But today, being a reasonably warm day in LA, was the day for ceviche.

La Cevicheria is owned by a simply delightful couple from Guatemala. While Guatemala isn’t as well know for ceviche as, say, Peru, these folks put their own stamp on it. It is knock-your-socks-off delicious. And since “some like it hot”, they offer a special habanero sauce that you might need to ask for. Be careful! This stuff really should require you to wear a radiation suit. But it tastes amazing and is a different kind of hotness than other chilies. At first it’s not hot at all, but rather sweet and refreshing. Then a few seconds later, you feel something interesting happening.

One of the specialties at La Cevicheria is a dish called Bloody Clams. I happened to get lucky.  The owner, who makes you feel like a long lost cousin, told me that they’ve been out of them for a few days and everyone has been so disappointed, but he just got them in this morning.  I didn’t even bother to read the menu.  ”Take me to the bloody clams!” I screamed!   Well, not really screamed.  :-)   He suggested getting it with the optional shrimp and octopus, which sounded great  to me.  Also more expensive, but you only live once.

The neighborhood of La Cevicheria is a bit on the sketchy side, sadly.   While I was waiting, a couple came in and spoke at length with the owner in Spanish.  He explained to me after they left that they were government folks.  The owner had recently seen a fellow trying to reach inside the mailbox outside his restaurant to steal mail.  He ran out and started to yell at the guy who took off with what envelopes he could carry and ran to a waiting car.  He explained that people in the neighborhood don’t have computers and tend to pay bills and send money with money orders, so it is not uncommon for thieves to steal mail to get them.  Pretty sad.

But soon the ceviche arrived.  It is beautiful: huge and colorful, the sauce is very dark and pungent, but very pleasantly so.  Mixed with the fish is tomatoes, onions, avocado and mint. The clams, shrimp and octopus adorn the bowl, which ends up looking like a huge ice cream sundae.

They give you some salted crackers to eat it with.  The owner explained to me that in Guatemala they tend to use tortillas, fried or not, to eat the ceviche, but that they really love the saltiness of the crackers with it.

I have to say again how warm and welcoming the owners of La Cevicheria are.  It  really is like they have invited you into their home.  When I first came in, the owner was burning some incense and he began explaining to me about how he pays tribute to his Mayan roots, and during the time I was there, he would stop by and chat about food, Guatemalan culture, and the philosophy of life.

If you are a fan of ceviche, you really must try this place.   And remember,  just say “Yes!” to the habenero sauce,  but do treat it with the caution and respect that it deserves.

Simply Pho You is in a little corner mall thingy, and has the usual limited LA parking with spaces meant for the size of a Yugo being taken up by minivans. I happen to drive a small car, so I speak with righteous indignation at the evil minivans. In truth, it’s not the minivans themselves that I hate, it is the people who can’t drive and especially the people who can’t park that drive me crazy. People: the rule is “One space per person”, OK?

Once inside, the world gets a little calmer. No TVs or dance music playing, just people eating and waiting for food. They do have stuff besides pho, of course, but being it’s my first time there I have to try the pho. Plus, I’m eating by myself, so it’s not like I can order a bunch of dishes to share.

I ordered the “Rare Steak with Flank” pho. At $5.99 for almost all of the phos, it’s easy to love the prices!

I love how they give you the side things you can add in: bean sprouts, thai basil, lime, and sliced hot peppers. I love ‘em all. Some people don’t like thai basil, but I think it’s fab and gear.

This place also gives you the sliced onions without you having to ask specially, like I’ve seen in some other pho places. If you haven’t seen these, or haven’t known what to do with them, the traditional thing is to take some oyster sauce (a thick brown kind of sweet sauce, also used in Chinese cooking) and Sriracha hot sauce and squirt them over the onions and mix ‘em up. It may sound weird, but it tastes great.

