Midtown Lunch

As soon as JGold discovered Palsaik Samgyupsal, the pork belly specialist that opened in Koreatown last summer, I did what I do with most places “The Guru” writes about: looked for a lunch menu! Like most places in K-Town, Palsaik has a lunch menu featuring various soups and stews for under $10. There’s a $10 galbi tang (short rib soup), a $10 soybean paste stew with seafood, and a $9 kimchi jigae. You can also order pork belly lunch special for $12, as long as you have at least two people- or else they don’t think it’s worth it to fire up the table top grill. The lunch specials come with two strips of pork belly, plus grilled bean sprouts.

But Palsaik’s main draw is their namesake 8 flavors of pork, featuring a long wooden board with jelly roll looking servings of pork belly in a rainbow of colors. It was $40 when I had it a few weeks ago and I had been planning on writing about how it makes the perfect lunch for four (in addition to two pieces of pork belly per person, and a seafood stew, they also make a fried rice for you on the grill at the end of the meal.)  It may not be the biggest $10 lunch K-Town has to offer, and most of my Korean friends could probably polish off the dish themselves with a little help from a friend or girlfriend.   But as a way to enjoy a quality pork belly lunch with friends, it was a totally sensible lunch for $10 a person.  Sadly, though, Palsaik revamped their menu last week and the 8 flavors of pork is now $50!  Total bummer for cheap bastards Midtown Lunchers like myself, looking to eat their signature dish during lunch.  Whether or not it’s still worth it for dinner, I’ll leave to others to decide…

Check out the new menu after the jump…

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When most people in L.A. talk about loving Korean food, they’re usually talking about Korean BBQ.  And even more specifically than that, all you can eat Korean BBQ.  But not all ayce Korean BBQ lovers are created equal, and opinions can range from the wildly enthusiastic (“I am a fatso… let’s do it!”) to the mildly exuberant (“You know all you can eat Korean BBQ isn’t even that popular in Korea.  It’s totally an American thing.”  “So you don’t want to go?”  “What are you talking about!?  Of course I want to go!”) to the reluctantly excited (“I’ll go… but I’m totally not going to eat that much.”) And within that group there is even a smaller subsect of ayce Korean BBQ lovers who will only eat at $9.99 all you can eat Korean BBQ places for lunch. And that’s where you’ll find me.  After all, why pay $16-25 for something you can get during lunch for just $10.  Added bonus?  You have the rest of the day to recover.

My journey to find the best $10 all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant has taken me through many body sacrificing lunches… from Tahoe Galbi (which now features Brazilian BBQ!?), to the always reliable Choi Gah Neh, which were both blown away by newcomer Don Day, which I raved about back in June.  But after a return visit to Don Day last month left me a bit disappointed, my search for the best $10 ayce Korean BBQ lunch deal began again.  So when I read that a new Korean BBQ place had opened on Ardmore and 8th called Bud Namu, and they were offering a $10 all you can eat lunch option for a limited time only, it wasn’t long before I made it over there to stuff my face.

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If you are super fan of the Japanese fried meat cutlets known as tonkatsu (and quite frankly, how could you not be?) then you likely have discovered that one of the best versions in the city can be found not in the South Bay or on Sawtelle or in Little Tokyo, but in Koreatown, at a Korean/Japanese place called Wako Donkasu.  They’ve pretty much perfected the lunchtime katsu, but it doesn’t stop me from trying any new places that may pop now and again.  So when I saw this photo on Food GPS from the 6 month old Myeongdong Donkasu, I thought… don’t mind if I do!

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A few weeks ago I was pretty excited to be turned onto Yang Ban, a sul lung tang specialist in Downtown L.A. Not only was it exciting to find such a great Korean place in such an unlikely place, but flu season is in full effect. And sitting in that warm little restaurant, slurping down ox bone soup, actually had me considering giving up chicken soup with matzoh balls as my go to penicillin. No joke, Yang Ban makes a damn good bowl of soup. But I had to stop short of declaring it the best in L.A. because (and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this) I hadn’t actually been to any other sul lung tang places in L.A.

So on Monday, with the weather cold and rainy (aka sul lung tang weather), I decided to head to K-Town for a double dose of soup… hitting up two places recommended in the comments by my buddy Matt.

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Midtown Lunch has a long, storied history with ridiculously cheap sushi (sushi from a 99 cent store?  It happened.) One could easily argue that cheap sushi is the scariest thing I’ll eat in the name of this site.  After all, nowhere is the “you get what you pay for” adage more obviously on display than with raw, practically untouched, seafood.  So with a $10 ceiling on lunches, good sushi is usually a complete oxymoron.  But “good enough” sushi is something this cheap bastard is constantly on the hunt for.

In New York finding a Japanese restaurant that would give you three sushi rolls for $10 was the holy grail.  But here in Los Angeles, cheap sushi devotees will find that hwe dup bap might be the way to go… essentially, a Korean salad topped with cubes of raw fish. There’s an ok $9 version at Ssing Ssing in Koreatown, and Wow Bento & Roll Downtown has an even better version for $8 (masquerading as a “sashimi salad”.)  That’s gotta be as cheap as it gets right?  Any cheaper than that, and we’re likely swimming in completely unchartered waters.  And then last week, while driving up Western in Koreatown, I spotted a sign that would possibly change my life. A lunch special hwe dup bap for… wait for it… wait for it… $6.

How could I not?

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If you love pork you were undoubtedly excited by Jonathan Gold’s (aka “The Guru” on this site) review of Palsaik Samgyeopsal, the Koreatown pork belly specialist whose signature dish features 8 thick slices of fatty goodness, each drenched in its own special marinade.  Somewhat surprisingly, they do offer a lunch menu featuring galbi tang (beef stew), naengmyeon (cold noodles), and $9 orders of pork belly.  But clearly the 8 slices of pork belly dinner is the draw of this place.  For lunch you’re better off stepping a few doors down to Jang Tou Bossam, a 2 year old semi-hidden gem  (it’s literally hidden behind the building that houses Ma Dang Gook Soo and BCD Tofu House) of a restaurant that specializes in that other Korean pork fat dish- bossam.

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Considering how hot it has been, a lunchtime post about Chil Bo Myun Ok is pretty predictable.  When summertime hits, so do the obligatory posts about naengmyun- a Korean cold noodle dish that it’s safe to say is only really craved by Koreans who grew up eating the stuff.  And the version at Chil Bo Myun Ok is considered one of the best you can get in K-Town, so of course that’s where I ended up on Friday.  But if I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t there for the naengmyeon.  I had read somewhere that Chil Bo Myun Ok served spicy galbi jim (stewed short ribs) sauteed with rice cakes, and had hoped that by some miracle of all miracles they sold a lunchtime version of the dish for under $10.  I say “miracle of all miracles” because not only is galbi jim one of the more expensive dishes you’ll find in Koreatown, but Chil Bo Myun Ok is one of the more expensive places in K-Town- even for naengmyeon.

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