Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong Is the Restaurant Koreatown Didn't Know It Needed

See more of Anne Fishbein's photography from Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong.

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Grilling rib-eye

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Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong

3465 W. 6th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90020

Category: Restaurant > Asian

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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More About

• Anne Fishbein
• Koreatown
• Kang Ho Dong
• Foods
• Meat

It's around dusk inside Chapman Plaza, a small, cobblestone-lined courtyard hidden from view in the approximate geographical center of Koreatown. By this time of day, most of the coffee houses, boutiques and hair salons that comprise the plaza's daytime economy have closed. The parking lot has become a gridlock of Mercedes, Audis and the occasional Range Rover, with orange vest–clad valets darting in between cars. Twinkling LCD signs advertise things like two-for-one soju bottles and private karaoke rooms.

We are not here, however, for pitchers of pineapple soju or velvet-lined VIP booths. We are waiting for a table at the complex's newest addition, a barbecue place called Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong, which opened about eight months ago.

The restaurant is part of a Seoul-based chain run by comedian and former wrestler Kang Ho Dong, a guy who might best be described as an ebullient mix of Jack Black and The Rock (with a tax-evasion scandal thrown in). His image is plastered around the restaurant, in the form of little pulp comics and two life-size cardboard cutouts that stand at the front door. Taking pictures with the cutouts is not only acceptable but encouraged. Ho Dong bears more than a passing resemblance to the Korean singer PSY, performer of the ultra-catchy K-pop mega-hit "Gangnam Style" — so much so that your server might even go out of his way to mention this to you, especially when the song itself inevitably blasts over the loudspeakers.

There are no reservations, and the wait list is long even on weeknights, meaning that most people end up sipping a few pitchers of Hite at the pub next door or loitering against the courtyard's lampposts. When your name is finally called, you're led into what's essentially a giant mess hall — bustling, noisy, hazy with smoke — crammed with short, round tables fashioned out of what look like old milk cans.

It's basically a better lit, less claustrophobic version of Korean dive bars like Dwit Gol Mok and Dan Sung Sa; the floors are bare concrete and the walls are covered in aluminum siding and burnished wood. Even the dishware looks like something rationed from an army barracks. You get the feeling it won't be long until people starting scrawling Hangul love messages on the wall in Sharpie.

A group of young Koreans at the table next to you is polishing off its latest bottle of soju — the place pretty much runs on the stuff — while you look over the palm-sized, cartoon-covered menu. The waitstaff seems almost impossibly coordinated. They whiz between tables, replacing pitchers of chilled barley tea and empty plates with impressive speed, as gracious and alacritous with barbecue neophytes as they are with demanding veterans.

To start the meal, a few banchan are set before you, including a bean sprout and green onion salad walloped with gochujang; a chilled bowl of pickled radish broth; the miniature latkes known as pajeon; a wedge of kabocha squash drizzled with syrup and roast nuts; and what might be the oldest and funkiest bowl of kimchi I've ever tasted (that's a plus, depending on who you ask).

The tabletop grill itself, powered by a hybrid of two large charcoal logs and leaping gas flames, is encircled by a shallow trench divided into quadrants. Inside one is a mix of unmelted mozzarella cheese and corn. Another holds kimchi, another an assortment of onions and peppers, and the last is filled when a server arrives with a large copper kettle and pours a raw egg mixture into the divot, creating a bright yellow moat between you and the meat. Over the course of the meal, little trickles of fat drip downward; the vegetables soften, the cheese melts and the egg becomes, well, scrambled egg — still, it's a vast improvement over the watery steamed egg typically served at most places.

Baekjeong literally translates to "butcher" in Korean, meaning that while Ho Dong might have never touched a meat cleaver in his life, he has sought to connect his name with high-quality cuts. Inch-thick slabs of pork belly are sliced against the grain so they fan out like miniature accordions, enabling more of the surface area to render and become lusciously crisp. You know it's a good sign when the staff wear shirts emblazoned with cartoon pigs (apparently one of Ho Dong's nicknames translates to "piggy").

Best might be the tender slabs of unseasoned pork short rib, which are boneless dwaeji galbi essentially, or the pork belly shaved thin and tossed in a spicy sauce that the waitress takes back to the kitchen to be cooked for you — it's better that way, she insists.

It's a good idea to ask for konggomul, a toasted soybean flour that looks like something Jose Andres might dust his plates with. You dip the meat into the superfine powder, and it rehydrates just enough from the meat juices to transform into something creamy and slightly sweet.

The meat selection doesn't veer into the exotic — there are no offal cuts, and no seafood — and your choices generally come down to the question of whether you favor swine or bovine. While the pink curls of chadol, or thin-sliced brisket, are pretty much what you'll find anywhere, the beef short ribs are well-marbled beauties, and the hefty slab of rib-eye steak wouldn't be out of place on the menu at Lawry's.