My wife and I were recently invited here for a press meal.
This place is located just above the new Hudson Yards construction area on the west side. It’s a prime spot for the soon-to-be-bustling area. In any case, Hell’s Chicken serves up some tasty Korean style fried chicken!
The batter was nice and crispy, and one of the sauces, the soy ginger, was really delicious. Even the drum sticks were adequately battered and sauced, so that the ratio between meat and batter was in the proper proportion.
We also tried the “spicy hell” sauce, which is tomato based and gluten free. It did not deliver the kind of heat that one might expect from such eloquent naming. I thought I’d be shitting molten lava afterward, but that won’t be the case (thankfully). In any event, don’t be afraid! A good, welcoming heat creeps up a few seconds after your taste buds get to work, and the end result is pretty addictive.
That’s cashew powder sprinkled on top, by the way: a very interesting touch.
Not only does this place do fried chicken, but they also serve up some traditional Korean dishes as well. We tried three courses. This first bite was a shrimp and veggie roll wrapped in pickled daikon.
It was nice and refreshing, with a hit of sweet pickled goodness from the daikon.
Then we sank our teeth into this kimchi pancake, made with eggs, flour and pickled cabbage. It was crispy but had a nice dense, substantive texture to it from the kimchi inside. This might have been my favorite dish of the night.
Next up was this platter of bork belly and lightly dressed greens. The belly was sliced thick and grilled with simple spices and sesame seeds. We dipped the pork in spicy bean paste. Awesome. I could eat this every day.
This came out with some spicy pickled kimchi items as well. Shishito peppers, bean sprouts and cabbage. All were pickled in-house.
I should also mention that this joint offers a pretty good happy hour deal from 4pm to 7pm, with $5 beers, wine deals and discounted well drinks.
But check out this trio sampler of infused soju: yuzu, pomegranate and blueberry. All were on the sweet side, as opposed to dry. The pomegranate was the best, and most naturally pleasant tasting of the three. I like the old style presentation too, with the small jars. This will run you $18, for what is essentially about 12-15oz of soju. I thought that was a good deal.
To sum up, this is a great place to satisfy for your Korean fried chicken cravings. The traditional dishes are pretty great too. A guy who sat next to us ordered the bibimbap, and I must say it looked, smelled and even SOUNDED delicious when it came out in the hot clay bowl. That’ll be my next meal here.
The delicious world of KBBQ has exploded in New York. In the last few years new places have popped up all over, and not just within K-town in NYC. I’ve seen several joints pop up out on Long Island, deep into Suffolk County. Long Island still has no Vietnamese restaurants, and the discovery of pho and banh mi by ordinary white folks started years ago. But there’s something about KBBQ that took hold fast and quick. Perhaps it is the fact that a grill is involved. The invigorating smell and smoky visuals of raw meat hitting a red hot grill just resonate with Americans. Burgers, dogs, steaks… we understand.
So all that crap aside, this place is a welcome addition to the panoply of KBBQ joints. Really nice quality stuff, not overcooked, treated just right. Let me get down to what we tried:
On the beef angle, we had a large order, which comes with three items for $99 (a bit pricey, but I promise it is good). Sliced prime rib eye, boneless short rib, and brisket. Here they are, in that order.
Rib eye:
Short rib:
Kalbi marinated short rib:
Brisket:
On the pork angle, we also got a large (3 items for $99), which consisted of jowls, thick belly and thinly sliced belly (which came out separately, pre-cooked and dressed in sauce – not for the grill).
The sauced, pre-cooked item was a bit over-sauced and heavy to eat, but it was also last in the meal, so maybe that’s why it felt heavy. We were getting fucking full.
Aside from all the meat, we had the usual starter items that come in millions of little dishes. Kimchi, fish cakes, tofu, salad, pickled radish, etc.
The grill even had these neat little side-channels where egg and corn + cheese were cooking as side items:
We also ordered kimchi stew and seafood + brisket stew, both of which were a tomato base with really awesome flavor.
And a rice “lunchbox,” which is crispy rice with kimchi, seafood, egg and sauces/spices that they shake the fuck out of for you, table side, to mix it all together:
Lastly, I will share this pic of some of the booze we had with dinner. We must have had three bottles of the glass one (soju), and one bottle of the thing that looks like soda (bubbly, sweet rice wine). Both were awesome.
