Archive for 'Korean'

Kitchen Story Brings Korean Snack Food to Sawtelle

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Little Osaka is dead! Long live Sawtelle Japantown, the new City Council approved designation of the ramen and sushi filled strip of West L.A. between Olympic and Santa Monica.  But while the name Japantown is a great homage to the roots of the neighborhood, it doesn’t really do justice to the geographic variety of foodstuff that’s popped up in the past few years.  We’re talking soup dumplings (ROC), pho (Nong La), Korean flavored sausages and rice balls (Seoul Sausage), pizza (Slice Truck), burgers (Plan Check, Bachi Burger), and Korean tofu stew (Seoul House), all of which will make you think twice about waiting on that line for Tsujita.  Even prepared foods chain Lemonade has a branch opening on the street this week.

But the most exiting new arrival is Kitchen Story, a Korean street snack specialist that took over the old Hong Kong Cafe space.

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Mister Bossam is a Welcome New Pork Belly Option from Korea

It would appear as if L.A. is in the midst of an Asian chain invasion. Following in the footsteps of Din Tai Fung, the famous Taiwanese dumpling shop with 2 locations in Arcadia and 1 in Glendale, we’ve seen a steady stream of big (?) names from overseas open all over the city.  Korean BBQ from Kang Hodong Baekjong, Sichuan specialities from Meizhou Dongpo, Hai Di Lao’s hot pot, and Japanese ramen chain Larmen Dosanko are just a few of the new spots looking to test how hungry L.A. eaters are for “authentic” Asian experiences- without having to go through LAX.  The latest to join the parade is Mister Bossam, a South Korean cafe specializing in pork belly and something called “LA Grilled Cheese Baby Pork Ribs”.

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Commissary Open For Lunch; POT Unveils New Lunch Menu

Exciting news for fans of lunch and Roy Choi’s The Line Hotel in the heart of K-Town.  Commissary, the new in-a-greenhouse-on-the-2nd-floor-by-the-pool restaurant w/ a veggie friendly menu, is now open for lunch.  The menu, which forces you to decide what you want based on clip art drawings of single ingredients, is the same as the dinner menu- but there are some lunch friendly items that keep things close to $10.  Like the $6 grilled cheese sandwich (outtakes from Chef anybody?), a $12 burger, and the (might be in the running for best) french dip (in the city) shown above. It’s also $12, but the fries are $3 extra.  Of course good luck trying not to order the roasted carrots, the corn, or the figs.

For something a little bit cheaper, you’ll want to head back down to the lobby- because POT has just unveiled a new lunch menu that launches a week from today (Friday, September 26th).  Spoiler: it involved stone pot bibimbap.

Check it out below.

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Short Rib Stew and Beef Head Make Sun Nong Dan one of K-Town’s Best Newcomers

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It know it’s hard to believe, but a lot of people are starting to come around to the idea that Los Angeles’ Koreatown might have better food than Korea itself.  All you can eat barbecue places, which Koreans will tell you are as Korean as sushi is Japanese, act as a magnet for meat lovers all over the city, but it’s the spaces in between that make K-Town truly special. Combine the highest population density in the city with a culture that likes going out to eat its own food, and the result is a seemingly endless wishlist of quality lunches waiting to be explored.

The most recent development in K-Town’s ongoing evolution is that it’s not even enough to just have a speciality anymore. You’ve got to do your specialty well enough (or some sort of gimmick) to attract people away from the other 5 places that specialize in the same thing. Take seolleongtang, the cloudy ox bone noodle soup that comes to the table bland, and requires the diner to add salt and scallions to taste. Hat Bat has long been considered the go to place of choice, but Young Dong has carved out their own fan base from those looking for a cleaner, less murky broth.  Technically they serve the same dish, but it be impossible to say which is better. Both are great in their own way, both are extremely popular.

So how does a new place like Sun Nong Dan make headway against these two established soup specialists?  Funny enough, with head, actually. And feet. And a surprisingly spectacular version of braised Korean short ribs.

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Dream, More Than Just a AYCE Korean BBQ Restaurant

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If you are a regular reader of Midtown Lunch you know that my favorite $10 all you can eat Korean BBQ is the newest $10 all you can eat Korean BBQ.  From Don Day to Bud Namu to Man Kang, I hop from new place to new place like… well… like a short fat guy who believes that the best cheap all you can eat Korean BBQ place is the newest cheap all you can eat Korean BBQ place.  And the latest place to cross my radar is Dream, on Western near 1st Street.  They do all you can eat Korean BBQ for just $9.99, but the thing that really caught my eye was their all you can eat salad and panchan bar.

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Hit Up Cho Man Won Now, Before The Price of Dumplings Goes Up Again

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“So how long do you think your dumplings will be on sale?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” the older Korean lady standing next to the register said with a wry smile across her face. “Could be a day…. could be a year.”

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That’s the party line at Cho Man Won, the Korean Chinese spot that has gradually gotten busier and busier since being written about in the L.A. Times back in August.  Yesterday you could have walked right in to O Dae San, the popular Korean BBQ place next door that owns Cho Man Won. But for cheap dumplings and Korean Chinese food?  There was a wait at 12:45pm.  The good news is, the dumplings  are still marked down from their regular price of $7.99.  The bad news?  They raised the price from $4 to $5.

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Genwa’s New La Cienega Location Has a Few Little Surprises

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Let me be the first to say thank you to Gyu Kaku for your years of service.  While your food has never been worth going out of the way for, your branch on La Cienega provided a fun option in Beverly Hills to people who like grilling their own meats and grilling their own smores.  Thank you, that is, but your services are no longer needed.  Here’s your engraved watch, enjoy your retirement.  Because now that Genwa has opened up their second location across the street, there is really no reason for anybody to ever go to Gyu Kaku again- unless you really are some kind of smores obsessed maniac.

Seeing as how Genwa’s first location is located on Miracle Mile, just outside Koreatown, and its decor and menu is decidedly inviting to white people,  it’s no surprise to see them expand into Beverly Hills.  But their quality meats and unreal variety of banchan make it a genuinely great option for Korean food lovers of all levels.  In other words, Beverly Hills is really lucky to have this place.

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