beyond stuffed, we were offered complimentary cold buckwheat noodles that Koreans have at the end of a barbecue meal. Cleanser #2.

The noodles were just ok but at least very cold with ice broth floating, which is always a good thing. I'm still in search for excellent nengmyun, the Korean name for this noodle dish.

Made from beef broth, it comes with sliced radishes, one slice of Asian pear and half of a hard-boiled egg. Usually there's a slice of beef but not in this version and that was ok.

I know it's crazy that I was even expecting to get complimentary dessert like at other barbecue joints (a glass of shikhae, a cold rice drink or at least a slice of orange!) but alas, there wasn't any.

While I do like pork belly, I think I liked Dongdaegam better for its variety and fried rice at the end (this would be what people call mindless eating).

Honey pig is a close second. Gimmicky? Yes. Worth the hype? I think I'll venture to old standbys DDG and Honey Pig for now.

Cooking: Got Homemade BBQ Ribs? Try This.

Not having grown up in the South, I've always been intimidated by the sheer thought of trying to duplicate the whole Southern BBQ thing. I also don't own a state-of-the-art barbecue grill that lets me smoke or slow cook massive slabs of ribs.

But I finally tried a Tyler Florence recipe, which I knew would be reliable, and I must say, it came out pretty incredible. Ok, BBQ aficionados may say it's not the real deal, but slow cooking it in my oven with those sauces really transformed those baby back ribs, my favorite BBQ pick. The ribs were juicy, perfectly seasoned and totally (excuse the cliche but can't help it if it's true) fall-off-the-bone. It was a proud moment.

So go ahead and try it if you've never made American-style BBQ at the comfort of your own home. That barbecue sauce is also pretty darn addictive. My Southern friends will cringe when I say this, but y'all gotta try this!

Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ: Ask for Newly Made Baby Back Ribs

My litmus test for all barbecue joints has to be the baby back ribs. I happen to be a rib fiend, but that's besides the point. So I shared an order of the combination rib and brisket with sides of potato salad and collard greens.

I liked the ribs. They were well cooked, with just a hint of sauce. I wasn't crazy about the various BBQ sauces on the table, and after trying a few, I decided I liked the original sauce the best.


The brisket, however, was simply inedible. It was like cardboard -- dry and unappetizing. So we sent it back and asked them to give us more ribs. Curiously, the second batch of ribs were a lot better. They were more tender, warmer, and freshly charred at the edges -- as if they had just come off the grill or smoker.

The potato salad was fine, nothing special, but the collard greens were really disappointing. They were limp and tasted like they'd been stewing on the stove for days. Not good.

I really enjoyed the second batch of ribs, which is what I'll stick to next time I go there. But not sure about some of the other stuff.

So You Think You Know Bulgoki?

Just returned from a great eating tour of Korea. My first stop undoubtedly had to be Kwangyang Bulgoki Marohwajeok in Samseongdong. It's important that this place not be confused with Kwangyang Bulgoki down the street, only a few restaurants away. It's deceptively close, with the same name but it's not related and not nearly as good as the one that has Marohwajeok as part of its title.

One wouldn't think of bulgoki as something a person living in LA may crave when going to Korea, but I definitely could not get this out here. The meat is hanwoo, meaning Korean beef, and it has a distinctively fresh taste I've only detected in the best grass-fed beef in the best steak houses here.

But the clincher is the marinade, both for its amazingly balanced flavor and curiously invisible nature to the naked eye.



What I mean is that when the beautiful raw meat arrives, there's no juice dripping, no chopped green onions or sesame seeds on the meat. The meat looks plain and totally unseasoned. But the minute it hits the grill that looks made out of twisted copper wires, it imparts a perfectly well-seasoned flavor. The wait staff insisted they used soy sauce to marinate their meat, but there was no trace of it that I could witness with my eyes. My palate, however, did taste it. I was in heaven. I couldn't get enough.

What makes this bulgoki better are the accompaniments, of course, such as the kimchi, greens to wrap the meat in and other side dishes sprawled across the table.

I particularly liked the kookmul kimchi, the non-spicy, ice-cold, radish kimchi usually served in the winter that is so refreshing to have with the heavier-tasting meat.


I also liked the greens that were lightly dressed in some rice vinegar and sesame seeds. Koreans call these greens chicory but they must have been from a different family from the chicory we're familiar here. My favorite combo was taking a piece of bulgoki with some of these greens and wrapping them in a perilla leaf. So delicious and perfectly balanced!