UPDATE 7/31/17
The only thing new and different that I tried on my second visit, which was an influencer event for Instagram, was this really tasty cold spicy noodle dish. Delicious!
KANG HODONG BAEKJEONG
1 E. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10016
I recently received an email from Seoul Garden owner Patty Koo to come in for a press meal. My wife had been here about three times in the past, so I knew it has to be a decent joint if she had been there on more than one occasion (she has great taste in food).
Seoul Garden has been a family-run operation since 1998. It started with Patty’s mom’s recipes, which were taught to the chefs and taken from there. It’s done very well through the years, and serves as a K-town staple: a place where you can find home-style cooking basics, nothing too fancy or obnoxiously trendy – just really good, solid Korean food in a welcoming and friendly atmosphere.
The restaurant is located on the second floor, up and off the noisy, crowded and sometimes smelly (in the summer time anyway) ground floor space.
While it may make for less visibility to passers-by, as a diner I actually like this feature of the restaurant, especially because the large windows on the second floor that overlook 32nd Street and the bustling K-town scene offer great natural light into the spacious and comfortable dining room. it makes you feel like you’re up in someone’s apartment too, which is cool.
The place was actually already packed at 6:30 while we were in the middle of our meal. Nice! I guess there’s no shortage of customers, even on a Monday night, right after a shitty day back at the office.
As is the case at all Korean joints, the servers bring out a barrage of delicious banchan. These are usually an assortment of pickled items, like kimchi, for those who don’t know the cuisine. Seoul Garden has an especially tasty set of these, which I’d like to give a little bit more detail on here:
First, and my favorite, was thick glass noodles with crushed pepper, dressed in a light sesame oil of sorts:
Then there was the sauteed peppers, onions and squid in a sweet and slightly spicy sauce. Really delicious.
This potato and Asian pear “salad” was dressed in a slightly sweet mayonnaise and was really refreshing and light:
The bean sprouts had a great texture; fresh snap to the stems and a good nutty crunch to the bean.
Seoul Garden serves up a really good kimchi. It’s spicy and crisp, crunchy and zesty. Almost bubbly or effervescent.
The only downer for me in this entire meal was this bitter green item: possibly dandelion or mustard greens?
It was a little too bitter to be eaten by itself, for me anyway, and a bit fibrous, but there were some sweet pickled radish slices that you could wrap around them to achieve a better balance.
The servers also brought out some lettuce for wrapping up the BBQ meat, and spicy scallion shreds for topping.
The sauce trays below contained: fermented soy bean (sweet and savory together – a really good dipping sauce for the meat), raw garlic (excellent when char grilled), and spicy soy sauce with scallions for dipping shit.
Okay, so now that all of the small plates are set up and ready to go, let me switch gears to some of the amazing starters that we tried.
First was this crispy, yet pillow-soft seafood and scallion pancake.
Inside were coarsely chopped scallions and bits of seafood, like squid tentacles. It was really good as a snack, or to dip into some of the sauces on the table. And it was BIG too: the size of a small pizza pie, and virtually grease-free. Most places serve up really greasy scallion pancakes, but this place was awesome.
This next dish isn’t served at too many Korean joints on 32nd Street. I saw it once before at the place directly next door, and my stomach turned at the thought of it, but that was way back in my less adventurous food days. What is it? Raw blue claw crab that has been marinating in a soy-based sauce, spices and other delicious sweet and potent flavor pastes. The bodies stay pretty soft, so you essentially just squeeze the thing between your fingers and suck all the meat out, like toothpaste from a tube. The consistency is similar to the delicious, soft and edible part of beef fat – it’s like jelly. Only here it is cold and flavored differently. All of this sounds really nasty, I know, but I fucking loved it. I can’t believe I was squeamish about this dish in the past. I’m all in now! That said, both I and Patty realize that this dish is not for everyone. I think it’s one of those “either you love it, or hate it,” kind of things.
The last pre-meat item is an incredible tofu and seafood soup. I know what you’re thinking: “Johnny, what the fuck, man? You just used the words ‘tofu’ and ‘awesome’ in the same fuckin’ sentence. Is everything okay? Did someone kidnap the real JP, or surgically remove his testes?”
