Korean food never ceases to be an adventure. Let me say this upfront, terminology and names, don’t know ‘em. Korean is a cuisine I learned solely with my mouth. Never had a Korean friend to guide me, never really wanted to “study” it. ”Just get the food in your mouth” is a sentiment screamed by the cuisine, and is evident the moment you sit down at a Korean restaurant. It’s a robust food that features big bold flavors, hearty texture, and low frequency spicy heat. Low frequency heat? Yes, Korean food has a low down dirty heat that cohorts with dark deep spice tones (think southern Louisiana/Cajun). What’s more, it builds. It sits on your palate and crescendos throughout the meal. The opposite might be wasabi’s role in Japanese food. Wasabi has a high frequency zing that floats away to your sinuses and promotes a lightness, a cleansing quality. Yeah, there’s nothing light about Korean food, it means business.
Your first friends on the menu will probably be Pa Jun, Bulgoki, and Bibimbop. They’re friends for life. Pa Jun: a wheat based, savory, fried pancake, embedded with scallions, served with a thin, soy sauce based dipping sauce. This thing is large and makes a nice appetizer for 4. When it comes to the table don’t fret when you see your server proceed to cut it up into squares with scissors. This is typical and expected. [Sidebar: Korean, like nearly all Asian cuisines, is meant to be ordered FAMILY STYLE. Granted there are individual "one pot meal" type dishes, bibimbop being one of them. For the most part, however, order as a group. I mean, look around the dinning room (this goes for any Korean restaurant where actual Koreans choose to eat). Tables for two don't exist, tables for four are a courtesy, tables for 6 are the standard. I could so go on about this whole failure to recognize family style, but I'll spare you.] Moving on.
“Korean restaurant” is synonymous with “Korean barbeque” (say “I know a good Korean barbeque on Independence”). I’ve never been to a Korean restaurant that doesn’t serve Korean barbeque and usually it is the centerpiece of a meal. Alright already, what is it? Korean barbeque is a collection of thinly sliced, beef or pork dishes, that may or may not be flavored via marinade. The meats are cooked to order, by you, at/on/in your table. I’m referring here to inset or table top grills, some of which are propane, others (my preference) are charcoal burning. This brings us to your second friend, bulgoki.
Bulgoki: thin slices of beef ribeye in a marinade. It is served with rice, green leaf lettuce, a miso based sauce/slather, and scallions that have been thinly sliced lengthwise then dipped into ice water to where they curl up and become one big pouffy mass (sounds silly but you will recognize this immediately). The idea is this: grab a piece of lettuce, put some rice in it “taco style”, slather some sauce onto the rice, add cooked bulgoki, top with scallion. Proceed to do your best Bob Marley impression with that cantankerous jumble you have in your hands. Don’t worry, you will make a mess and feel like a total vulgarian. It’s cool, remember, robust cuisine that screams “just get the food in your mouth”. Odds are, if you look around the room you’ll see a table of six Korean men, drinking heavily, possibly smoking, definitely whoofing these things down like White Castles. Follow their lead.
Best for last, bibimbop. Say it, Bee-Bim-Bop, sounds like a freakin’ Buster Poindexter lyric (Bee-Bim-Bop, Bop, Bop!) I digress. Bibimbop is approachable, straight forward sustenance, eaten with utensils. Bonus! It is a collection of steamed and/or sauteed vegetables, served room temperature in a big bowl, topped with a small amount of shredded beef, and finished with a fried egg (sometimes just a raw egg yolk). It is served with rice and a small dish of fermented red chile and garlic sauce. The idea: add rice and sauce to big bowl, eat. Now you have some decisions to make. Choice of utensils. You’ll notice your place setting includes a huge spoon and chopsticks. There are a couple routes which, in my experience, are guided by gender. Generally I will see men add rice and sauce, mix everything up with the spoon, and proceed to shovel. Women will add rice and sauce, and instead of mixing will “compose” bites with their chopsticks. I have tried both. I pretty much go spoon, with the mix and shovel technique. That said, chopsticks will be in bowl, ready to engage any other foods being served FAMILY STYLE at the table.
There you go. Your first and lifelong friends:Pa Jun, Bulgoki, Bibimbop. Get to know them, then just jump into the madness. You’ll see like Pa Jun 2.0 that has seafood added to the mix. A riff on bibimbop is dolsot bibimbop where the rice is served under the vegetables in a really hot, stone bowl. As a result you get the crispity crunchity rice bits that caramelize form the heat. And then there’s a whole world of barbeque beyond bulgoki. After that there’s plenty more, Korean food runs deep. So go to the restaurant with a group (read more than 4), order a lot, and when it comes to cooking that meat, be as bold and confident as the cuisine itself. You can’t go wrong.
