Cracking the Clubbing Code

Photo by Raul Vega The waiter grabs me by the wrist and yanks me up from the red velvet booth midsentence, giving me just enough time to gesture to my girlfriend that I'll be back. He drags me across the room, past rows of tables cluttered with whiskey bottles, overflowing ashtrays and picked-apart fruit platters. Then he stops abruptly at a booth crammed with grinning, expectant guys who, judging from the number of empty shot glasses, have clearly been here a while. I can barely make out their faces in the dark. It's okay, the waiter assures me, they've requested me. Sensing the tension in my arm, my resistance, the waiter adds: "Don't worry, the guys do all the talking." Then he pushes me down next to a pudgy but attractive 20-something who blows cigarette smoke in my face. I've successfully been "booked," a custom at Korean nightclubs in which waiters play matchmaker between guests, leading women to men's tables. The guys I'm with have spent a lot of money tonight, and our waiter is looking at a significant tip.

We're at Le Privé, the largest nightclub not just in Koreatown but in all of Los Angeles — a vast, Vegas-style compound with gargoyles on the walls, imposing knights on either side of the stage and an elaborate laser system projecting 3-D cubes that float above the dance floor. An elevated ring of glass-fronted private rooms encircles the main floor, like luxury boxes at a sports arena — perfect aeries for high rollers to scope the women on the dance floor whom they'd like to book. Though it's far from full, there must be close to 600 people at Le Privé tonight. And aside from the friend I've brought along, I'm the only Anglo person in the room, the only non-Korean of any race, a situation I'm familiar with after living in Tokyo for three years — there's that same curious blend of alienation, exhilaration and sensory overload.

In a way, Koreatown doesfeel like another country —four square miles of bustling, freewheeling nightlife thick with more than 1,500 neon-lit restaurants, bars, nightclubs, 24-hour cafés, karaoke "norae-bangs," pool halls and high-speed Internet "PC bangs," all catering to the largest Korean community in the world outside of Seoul: 160,000 in Los Angeles County, 25,000 of whom live in K-Town proper. It's an insular place where most storefront signs and menus are in Korean, and there's a complicated, word-of-mouth system for getting into nightclubs. But with the right passport, crossing into Koreatown after dark feels like falling down the rabbit hole and awakening in an enchanted bar with cascading waterfalls and bowls of butterscotch and mint candies by the door, a land where smoking is almost always allowed, and in some places the unfiltered rice wine, soju, flows until 5 a.m. When the Sunset Strip quiets down and West Hollywood and Silver Lake partiers slog back to their bungalows and Chi Dynasty leftovers, Koreatown is just heating up. In a sprawling city with only a handful of places open past 2 a.m., K-Town may be the hippest little pocket in Los Angeles, a teaspoon of Manhattan west of downtown, perhaps the last territory in the city where the party goes on 24/7.

First Car (Il-Cha)
Cafés

Café Nandarang 3815 W. Sixth St., (213) 388-8513

Zip 3855 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 365-6677

Intercrew 3465 W. Sixth St., (213) 365-8111

Café Home 3377 Wilshire Blvd., No.109, (213) 383-0102

Bohemian 3451 W. Sixth St., (213) 487-6155

Café Bleu 3470 W. Sixth St., (213) 383-0180

Wilshire Square (formerly Greenbelt)

3250 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 380-0908

Bars

Blink 3377 Wilshire Blvd., No.200, (213) 385-1440

Bliss 3465 W. Sixth St., No.200, (213) 365-1222

Pointe 3680 Wilshire Blvd., No.B02 (213) 383-8686

Rosen Brewery 400 S. Western Ave., (213) 388-0061

Second Car (Yi-Cha) Nightclubs

Velvet Room The hottest club in K-Town right now; for the 21-to-23 age group. 3470 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 381-6006

Le Privé The largest nightclub in L.A.; for the 22-to-27 set. 721 S. Western Ave., (213) 381-7007

Kar Nak Smaller and more intimate; for the 27- to 34-year-olds. 3319 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 380-1030

Third Car (Sahm Cha)
Karaoke

Chorus 326 S. Western Ave., (213) 380-4333

Renaissance 3465 W. Sixth St., (213) 380-6864

Soop Sok 4070 W. Third St., (213) 380-0909

Young Dong 3607 W. Sixth St., (213) 739-0322

Vaskia 3377 Wilshire Blvd., No.208, (213) 351-0070

Fourth Car (Sah-Cha)
Late-night grub to sober up

Hodori 1001 S. Vermont Ave., No.102, (213) 383-3554

Pho LA 3470 W. Sixth St., No.5, (213) 389-6750

Denny's 635 S. Vermont Ave., (213) 386-3427

I-Hop 3165 W. Sixth St., (213) 388-7770

Albenei 3470 W. Sixth St., No.6, (213) 388-1105

Fifth Car (Oh-Cha)
High-speed Internet Cafés or "PC bangs"

Cyberria 3324 W. Sixth St., No.J-K, (213) 381-5670

PC & Comics 3470 W. Sixth St., 2B, (213) 382-7783
and PC & Comics 4001 Wilshire Blvd., No.C, (213) 427-6262

For several rounds in one place, check out Palm Tree (3240 Wilshire Blvd., 213-381-3388) and Orchid Restaurant and Karaoke Club (3900 W. Sixth St., 213-251-8886) which have restaurants, nightclubs and karaoke norae-bangs all under one roof.