Please allow me to explain this dish, which was far and away my favorite of the night. It comes to the table in a small, bubbling-hot cauldron that looks like a miniature witch’s stew.
Beneath the surface is an ensemble of seafood consisting of mussels, squid, head-on large shrimp, teeny tiny baby shrimp, mushrooms and silken tofu.
But wait… it gets better… There was a lone egg on the table when we were being served all the banchan. I was confused. But then it all became clear. The egg was for this soup. It gets cracked into the soup as it bubbles away, and you allow the hot soup to poach the egg to a perfect consistency. Watch:
Fucking… so… good… Spicy, deep and rich with seafood flavor, light yet hearty. Simply put, it is off the charts excellent. It’s called Soondofu, so you know what to order when you go in.
Okay so after that shit the beef was just not even that interesting. Don’t get me wrong – the meat was spectacular and really tasty, but I was blown away by that soup to the point where everything else just paled in comparison.
So they grilled for us at the table: marinated cross-cut, sliced beef ribs with enoki mushrooms, garlic and raw onion slices. That was the first up to bat:
They snip up the meat pieces with scissors for you when they’re ready to take down. Excellent and attentive service, if I may say.
The marinade was good and flavorful, sweet and savory, and the meat was really tender. It came off the bone bits very easily. As you can see below, the sugar element in the marinade gives off a great sticky char when exposed to the heat for long enough.
Next was marinated (same flavor as above) boneless beef short rib, sliced thin, with mushroom, red bell pepper slices and fresh garlic.
Look at how awesome that interior looks. A purpley medium rare!
Essentially this was the same meat as above, but with a slightly different texture to it since it was sliced differently and not on the bone. They both went really nicely with the lettuce wraps, as well as all of the various toppings and sauces I discussed above.
Standard operating procedure at these joints is a slice of orange as a post-meal cleanse. Clean that mouth out with some citrus, bitch!
When it comes to the meat, this place understands: simple and delicious is the key. Heat + Meat = A Tasty Treat. But I have to say, that soup was so complex and delicious, that I consider it an absolute MUST TRY when you dine at Seoul Garden. Put this place on your short list. You won’t be disappointed if you eat what I ate.
And don’t forget to grab a stick of two of gum on your way out. It beats those shitty little red and white breath mints!
SEOUL GARDEN
34 W. 32nd St.
Second Floor
New York, NY 10001
Up on the third floor of a K-town food mall, this little dessert outpost serves up some really nice treats. The Vietnamese coffee cupcake was pretty good, though I didn’t get a lot of that distinct chicory and sweetened condensed milk flavor that I expected.
The other items were pretty good though, like these things which I thought were churros with icing at first. HA! They were just eclairs
Everything else under the glass looked delicious. Lots of green tea stuff, as you might expect at an Asian style bakery. Also some really tasty ice creams/gelatos.
SPOT DESSERT BAR
11 W. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10001
Tucked away on the third floor of a K-town food court, Angry Chicken roasts up some deliciously sweet and savory whole chickens. They were giving out some free samples when I was up there for dessert at a nearby food vendor. Check these gorgeous things out. Why so angry? Perhaps because they tasted heavily of apple? So what. Throw some spicy sauce on there and this is heaven.
This Korean BBQ joint is pretty good. I’ve been here twice now, and I had a good meal each time. While I find the prices of many of these places to be a bit on the pricey side, if you go with enough people you can defray the heavy costs. This time I took some shots of the pork belly. So good.
The other dish is thinly sliced beef, noodles and yummy broth (the noodles are under the surface of the liquid).
People who plan to go here should realize and appreciate the fact that this is primarily a meat house, so the menu is limited on purpose. It is NOT meant to be a massive, traditional steakhouse with a never-ending menu and a gigantic, full-staffed kitchen. What they are doing here is focused and directed, purposeful and deliberate. Think ramen menu (limited, small) as opposed to diner menu (everything but the kitchen sink). So as a caveat, low scores in some of these categories really mean nothing when you think about it. Flavor is the big essential here, and they did a great job in that category. My wife and I came here for a secret $50 deal and to cash in some OpenTable rewards. The deal, running through the end of the month, is for a glass of wine, a soup or salad, a choice of app, and a wet or dry aged strip steak. Essentially you get the wine, soup/salad and app for free, since $50 is the regular cost for just the steak.
