Drawing for Food: Korean BBQ

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Korean BBQ

Summer is here in full force and its a time when I sort of want to detox and eat the beautiful seasonal bounty that living in Pennsylvania offers me. Like fresh Jersey blueberries or strawberries and spinach from someones farm in Lancaster. But alas nothing takes hold of me in the summer stronger than grilled meats. That's right BBQ. So on a nice Sunday afternoon we set out for Korean BBQ. It's harder to find Korean BBQ out here in Philadelphia in comparison to where I used to live in Oakland. Oakland had the best Korean sushi and San Francisco had the best Korean BBQ. But there are places popping up here and there in Center City Philadelphia that aren't bad. In fact we went to Miran on Chestnut and it was pretty good.

When you walk in you see these tables with fancy silver grills and spaceship like lowering air vents with a touch of a button. Very fancy compared to the charcoal style chicken-wire-heavy-scary ass bring to your table grills I was used to in Oakland.

We started off with Kim Chee Pancakes. They were delicious and oily and had whole chives and huge bits of kim chee and onions in them. The sauce it came with was a little to salty for my taste though. We also got our delicious side treats. Another stark difference from eating in the Bay Area. Here we only got 4 side dishes whereas normally I am used to getting at least 8 sometimes 10 side dishes. My favorites are always the tiny kim chee'd anchovies. The side dishes here were pretty tame. Although I did enjoy the potato salad and the kim chee was delicious.

Here comes the delicious part, the Bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef)and the Kalbi (marinated rib-eye). Nothing is better than getting piles of raw meat and getting to grill them on the hot car rim that is your grill.

In the end I was deeply satisfied. Me and Hawk each had the "King's Piece" the huge bone with mostly fat and gristle on it. But due to the high fat content and the marinating, gets all carmelized, juicy, and delicious. Take my advice though, if you are going to eat this part, it takes a really long time to grill, so put it on a little earlier than right at the end.