Seoul Food Lunch

Monday was get down to business day. First session of radiation. We found ourselves running enough ahead of schedule (Andrea's moment in the 'sun' is 1:15PM) so we could roam a bit before treatment. We decided on New Korea House, which is opposite one part of the Japan Center, a multi-block project that urban-renewed a particularly rotten part of San Francisco that sat at the foot of Pacific Heights as you traveled south and lost elevation. It may have been worn and weary, but some four thousand residents were displaced by The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's Western Addition Project A-1, implemented by, it turns out, Justin Herman, he of the plaza across from the ferry building. A-2 kicked out another 13,000 warm bodies. Here's a quote from KQED's History of the Fillmore: Justin Herman prophetically declares, "Without adequate housing for the poor, critics will rightly condemn urban renewal as a land-grab for the rich and a heartless push-out for the poor and nonwhites." So true. Muttered all the way to the bank, I am sure. But enough of the sordid history of the Western Addition. We're here for some decent grub before the first treatment. The New Korea House fit the bill perfectly. Right off the top it must be stated that the menu at New Korea House is identical to that at Korea House, a few doors down. Korea House appears to have two dining rooms, one upstairs, while New Korea House is a single-floor operation at the ground level. I am sure that there are numerous differences, and a whole story about the need for a new version of a restaurant a few doors down, with the same menu, but these finer details will await further reconnaissance.

Korea House is a rectangular room with tables down each side and a row down the middle. The red and gold decor is broken up by overhead vents for the charcoal grills that are built into the tables on each side. At lunch the grills are covered over; the full-on Korean BBQ experience, with one of your party quickly grilling a mixed platter of high-grade protein, is reserved for dinner. Lunch is a practical affair. There are eight items under the BBQ section, which is misleading because three of them are Doi Sot Bi Bim Bap, which combine an egg, various proteins and veggies in a fairly substantial sizzling clay pot, with a choice of bulgogi (marinated ribeye,) seafood (octopus, squid and baby shrimp,) or a pure vegetarian version. While some form of Doi Sot is at the top of my list of things to try next , I opted instead for something I am a sucker for: Korean Pork BBQ. This is thinly sliced pork that's marinated briefly in Gochujang sauce, with some scallions thrown in for good measure. It's grilled quickly, probably over a grill similar to the ones built into the tables for the dinner extravaganza. Andrea opted for the Bi Bim Bap, assorted vegetables and meat served in a big bowl with seaweed, pickled veggies and bean sprout salad as accompaniment. Many of these flavors had already been experienced as part of the banchan (sometimes panchan) that define the Korean dining out experience. These are small dishes of various appetizers that are set down before the main course appears. In this case New Korean House laid out kim chi cabbage, potato in a near-potato-salad state, bean sprout salad with sesame oil dressing, tofu with scallions and a dollop of spicy sauce, pickled turnip (way better than it might sound if you like pickled stuff,) and a couple of items that I had a hard time defining precisely. Perhaps some kind of fish cake in a sauce, and some squiggly gelatinous rice dish cut into jello-like 1/2-inch-square sticks about two inches long. If you check out Wikipedia you get some idea of the diversity of banchan that can be offered. A small bowl of light chicken broth with just a sheen of fat and a dusting of scallions was also served. As you might imagine, it is possible to put down a bunch of banchan and not really require a whole lot more food, and it is not uncommon for these plates to be refilled upon request. However, given the generosity of the servings it is probably just best to move on once each dish is sampled. There's also plenty of rice tea served; Korean rice tea is similar to Japanese, but there is a subtle difference in flavor that I can't pin down in words, but this green tea is easily consumed and we destroyed a full pot of it. All the food arrived very quickly, both due to the fact that much of it is prepared in advance, and helped by the unfortunate fact that there were never more than six people in the restaurant at one time, the time being the peak of the Monday lunch hour. Hopefully this was the slowest day of their week. Andrea's Bi Bim Bap was a generous bowlful; I ended up inhereting her egg yolk, which is cooked runny; it is typically punctured and runs over the contents of the bowl, but Andrea is not a fan of this. So I dumped it over my little bowl of rice, which was quite enjoyable. A ketchup-style container of Gochujang sauce, or a slightly diluted version thereof, was provided, and when added along with the egg to the rice, furnished a nice but not overwhelming kick (you'll find Gochujang in three 'hotnesses' in Korean markets. This must have been the mild one.) Andrea's bowl contained bulgogi, which is barbequed marinated beef, which was lean and flavorful. The final touch was an included dessert which amounted to rice in a light syrup, a kind of very light rice pudding. I took one taste; it was just sugar water with some well-cooked rice that tasted more or less like Rice Krispies that had been left floating overtime in your breakfast bowl. While I appreciated the gesture, it joined my list of "Asian Desserts I Could Easily Live Without."

Things to do on a future visit might include trying the soups, either Kom Tang (thick beef) or Dah Roh Guk Bap (spicy beef and vegetable.) Other Korean favorites are bulgogi, Kalbi (Korean-style short ribs,) and BBQ chicken. New Korea House gets credit for producing very clean food that left both of us satisfied without being overwhelmed, over-salted or over-greased. Two entrees totalled up to about $20, which is not dirt cheap, but then again, this is a comfortable, clean restaurant with nice separation between tables, lots of food for your ten bucks, and attentive service. There is a very faint but discernable smoke aromoa, but it is a serious undertone and did not bother either of us. A very fair value for the money. The final verdict: really competent Korean food, with no surprises but no let down in any dish.

Having gotten ahead of the game we had some time to kill and so drifted across Post Street to Ichiban Kan. This is more or less a dollar store with lots of Japanese content (some made in China.) This place is no end of fun, with a pastiche of useful and junky items covering housewares, cosmetics, school accessories, plastic boxes, bags, packs of ramen, bento lunch boxes and a whole bunch of additional wares that defy simply categories. It was truly like being transported to another country (that being Japan of course, having already had a virtual visit to Korea only shortly earlier.) We blew about $13, left with our trinkets, treasures, and token holiday gifts and headed for UCSF.

Andrea got her first treatment and came out in great shape. She reported one moment of apprehension caused mostly by thinking about what was going on; the actual 'zap' is not much at all, but the movement of the machinery around you, and the concept of radiation passing through you can be unsettling. Two machines were temporarily down, and this caused a slight delay. I occupied myself by reading up on the day's news thanks to my Blackberry. We marched out of UCSF into the blustery, rainy day and headed out for a quick frozen yogurt at Woody's in Mill Valley's Strawberry shopping center. It was only later that I looked up the ingredient list for their delicious, non-fat Yo Cream plain frozen yogurt and found mono- and diglycerides on the list. Needless to say, Woody's is now off limits for us.