Flavor: 8
My bone-in rib eye was under-seasoned and unevenly seasoned (some parts had the needed salt, others were flat on taste). However it was very evenly cooked; quite impressive, actually. The scallion and anchovy sauce added that necessary salt back into the bite. Use it. I expected the fat to be broken down more from the 9 week aging on mine. It definitely had some waste. By itself the rib eye was a 7 out of 10, but the rating here jumps up because of the strip.
scallion & anchovy sauce topping
The strip was nicely seasoned. And similar with the perfectly even cook job. The strip was a juicy wet-aged boneless cut that had been aging at least 20 days. You can definitely can tell the difference. It was better than the rib eye (9/10). The strip portion was a little thin, but since it was part of the $50 price fix it was to be expected.
Both steaks a little under (these were somewhere between rare and medium rare, closer to rare) but I was expecting that from the minions at yelp.
Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 10
You have a lot to choose from here, both in the single cut steak section and the steak for two section. Kevin took me to the aging room downstairs and showed me all the goodies through the glass. Before they cook your meat, they will bring out a plate with your cuts to show you the superb marbling. The dry aged selections are a 50 day minimum in the aging process. The steak I had was at 9 weeks. For wet-aged, the minimum is 20 days. They have all the essential cuts and then some. Bravo.
Portion Size & Plating: 9
Portions are good here, considering how much is lost during the lengthy aging process. My rib eye was 20oz, bone-in.
Price: 9
As I mentioned above, we had some OpenTable cash AND took advantage of a special deal, so the price was right for us on this trip. The steak prices are average and on par with other competitors, and the appetizers are fairly large portions, but you are in a very different kind of atmosphere here, so you have to take that into consideration for your own pricing judgment. When you see the ambiance section you’ll understand.
Bar: 5
This is not a proper bar, but it really doesn’t matter for what this place is about. They only offer wine, beer (bottles and taps) and soju. Good enough. I couldn’t have a martini, but this is the kind of environment where it’s not needed. The bar is small, with room for only 4 people, but it is close to windows and the steps up to street level.
Specials and Other Meats: 6
The menu is pretty much beef-centric with the exception of the apps, which offer some great pork selections. They have kalbi and bulgolgi, and a really delicious looking “burger rice” item that I may have to come back for some day soon.
Apps, Sides & Desserts: 9
The apps here are strong. We had a bunch of shit.
The bacon was perfectly roasted, then cut up and served with a spice salt.
The yuzu dressing salad was very refreshing and properly dressed.
The butternut squash soup was flavorful and not too thick and filling, though I was sort of taken back that it was being served in the summer.
The Wagyu salami was incredibly soft and spicy. There was a LOT of it too, for only $8. I would almost prefer this to be available per slice as opposed to a large app size order of 8 slices. It was too much, almost. Maybe they should make it $1/slice?
The pork soo yook is essentially braised pork belly in a sweet, tangy, and spicy BBQ sauce. So soft and delicious. The sauce was a little too sweet and too salty, but still really yummy. It came with braised carrots and peppers, as well as some crispy chip things to add texture. The mixed greens on the side went perfect with the excess sauce used as a dressing.
Dessert was called “the planetarium.” It was milk choc mousse with a pear filling. Pretty good. Not overly sweet but I definitely had to chug water to calm down the taste buds.
Seafood Selection: 2
Unfortunately there’s only scallops and crab cake on the app menu. But please recall what I said above in the introductory paragraph. That said, perhaps some shellfish or octopus could make their way onto the menu in some prominent form. Korean cuisine is known for excellence in preparing those great items.
Service: 9
Our experience here was great. Nathan was a great waiter, very attentive, and with great suggestions. And Kevin was very helpful and informative when he took me down to see the aging room.
Ambiance: 7
This has the feel of a small neighborhood restaurant. It’s clean, white interior and painted bricks make the dark brown tables and chairs pop. The old timey 1930s and 1940s music was great too.