The other side dishes were average, if not curious (e.g., a weird smoked salmon, lettuce and peanut butter concoction I used to have at local robatayakis way back when that strangely works when drinking beer or sake but frankly doesn't go with bulgoki).


It's fairly expensive but well-worth it. The only risk is that you may seriously overeat once you taste this mysteriously well-marinated meat that --if you'll excuse the cliche --melts in your mouth. I'm not sure what some people mean when they say that Korean food and barbecue is better in LA than in Korea. What are they smoking? Get thee to Marohwajeok!

Kwangyang Bulgoki Marohwajeok (광양불고기 마로화적)
Kangnamku Samseongdong 120-3
(02) 539-9922

Park's Finest: Fingerlickin' Fine

Update: you can now buy your very own bottle of this crazy good sauce, but it's only available at the large public events it caters. I'll let you know when it begins selling it online on its site. Enjoy!

Meat, meat and more meat. If you're not a proud carnivore, you may want to skip this post. The first time I had a taste of Park's Finest was at Tuesday Night Cafe, which was MC-ed by founder and BBQ-master extraordinaire, Johneric Concordia himself. He brought some chicken that tasted good enough, but it wasn't until I had a dab of the fantabulous barbecue sauce that I became an instant groupie.

It took me exactly two seconds to think of an excuse to cater a Park's Finest BBQ party.

We got the pork baby back ribs (left), ribeye roast, chicken and sausages for meat and the corn bibingka, of course. They threw in a special cut of beef rib meat (above) they called dinosaur something but all I have to say is that it was my favorite -- cooked medium rare and all.

The food came on time and piping hot. Everything was fantastic. The only thing I would say they could have done better was the chicken. Maybe because the chicken pieces were smaller and uneven in size, the smaller chicken legs, in particular were a bit dry. BUT, nothing that couldn't be remedied with some smothering (more like dunking, drowning...you get the idea) of that lovely barbecue sauce with a Filipino twist that contains sugar cane, pineapple, soy sauce, garlic and...he'll have to kill you first to divulge the secret. When asked, he once famously said, "unicorn blood." No offense to animal-lovers. One of the hosts also famously wrote that she wanted to drink the sauce by itself. They should really sell this stuff in jars.

The sauce makes this barbecue. Don't get me wrong. The meats are great but significantly enhanced by the addition of this sweet, spicy, garlicky, smoky delight that you likely have never tasted before. It's that transformational.

The corn bibingka was sweet, soft, grainy and toasted slightly on top -- in short, the perfect accompaniment to the meaty stars of the barbecue.

The host and I made some sides, like corn on the cobb, peach and greens salad, roasted curried fingerling potatoes, cole slaw, pepper and cucumber salad, to balance out the heaviness from the meat. It didn't necessarily stop us from overeating but it certainly helped to temper the meatfest.

Still, we could have fed an army with the copious amounts of meat and food that was available. Not to mention our amazing array of cocktails, courtesy of our resident mixologist who made the best mango and strawberry margaritas, mojitos and caipirihnas.





You can find out where the name, Park's Finest, came from and the full menu on its site below. It also has pork tenderloin, beef ribs and much more. This BBQ is not to be missed. Cater it for your next work or play event.

Park's Finest
Tel. (213) 247-4909
theparksfinest213@gmail.com

Honey, I Shrank the Pig

I've written far too many downers lately so figured I'd give it a jolt with this pleasant surprise of an experience I had at Honey Pig in Koreatown. It may not be the best time to tout pork but it's totally safe when fully cooked so here goes my plug for pork. I had my initial doubts about the kudos this place that allegedly specialized in pork belly got. I recalled the dingy hole-in-the-wall joints in the alleys of Seoul where they brought out frozen pork bellies that were cooked tableside and washed down with soju.



As much as I reminisced about those times with some semblance of romanticism (ah, those carefree days!), I didn't necessarily associate that pork belly with quality meat. It was the experience that counted more than the actual flavor. But Honey Pig gave me flavor. The little pork belly rectangles weren't frozen. In fact, they came looking more fresh than I've ever seen pork belly served. The color was a dark pink that looked very fresh. Then when the meat hit the dome-shaped grill and they dumped the bean sprouts and red-hot kimchi, I knew I was in for a treat.

The grill dutifully melded the flavors of the pork, kimchi and nuttiness of the bean sprouts, resulting in a complex blend of soft pork texture and crunchy kimchi and bean sprouts. In short, I was converted. It helped that the dome-shaped grill got rid of the fat dripping from the pork. How about them low-fat pork bellies! The restaurant usually gives you some other veggies to grill, including pumpkin, tofu, potatoes and onions. If you want to wrap it in something, you have the thin rice cakes with either the red, Vietnamese-esque dipping sauce or the garlicky fermented soybean paste mixed with some red pepper paste, called ssamjang.