The pho is, I must say, very lovely. Pho has a very light broth by definition, but this broth had all of these wonderfully rich undertones of meat, ginger, cloves, anise and cinnamon. Being that this was in K-Town, most people thought thought the soup was a tad wimpy and were pouring a half bottle of Sriracha into it. That’s ok, I guess, but I thought it was perfect just as it was. The subtle flavors would have simply vanished with the introduction of anything else, aside from the requisite sprouts, thai basil, lime juice and peppers.

All in all, a wonderfully satisfying lunch at a very easy to swallow price! Highly recommended.

Simply Pho You
698 S Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90005

It looked like something fun to make, but I decided it might be interesting to try it first so that I’d know what I was shooting for.  I asked LA’s own beloved Pulitzer prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold where to go for Jja Jang Myun and he said that the Mandarin House in K-Town has always been the standard. My Thursday Lunch must investigate!

The Mandarin House is actually a Chinese restaurant. Jja Jang Myun originated as a Chinese dish, but the Korean variant is quite different, I’m told. The Chinese version is supposed to be quite bitter. The Mandarin House has gotten a bad rep on Yelp because it had a “C” health rating a few years ago. I’m here to report that it’s an “A” now.

The staff were very sweet and welcoming. The waitress seemed surprised and rather pleased when I didn’t bother opening the menu and just asked for Jja Jang Myun. I’m pleased that she actually understood me. God knows what might’ve emerged from the kitchen with my poor Korean pronunciation. But ordering this dish was not an uncommon here; half the patrons were eating it. She immediately brought out a little dish of kimchi and some hot tea — jasmine, I think. The kimchi was nice, but quite ordinary. But I wasn’t there searching for banchan, I was there for the Myun. Jja Jang Myun is sometimes called black noodles. When it first comes out, the bowl is covered with the lovely black sauce, and the noodles are still pristine white underneath. You stir up the noodles until they’ve become black with the sauce and the pork and stuff is nicely mixed into the noodles. Then, dive in!

It wasn’t as strong of a taste as I was expecting.  I had imagined more of a Chinese black bean sauce taste, I think, thick and salty.  But it’s not really like that at all.  It tastes like a nice home-cooked sort of thing.

And how much did I have to pay for this treat?   At the Mandarin House, a huge bowl (I could only finish half) of Jja Jang Myun goes for $4.99!   My Thursday Lunch heartily approves!!

Mandarin House
3074 W 8th St
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 386-8976

Anyway, I selected Restaurante Guelaguetsza, which is an  Oaxacan restaurant.  You might ask yourself, “What in the heck is Oaxacan”?   And moreover, if you’re like me, how in the heck do you pronounce it?  Fortunately Wikipedia does provide a history and an audio pronunciation of Oaxaca.  Even with that, I still have a hard time saying it, but it took me months to be able to properly say Здравствуйте, so all things in good time.

They started us off with some chips with a mole rojo sauce and some kind of cheese on it.  Mole rojo is very complex and wonderful, with Ancho and Guajillo chiles, onion, tomatoes, pecans, peanuts, sesame, garlic, oregano, chocolate.  The chocolate is the most distinctive taste, really, because of the rather unexpected arrival.

My wife ordered Tamal Oaxaqueño de Mole con Pollo, which is banana-leafed tamales.  As they say on the menu, ” Finely ground corn dough packages, filled with shredded chicken in black mole.   Served with rice and black beans. “

Wikipedia describes mole in this way:  “Mole can be best defined as a very thick, homogeneous sauce with complex flavors. This distinguishes it from most Mexican salsas which have a thinner consistency, often raw, and contain fewer ingredients (usually nothing more than tomato, onion, garlic and chili pepper) in still-identifiable chunks.”

Black mole, or Mole negro is the most difficult to prepare of all mole sauces. Traditionally, black mole has six different kinds of chili peppers, Chilguacle Negro, Mulatto, Pasilla, Ancho, Guajillo, and Chilpotle, although many sauces that carry the name contain fewer. The ingredient list is very long, featuring many seeds, nuts, spices, herbs, and chocolate.  The sauce was mysterious, but surprisingly subtle, as were all the flavors.

One expects Mexican food to be lots of fireworks, but not Oaxacan.  It is  quiet, but more mysterious and smoldering.  The black beans, for example, were pretty much just black beans and they were excellent.

I had Slayuda con Asiento, which is Clayuda spread with special pork fat (Mmmmmm…special pork fat…) flavored bean puree and cheese.  Clayuda, which Wikipedia says is a common misspelling of Tlayuda, is, according to Wikipedia, a part of Mexican cuisine, consisting of a big, crunchy tortilla covered with a spread of refried beans, asiento (unrefined pork lard), lettuce or cabbage, meat (usually shredded chicken, beef tenderloin or pork), Oaxaca cheese or other cheese, and salsa. They are a popular antojito (snack food) in Oaxaca, particularly around Oaxaca City.

It looks, in fact, like pizza.  And it’s huge.  And only $6.50.  I could only finish half, but it was great!  And they were happy to pack up the other half for me to take home.

I ordered this at the recommendation of the waitress, who said that it’s extremely popular.  I can certainly understand why, considering what you get for the cost.  But I think next time I’ll try one of the mole centric dishes.

So, lunch for two + tax and tip for under $20.  Not bad!  My Thursday Lunch approves!

Restaurante Guelaguetsza
3337 1/2 W. 8th. St.
Los Angeles, CA 90005

There are so many specialty places in town: noodle shops, soup, BBQ, even a place that specializes in goat dishes. Yasmin and Stefan say they definately want to try the goat place next time!  Stefan hasn’t had a lot of exposure to Korean food and Yasmin has had plenty of bibimbop and bulgogi and wanted to be exposed to new stuff.   So that was our initial goal: “Always go for the new experience”, as Dame Marjorie Chardin advised. 

Yasmin and Stefan live downtown, so they took the Red line to Wilshire and Western, just a few blocks from the restaurant.  Is it me, or are the blocks in this area of LA are about 2 or 3 times as big as anywhere else? 

Anyway, we met at the restaurant and decided that we wanted to order three dishes to share and asked the waitress for advice to find three contrasting and complimentary dishes. 

The waitress was so sweet and took very nice care of us.  The panchan was excellent, especially some dish of flavored greens that the waitress was unable to translate into English.  There were the standard bean sprouts in sesame oil, kimchi, spinach, etc.   I love the light soup that they bring out, with the little bits of meat and korean radish.

I also love the silvery dish they serve rice in. Yasmin said it was a bit disconcerting for her because she is accustomed to eating rice in the Japanese style, picking up the bowl and bringing it towards your mouth, and the silvery bowl made it too hot to do that. Yasmin was, among her many academic achievements, a Japanese major at UCLA.

 
daejibulgogi-ssambap
Marinated spicy pork with onions and scallions

So we did get one bulgogi-ish dish. Daeji means pork, and bulgogi is the name for this kind of marinated meat. It’s usually marinated with a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, scallions and other yummy stuff.  The Chung Dam makes wonderful bulgogi, richly flavored.

The other day at home I made a bulgogi hamburger, martinating the patties. I thought I was quite clever and inventive, and now I read on wikipedia that there are fast-food chains in Korea that serve bulgogi burgers, and they are topped with regular hamburger toppings, lettuce, tomato, onion, etc.

At lunch we were talking about how all cultures, or many anyway, seem to share certain food concepts. A ssambap is like a Korean soft taco, using leaves rather than tortillas. At Chung Dam, they bring a variety, including romain leaves, perilla, cabbage and kelp. The name is derived from the Korean word “ssada“, meaning “to wrap up”.

I wish I knew the name of the stuff that they bring out which you can optionally put on your leaf along with the meat. You can put anything else you like from the panchan with it, but this special stuff is amazing.

yuhmsoo jeongol ttukbaegi
lamb in a spicy broth

I think “yuhmsoo” must mean lamb, because on the menu I see we could have gotten gopchang jeongol ttukbaegi, which is beef tripe in a spicy broth. A jeongol is a stew or casserole, similar to the Korean stew jjigae. The difference is that jjigaes have one principal ingredient and generally jeongols usually contain a variety of main ingredients. Ttukbaegi refers to the unglazed earthenware pot in which the stew is cooked and served.  Unfortunately I didn’t take the picture of the jeongol in the ttukbaegi, but in my personal bowl.  

This dish was amazingly complex, spicy for sure, but not overly, and I found it hard to stop eating it. It felt very comforting to me.

nokdujeon
pan-fried mung beans

The word jeon refers to the pancake-like dishes in Korean cuisine. There are (at least) two major varieties of jeon that I’ve tried, and I’ve made both of these at home. The first is a kind made with flour and rice flour and sometimes an egg thrown in. I’ve made these at home with zucchini and/or scallions. The other kind is what I call a Korean latke: it’s grated potatos and onions.

So by now you won’t be surprised to find out that nokdu means “mung bean”. As it turns out, I’d made Korean latkes with basil on Wednesday night, and my wife had leftovers for breakfast on Thursday. So on Friday morning, we tried the leftovers of the pokdujeon from Chung Dam. She loved those, but she says she still likes mine too, which were very different in the way they were cooked. I made mine more like a latke, more crisp on the outside.  These had a lucious texture, smooth and refined.  Now that I know what I’m going for, I’m going to try to get the Korean texture next time and save latkes for Channukah.

ChungDam Korean BBQ
808 S. Western Ave.  #207
Los Angeles, CA 90005

The cuisine of Northern Thai has been influenced by it’s neighbors to the north, Myanmar (Burma) and Yunnan (China).  The coconut milk curry base we are so accustomed to in standard Thai cuisine is not part of Northern Thai vocabulary.

I went to “Spicy BBQ” at the corner of Santa Monica and Normandie, right on the border of “Little Armenia”.  Their menu says, “Thai & Chinese Cuisine by Nong and Family”.   It has the feel of a family-owned place.  It’s small.  There are 6 tables with seating for 18.   It’s cash only, but this seems like not much of a hassle with the ubiquity of ATM machines these days.  It’s tucked away in a corner strip-mall — easy to miss, but well worth looking for.

I was really anxious to try the Northern Thai Glass Noodle, because I’m planning on making Korean glass noodles at home tomorrow, and I want to see what the Thai version is like.  But the waitress recommended very strongly that I try the Nothern Thai Curry.  I kind of imagined that it’d just be Thai curry without the coconut milk.  Boy, was I wrong.

It was like eating curry for the first time.  It felt like every other curry I’ve ever had was just dead.  Long live the curry!  The range of tastes was amazing; spicy, but not what you would call hot; complex, but open and welcoming; unquestionably Asian flavors — but was that cinnamon that I tasted?   This is a beef curry with big chunks of ginger.  I don’t know if that’s for everyone, but I loved it.  And holy cow, entire cloves of garlic.  In fact, I found half a garlic head , garlic cloves still bound together in my curry (pictured right).  I can leave my Home Vampire Capture Kit put away tonight, no self-respecting vampire is going to come anywhere near me.  Fortunately, my wife and garlic are old friends.

I’ll definitely be going back to Spicy BBQ!

Spicy BBQ
5101 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90029

The first thing that strikes you when you walk into ChungDam is just how beautiful it is.  The copper/brass hoods for the venting of smoke are absolutely gorgeous.  Everything in the place speaks of quality and taste.

And speaking of taste, that’s what I went there for.  But what to order?  Everything here is wonderful.  How to choose?  It was when I saw the waitress walking by with a bulgogi ssambap (marinated beef served with onions and scallions) — well, when I smelled her walking by with it — that I knew what I had to order.  The panchan is really wonderful at the ChungDam, kimchi, mushrooms, seaweed, cucumbers, bean sprouts — nothing especially unusual, but all prepared very nicely.  The ChungDam has increased the kinds of greens they bring you in which to wrap the bulgogi – a welcome change!   The bulgogi was so nice; tender, lean and delicious!

The wait staff are really charming, so accommodating.  They speak perfect English and make you feel welcome even if you are the only Asian-challenged person in the place.

The cost of the dinner goes up quite a bit, but for lunch, it’s affordable.  The bibimbap is only $8.99 and is excellent and most lunch items are $8.99 or $10.99.

As usual on Fridays, my poor workmates have to suffer, smelling my leftover Thursday lunch heating up in the microwave.  Alas, if I were rich, I’d bring them all in some.  But then again, if I were rich, I wouldn’t be working at UCLA.   Or better said, if I’m working at UCLA, I’ll never get rich.

ChungDam Korean BBQ
808 S. Western Ave.  #207
Los Angeles, CA 90005

Most Korean BBQ places give you some lettuce in which to wrap the meat. One of the things I love about this place is the range of lettuces they give you. There is your basic romaine, parboiled cabbage, mizuna, even some seaweed!

I tend to always go for the spicy pork bulgogi at Si Gol Ssam Bob, so I wanted to try something different. I decided to go for the spicy squid bulgogi and Jeff got the beef bulgogi.

The panchan was lovely. Jeff had never tried kimchi before, and I think he liked it. There were bean sprouts, seaweed, potato salad. Jeff really loved the potato salad. He said, “I’m trying to figure out what is making this so tasty.” I tried it and said, “I think it’s the sugar”, and he said, “That’s it!”. Never underestimate the power of sugar.

Panchan, I’m told, is very much something you would expect if you were having dinner in any Korean home. It seems to me like a lot of work to prepare a whole bunch of these little appetizers. I really like one-pot meals — easy cooking, easy cleanup. But then again, I have a full-time job, and as soon as I get home, I’m in the kitchen trying to prepare a “nutritious yet savory meal” (as Annette Benning said in American Beauty) in less than an hour. OK, the Iron Chef can prepare 4 or 5 gourmet dishes in one hour, but they do have those assistants and amazing larder.

They brought out the rice and soup, which as always, was just this side of nuclear, still boiling like crazy. I love the soup, though Jeff was unimpressed. The rice was lovely. It is very typical for Koreans to have rice and soup with every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The squid bulgogi was interesting, and quite tasty, though I do greatly prefer the pork. Jeff loved the beef, which had a sesame taste. One of the panchan is a ground sesame thing, which tastes great mixed in to the lettuce/meat package. Even Jeff, who has a pretty reasonable appetite, was unable to finish his beef entirely, so we packed it up to take home, and sat back contentedly as we discussed our feelings about the meal and the joys of Korean cuisine.

Si Gol Ssam Bob
480 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 467-0100

The panchan was a lovely surprise.  I remember their panchan being good, but it was lovely to see a new variety with two things that I’d never seen before:  one was a pumpkin dish that looked kind of like egg salad, but was sweet and the other was little Korean pancake-like things — wonderful!  I should mention that the waitress quickly replaced any panchan dish with a new one as she saw me finish it.  Most places will do this, but not quite so voluntarily or efficiently.

This is a particularly clean place.  Some of the Korean BBQ places in K-Town just scream of every single piece of pork that’s been there.  Soowon Galbi has a Japanese-like cleanliness to it.  It’s also a very calming atmosphere despite the big screen TV always tuned to the sports channel.  I felt rather transported to another place and time as I sat there, casually nibbling on my panchan, waiting for the inevitable Death By Korean Spices.  Perhaps I was already seeing  the white light, feeling the warm glow of acceptance of my inevitable fate.

But, dear reader, since you have no doubt noted that I’m here to write about it, I must have somehow survived The Red Death.  In fact, it wasn’t really that hot. I didn’t break a sweat.  Perhaps I’ve raised my heat threshold with my Thursday lunches in Koreatown, I don’t know.  But at any rate, I was able to fully enjoy the dish without experiencing any unpleasant amount of heat.  It was spectacular, in fact.  The mackerel was, I guess you would say, in small steaks, pieces about 2 inches all around with the skin still on and the bone in the middle.  The mackerel wasn’t hot at all, but it had absorbed the rich tastes of the stew.  The kimchi and various veggies in the stew absorbed most of the spices, but I loved ‘em.  The waitress was actually very nicely attentive.  She seemed quite surprised, but honestly pleased by how much I enjoyed it.  She very quietly kept an eye on me;  she didn’t interfere with any part of my experience, but when she saw I was low on water or anything, she was there before I even need to look for her.

Certainly I’d recommend Soowon Galbi.  In fact, and I forgot to mention this  earlier, but when the initial place that I wanted to eat at didn’t work out, the waitress there recommended Soowon Galbi.  When the competition knows you, well, you know that can’t be bad.

Soowon Galbi

856 S Vermont Ave
Ste C
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 365-9292

My first thought as I sat down is how “homey” it was.  Actually, that was my 2nd thought.  My first thought was taking in the amazing aroma.  The staff were *so* welcoming.  They don’t really have a lunch menu per se, so the dishes seem a little expensive for lunch (ranging around $11 to $29) but really, my wife & I could’ve split my lunch and still had left-overs.  I’m looking forward to having the rest of my Thursday lunch at work tomorrow.    Today it was about 500 degrees in LA, and I thought perhaps I’d pass on the jjigaes.  They advised me on dishes, and recommended the steamed fish (cod, beltfish, mackerel) and also the spicy pork, with and without kimchi.   I decided on the spicy pork sans kimchi.  One of the cool things was that I could see into the kitchen — or at least the entrance of it.  In fact, there was this feeling of being more in someone’s home rather than a restaurant.  I didn’t know at that time that this atmosphere was actually quite intentional.

Gold had said that Jun Won was “formidable”.  That struck me as a rather funny word to use.  Michael Phelps is formidable.  Voldemort is formidable.  Is it a good thing for a restaurant to be formidable?    But now, I understand.  The panchan was (were? obviously, I was a music major, not an english major) indeed outstanding.  There clearly was thought put into each one, and how the combination of the items worked together.  My favorite, I think, was anchovies in a sweet red bean sauce.  Mmmmm…little fishies.   There was kimchi, of course, but also some lovely black beans, and lots of other interesting dishes, 8 in total.  The soup was quite nice, very subtle with such a warm undertone:  home cooking.  The spicy pork was spicy all right, and in such a nice way.  About half-way through lunch I had a Korean spice induced sniffle, and the Korean businessman at the next table looked over at me and asked me very kindly “Are you ok?   It’s very spicy, isn’t it?”   I assured him that I was indeed quite ok and loved the food.  I didn’t feel too bad, though.  His companion was sniffling like a house on fire.

When I was paying my bill, the fellow who advised me on the dishes came over and asked what I thought about the food.  He said, “You know, people have such busy lives these days and most people don’t have time to make nice dinners at home they way they had when they were growing up.  So that’s what we try to do here.  All the panchan we serve are like what a good Korean mother would make for her family.”

Formidable.  That’s what it is.  It’s not Bobby Flay putting in 32 kinds of spices into some dish, designed to totally disguise the flavor of the food.  It’s Korean home cooking;  so satisfying…so comforting.

I learned today that “gam saham nida” (or something resembling that) means “thank you very much” in Korean.  I’ll certainly be going back to Jun Won for the food, the cool vibe, and my next lesson in Korean.

Jun Won Restaurant

3100 W 8th St #101
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 383-8855