Madangsui is a great spot for quality Korean BBQ, and Korean food in general. My wife and I came on a Friday after work to give it a try. It’s located on 35th Street just east of 6th Avenue. Not quite IN K-Town, but close enough. And slightly removed from the craziness of the main K-Town hub. Here’s what the joint looks like outside and inside:
As is common practice in Korean cuisine, the banchan comes out first… an array of pickled veggies and greenery to wet the appetite and for adding to your BBQ meats, lettuce wraps or rice dishes.
They also brought out some fluffy egg in a small cast iron pot, and a crab and veggie soup. The egg was perfect. The soup was hearty and rich, and the crab gave it a nice flavor of the sea:
We actually started with some chicken bibimbap. It was really tasty with the fried egg on top. I just wish the rice was a little bit crispier from cooking in the clay pot some more. The little crispy brown bits are the best!
For the bbq portion we had two different meats. First, the pork belly. Nice, juicy quarter inch goodness:
We also had some spicy, marinated rib eye. Lookin’ good!
It was seriously good quality meat. Check out the menu and see for yourself:
Yeah that’s right. Jowls. I ordered it, but our waitress said it wasn’t very popular. I asked “Yeah, but is it good?” She replied that she has never tried it, so I held off. Next time.
Our waitress fired up the meat for us at the table…
You know what? Fuck it… This is something you need to see in video. Here:
Once it was finished on the grill to perfect doneness we slapped the meat onto some lettuce wraps with some toppings. Delicious. The lettuce adds a nice crunch and cool, lightness to contrast with the meat.
That’s all I’ve got for you hungry assholes out there. If you’re looking for a good quality KBBQ joint that isn’t in the epicenter of the K-Town hustle, then this is definitely the place to go. I will definitely be back… specifically for the jowls.
Me, my wife, and some of our friends went to this pretty crazy Korean restaurant in Woodside called Sik Gaek. Good luck reading the website if you can’t read Korean. However the pics are nice under the “Delicious Table” drop down menu. They have some nice looking meats and fish.
I say “crazy” not to be judgmental of other cultures, but rather to demonstrate the purely subjective boundaries which I needed to cross to actually partake in the ingesting of food here. It’s crazy for ME, in other words. I typically eat my food cooked (with the exception of sushi, ceviche, shellfish and tartare). Not only that, but I usually eat my animals and fish AFTER they are good and dead (again, with the exception of shellfish). Also – my food usually isn’t MOVING. As you’ll see below, these western culinary conventions are thrown out the window at Sik Gaek. And that’s a good thing.
This place (the Flushing location rather than the Woodside spot we went to) was actually featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel called “No Reservations.” The show is now off the air, as he has moved to CNN with “Parts Unknown” (it’s essentially the same show). In the “No Reservations” episode clipped below, he was in the midst of doing a tour of various “hidden” Asian food and culture spots around Queens with renowned chef David Chang. Watch as he eats still-moving, live, marinated and chopped octopus:
It makes me think of a shocking scene from the Korean film Old Boy, which has one of the most fucked-up twist endings ever, and is one of the most fucked-up but excellent movies of our time. No doubt this film will garner even more attention when Spike Lee fucks it up upon the release of his remake later this year, starring Josh Brolin:
Anyway… on to the actual food that we ate. It turns out there was a huge disappointment. They were out of live octopus. So after all that babble above, I didn’t really get to test the limits of my culinary tolerances. We did enjoy some delicious food though, and some of it was still moving while it cooked in the hot pot. Check out the pics below.
First, the drinks. Two types of beer, two types of soju, and a watermelon full of vagina juice (watermelon punch):
Almost forgot the Psy shot glass:
Next, the starters. First up, eggs and veggies:
Then rice cakes and tofu skin with spicy sauce, along with some pickled items and dips:
Then we had some thick cut pork belly:
Then we moved on to the seafood hot pot, which contained lobster, blue claw crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, razor clams, abalone, baby octopus, squid, udon noodles, bean sprouts, and cabbage. They even give you a trash bucket beside the table to throw all the shells in.
And YES – the lobster was still moving at our table while it cooked:
Since they knew we were there for the live octopus, and we had made the reservation and tried to reserve a ‘pus for the table way in advance of getting there, they felt bad and gave us a plate of bacon wrapped mushrooms on the house:
One of the best parts of the meal was using the broth pan to cook fried rice. Packed with flavor, and nice and crispy:
Two more shots – one of the restaurant space, and one of a little kitchen flood:
