Midtown Lunch

Last week featured a lunch experience I’d never had before – one that felt a little bit illicit, as I was handed Korean food made in some kitchen behind an anonymous door in the Yorganic frozen yogurt shop on Hanover Sq. (btw. Beaver & Pearl). Some of you may have already discovered this underground source of legit Korean food called Gangnam, but if you haven’t, here’s the primer on how to get your hands on some.

Yorganic already sells its organic Korean food in the form of Biss Bowls, but Gangnam – yes, a reference to the inescapable Psy song of 2012 – seems to exist only on online ordering site Seamless. Ordering requires delivery or you can do as I did and pick it up, and then try to figure out where exactly to go to get your food. Many of the items on the menu are more than $10, and there’s a $15 ordering minimum for delivery. I went another route and ordered two of the appetizers as my lunch.

The “Gangnam breakfast style” vegetarian kimchi pancake ($5.95) and “Roll ‘Psy’ de” rice cakes with fish cake ($4.95) came with bonus kimchi and two little containers of a Korean brand of drinkable yogurt.

You can get the rice cakes either sweet or spicy, and I went with the latter. They did pack some heat, and contained far more rice cakes than fish cakes. This was a nice enough serving to serve as a light lunch if you’re going in on an order with other people. The pajun with kimchi was cut into eight pieces and was good, if a tad greasy. The soy scallion sauce on the side cut through some of the oil. There’s also a seafood version for $1 more.

This operation is similar to My Belly’s Playlist – the online order only lunch box option that was cooked in the same Yorganic. That seems to have disappeared, and I wasn’t able to confirm that this is run by the same people. Either way, if you want a different Korean food option from Soma by Nature or Cafe Hanover, you’ll likely be pleased with what you get from Gangnam. I was just happy that the song wasn’t playing on a loop inside the store.

Gangnam, 3 Hanover Sq. (inside Yorganic), btw. Beaver & Pearl, (347) 682-2136