In the olden days, pork bellies were wrapped in lettuce or kennip or some mixed greens, but the popularity of places like Hanyang (my personal favorite) and Shik Do Rak have given way to the rice cake wrappers. I don't mind it. It's just different.

Then came the kicker -- the fried rice on the grill. I know I've belabored this point but the fried rice will never be as good as Dong Il Jang. Let's just say that up front. And it wasn't really "cooked" tableside.

Still, while it may not look like the most appetizing finish to a meal, it was good. It's also a lot of food, so if you're a party of two, one order suffices since it comes with so many things. My favorite part of the meal was undoubtedly the soft and fresh pork belly meat, which was a world of a difference from the rubbery frozen kind I was used to seeing and hence didn't like so much. And the combination with the kimchi is always good. As Jamie Oliver would say, pork bellies and kimchi really like each other. I would definitely return, although not your everyday restaurant because pork belly is still pork belly. The dome grill can only do so much to make it healthier. Unless you've got metabolism on your side, of course.

Honey Pig
3400 West 8th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 380-0256

Samba BBQ Fest at its Best

I've had many barbecues in my lifetime, but none come even close to the mother of all barbecues that I look forward to every year -- the annual Brazilian meat fest extravaganza presided by grill maestro Almir and hosted by our dear friends the Y-W's. The meats on metal skewers don't stop coming off the rotating grill and Almir doesn't stop sliding the sausages, filet mignon, tri-tip, lamb chops, etc. off of the skewers and chopping them on the eucalyptus tree trunk he uses as a serving board.

No sooner does he chop the meat do the crowds form around the board with toothpick in hand to grab the meat morsels. It's hands-down the best eating event of the year.



Most of the meats are seasoned lightly only with rock salt to bring out the natural flavors. Almir says he uses chunky rock salt because it seasons the meat just right as it melts on the grill. He cooks them just medium-rare to medium and when he slices them on the tree trunk for us to attack, the meat has a red blush in the center, is succulent, juicy and oh-so flavorful. It helps that he uses the best ingredients to begin with, including prime and choice beef, free-range chicken and gourmet sausages like sweet basil, smoked Polish and artichoke/parmesan/chicken.



Then there are marinades, sauces and the bacon-wrapped varieties. This salsa that looks like any old pico de gallo is actually an Almir concoction that's a lot spicier than your garden variety salsa. It not only has tomatoes, onions and cilantro but also habanero chile -- pretty much the spiciest chile I've ever had -- olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The result: tangy pico de gallo with a kick that pairs perfectly with the onslaught of meats that can get a bit heavy on the stomach -- the light balancing out the meatiness.



The other sauce is a beautiful green sauce made from mustard, cilantro, garlic, plain yogurt, among other ingredients, that he smothers on the charred chicken fresh off the grill. Once again, the flavors of the chicken with the sauce marry perfectly. He has other sauces for certain cuts of meat that he created, but sometimes, a slab of bacon is all one needs. As with his jumbo shrimp, filet mignon or chicken breast, the thick slice of bacon it uses to wrap these lovelies give that delightful saltiness that comes with every bacon bite as well as its slightly crunchy texture. After all, doesn't anything taste better with bacon? It raised the decadence and carnivorousness to another level.



There are options for non-meat eaters but really, what's the point? I had some good salmon, asparagus and killer beans. But that would be like foolishly filling your stomach with distractions at a really good buffet. What better beverage to accompany all this than the quintessential Brazilian cocktail, caipirihna? Almir gives it another twist by adding passionfruit juice to make passionfruit caipirihna. Refreshing, citrusy and takes you back to those crazy Rio days. Not that I would know what those days were like, since the only time I've been to Brazil was Iguazu as a teenager.



Let's talk about the man behind the rotating grill, frighteningly sharp skewers and eucalyptus tree trunk -- Mr. Almir Santre. A sports (mostly soccer) journalist by day, the Brazilian-born Almir started barbecuing more than 17 years ago when a friend showed him how to grill tri-tip at a party. “In Brazil, everyone throws a piece of meat on a charcoal grill,” he says. He hadn’t seen rock salt being used on meat before and observed his friend in action. Almir later hosted a party where a prominent Brazilian soccer commentator tasted his barbecue and liked it so much he asked him to cook for him next time he came to Rio de Janeiro. The rest is Churrasco history.



Now in his fifties, he has since cooked for the likes of soccer superstar, Pele, and “some soap opera stars.” He charges about $1,200, or about $35 a head, for a party of 35 to 40. He brought in the rotating grill straight from Brazil because he couldn’t find one in the U.S. that cooked the meat to his liking. He is the nicest man and makes it look all too easy. He says it takes a few days of advanced preparation for this party of at least 60. This year, Brazilian music and dance added to the festive mood.



He surprises me every year with what appear to be new sauces, marinades or cuts of different meats, but the constants are supreme yumminess and shameless gorging. I've always loved his rock salt-tinged tri-tip and pork ribs. This year, my favorites were the grilled chicken dabbed with the green cilantro sauce and his New York steak topped with a little of the habanero sauce for some kick. Then again, it's hard to decide given the incredible wealth of options. I saw pork loin stuffed with sage leaves, lamb chops, lamb shoulder, skirt steak -- the list goes on.



This tree trunk, the empty glass of caipirinha, toothpicks and some sauces are all you need to enjoy this truly once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless you're lucky enough to be invited to this annual fiesta like us!). I highly recommend it for anyone interested in hosting an amazing barbecue party. Almir has cooked for wedding banquets as well and I think that would be a fantastic idea. Enjoy.



Almir Santre
Brazilian Churrasco Extraordinaire
(310) 497-9154

No Longer Second to Shik Do Rak--CLOSED

Update: this place has since closed down and been remodeled but I have yet to try the renovated joint. RIP Hanyang.

It was truly serendipitously that we ran into Hanyang again, after having written it off when it first opened a while back. At the time, this Shik Do Rak wannabe was merely that. It sought to emulate ttukbossam, the rice paper and chadol barbecue of thinly sliced meat wrapped with some green onions and spices. But it wasn't impressive.

We headed to Hanyang in this day only because Shik Do Rak was too booked as it is undergoing renovation and has much less room during the Friday night rush. Alas, we were pleasantly surprised. The meat was tender and fresh; the banchan (side dishes) were solid; but most importantly, the green onion mixed with a fiery red sauce that you dab onto the meat before you wrap it in a thin rice paper was extremely flavorful and addictive.



What I liked about Hanyang was that it has a chopped romaine lettuce and red lettuce mix as well as an all-green onion mix that is tossed in a garlicky and vinegary red pepper sauce that complements the meat so well I couldn't stop stuffing my wrap with this green and red mixture. The vinegar gave it a refreshing touch so the fat from the meat wasn't too heavy on the palate. Like Morangak, the ttukbossam (moniker for this kind of rice wrapper with meat) place I like in Garden Grove, it had the pickled radishes -- large round slices of radishes pickled in a slightly sweet vinegar sauce. The radishes are big enough to double as wrappers to mix things up a bit.

The only downside was the rice wrappers were too thick and stuck to each other too much so it was cumbersome to peel them off.



It helps to have solid kimchi, the signature spicy fermented dish and other side dishes such as potato salad and the rustic oogeoji namul, a dark brown leafy vegetable seasoned with garlic, salt and sesame oil that tastes just like the countryside. The mushrooms and sweet potatoes on the grill were a nice touch. The prices weren't bad either. It wasn't as cheap as Shik Do Rak but came close. All that meat and side dishes followed by a meal of rice, savory egg custard and fermented soybean stew for about $30? This could feed a family of five.



Hanyang
3429 West 8th Street
Los Angeles CA 90005
(213) 385-9292

Best Deal in Town: Let Them Eat Rice Cake--TEMPORARILY CLOSED

Update: it moved to a new location on Western and 1st. A LOT bigger but not sure if it has retained its taste.

I'm going to kick off the year with one of my favorite Korean BBQ places that also happens to be one of the best deals in town -- Shik Do Rak.

This is no ordinary Korean BBQ, however. It's one of those ingenious inventions that could only have been conceived in a place like LA. Thin slices of chadol, or beef cooked tableside, but not with the usual condiments you would see at a regular Korean BBQ place that serves marinated ribs and the classic bulgoki. In addition to the usual banchan (side dishes) spread of kimchi, braised potato, pickled cucumber, seaweed and spicy and sweet strips of radish, you get a stack of super-thin rice cakes slightly bigger than your average business card. Instead of a heaping plate of lettuce, kennip (sesame leaves) and ssamjang, the chili and bean curd paste you add to the lettuce wraps of kalbi or bulgoki, you get a bowl of finely chopped lettuce mixed with strips of raw green onions. As condiments, you get two dipping sauces of sesame oil, salt and pepper and a spicy red sauce that seems to have originated from the Vietnamese sriracha sauce.



I am a huge fan of the classic Korean BBQ meats and condiments, but this was a revelation when I first had it. A ttukbossam lover was born. Shik Do Rak claims credit for inventing what literally translates to "rice cake (ttuk) wraps (bossam)."

This is how it works. It's best to ignore most everything else on the menu except the page where the combination deals are listed. The first one listed feeds 3 (or a very hungry twosome) and for something like $29.99, you get a lot of meat, onions and mushroom accompanied by an unlimited supply of rice cake wraps, greens and side dishes. The pricier ones feed more people and include drinks and other types of meat such as pork belly, but as much as I like pork, I stick to beef here.



Koreans always like to eat a "real meal" after BBQ meats, so the combination deal includes a bubbling pot of duenjangchige, a delightfully salty and slightly spicy fermented soybean paste stew with veggies and a choice of rice or nuroongji, toasted rice porridge that is the ultimate comfort food.

The tastiest way to eat these wraps is dip the cooked meat in the sesame oil sauce and lay the meat on a bed of green onions and lettuce on your plate. Spoon on some of the red sauce onto the meat, carefully peel off a slice of rice cake wrapper and use your chopsticks to scoop the meat dipped in sesame sauce and greens, topped with the red sauce. It's heaven on a stick, or two sticks, I should say.



At once you taste the seared meat with a hint of sesame oil, salt and pepper, and the refreshing crunchiness of the greens with a kick from the red sauce -- topped with the neutral and slightly chewy white rice cake wrap. It's a full meal in one bite -- and a pretty darn satisfying one at that. You simply have to taste it to believe it.

Even though the post-meat stew isn't the star here, you can't help but finish it despite the fact that you have long exceeded the healthy 80% full mark. It's comforting, salty and goes so well with that rice or rice porridge that reminds you of how your mother used to make it at the end of every meal (the porridge is meant to help digestion although in this case it may have the opposite effect).

Now for the side dishes. My favorites are the pickled cucumber because it's refreshing and crunchy without being too sweet or vinegary; sweet and spicy radish strips because they also add a crunch, freshness and spiciness; and kongnamul, a bean sprout variation lightly seasoned in salt, garlic and sesame oil, for its mild and nutty taste. I will say that the cabbage kimchi tastes like the raw kind they haven't fermented for as long as the usual ones. Raw is fine. I just don't like this version that much.



While I'm at it, I may as well lay it all out. Shik Do Rak should really add to the array of accompaniments large, round slices of pickled radishes. Its biggest competitor in Garden Grove, Morangak, offers these full moon-sized radishes that add a whole other dimension to the rice wraps. If I feel like I've had one too many rice wraps, I forgo them and opt for the bun-less burger equivalent -- ttuk-less ttukbossam. The round slices of radishes could also stand in for wraps.

The beauty of ttukbossam is that just like with Korean BBQ, you can pretty much custom-make every single wrap to your liking. Some people like to throw in some raw or cooked garlic. Others like to add some kimchi. I happen to be a purist but anyone is welcome to try different variations.

I'm glad to see many non-Koreans frequenting Shik Do Rak these days but the place remains largely a Korean haunt and those who have Korean friends who either take them there or tell them about it. I really wish it broke into the "mainstream" so many more people could enjoy it. That's my goal -- to spread the word about this gem.

By the way, I think I saw a "B" sign last time I went, so for the faint of heart and those who like clean surroundings, this may not be the place for you. Parking is valet but if you come after 7pm, there is free parking right in front of the restaurant on the street. On weekends, it gets crowded and you may have to valet park, especially because it's not considered the safest neighborhood and you don't want to wander around looking for a great spot and walk too far. Also, the rice porridge is only offered for dinner as is the braised potato side dish.

Interesting factoid: despite the fact that I go there almost every other week, the friendly manager never recognizes me but ALWAYS remembers my eating companion Omurice who comes as frequently as I do. We always test him by having me walk in first, but alas, he doesn't break into his signature "Oh! Hello!" until he sees Omurice walking in right behind me. What's up with that? Omurice, this post is for you!

AVOID: many impostors have popped up since ttukbossam's popularity but none come close so do avoid those. They include Hangyang on 8th near Hobart, Castle on Western and many others. Morangak in Garden Grove I like (the round radishes, remember?). Many butcher shops and markets in Koreatown also sell the raw materials to make it at home. I have yet to experiment so will let you know how that goes.

Shik Do Rak
2501 West Olympic Boulevard (at Hoover)
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(213) 384-4148

Orange County location (different owner):
9691 Garden Grove Boulevard
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714) 534-7668