Omnivorous

Jin Sook and Byung Do “Dave” Hwang

Yvette Marie Dostatni

Quest for Fire

Mount Prospect’s Chodang Tofu Village serves a mean bowl of the spicy tofu stew known as soon dubu chigae.

By Mike Sula

February 14, 2008

Roiling hot soups and stews aren’t just for cold days and nights. On the contrary, Koreans believe that concoctions like the steaming ginseng, chicken, and rice soup sam gae tang are best consumed in the hot months, as fortification against bodily depletions brought on by stifling heat.

So business doesn’t slow down in the summertime at Mount Prospect’s Chodang Tofu Village, which specializes in another hot restorative brew, soon dubu chigae, or spicy tofu stew. That said, when temperatures drop to face-cracking frigid, a bubbling clay pot filled with soft, custardy bean curd in a fiery red beef broth is a powerful human antifreeze.

Asiana Airlines sales manager Byung Do “Dave” Hwang and his wife, Jin Sook, opened Chodang in 1999, the year after he was transferred to Chicago from LA. Though there were plenty of Korean expats and immigrants in the suburbs surrounding O’Hare, Hwang says back then there were relatively few restaurants that catered to them.

Neither husband nor wife had prior restaurant experience, but Hwang studied the operations of a California soon dubu chain, Cho Dang Tofu, and paid the company for shipments of its gochuchang, a red chile paste that’s the critical ingredient in its secret recipe. He adopted the chain’s name too, but its deliveries weren’t dependable, and the Hwangs ended up drawing on their savings to buy the recipe, including the chile paste, for an enormous sum (which he won’t disclose on the record).

But around the same time, parched friends and customers began to complain of excessive MSG in the soup. While Byung Do kept his day job, Jin Sook began to redevelop the recipe without the additive. She worked on it every night throughout their opening year until she finally had it right. (During that time her doctor diagnosed her with acid reflux—which she insists was due to stress rather than excessive capsaicin consumption.) Byung Do believes it was still worth it to buy the original recipe. “Without the recipe we can’t make the testing,” he says. “So I have no choice.”

The Hwangs, who opened a second location in Naperville three years ago, now serve ten varieties of soon dubu, with add-ins like beef, pork, baby octopus, pollock, kimchi, miso (deonjang in Korean), dumplings, mushrooms, or combinations thereof.

Jin Sook starts by boiling beef bones in water for her stock. Metal rings are welded to the surface of her range to stabilize the clay pots the stew is cooked and served in. Farther down the range the burners are covered with dolsot, stone rice pots, which are served alongside the soup. When an order comes in, she ladles broth into a clay pot, adding a measure of salt and the gochuchang, a squirt of soy milk, chopped green onions, meat or vegetables, and a couple scoops of soft, creamy tofu. She keeps watch, stirring, adding a new ingredient each time the liquid comes to a boil, and gently breaking up the tofu. If a customer wants extra spicy, she might finish it with a scoop of minced green jalapenos before pulling it from the fire and softly declaring, “Nagabsida,” the Korean equivalent of “Order up.” Somehow the waitress is able to hear this and appears instantly with a cart to wheel the stew out with an accompanying dolsot and assorted panchan.

Each bowl of stew is also served with a raw egg, meant to be cracked and stirred into the vigorously boiling brew. The rice is scooped from the dolsot into a waiting bowl, to be added to the stew as the eater desires, and water is poured over the rice that sticks to the bottom of the stone pot. As the meal progresses this scorched rice, or nurungi, softens and flavors the water. As at many Korean meals the resulting rice tea, sungnyung, is sipped afterward.

The tofu in soon dubu chigae isn’t meant to be a substitute for meat, or even strictly a delivery system for meaty flavors, though it is that. Foremost, the similar but competing textures of the egg and tofu combine to make the dish more subtle and varied than a preparation like Szechuan ma po tofu.

Just about any Korean restaurant you walk into will serve soon dubu chigae, but specialists like Chodang or North Park’s So Gong Dong Tofu (see listings) are more apt to tout the stew’s curative properties in order to get folks—especially non-Korean folks—into their chairs. Chodang’s menu, for instance, sings bean curd’s praises as a low-fat, low-sodium, cholesterol-dissolving protein source. But in person Hwang is more modest.

"It's better than junk food," he says.

Chodang Tofu Village
1719 W. Algonquin, Mount Prospect, 847-956-8638
1271 E. Ogden, Naperville, 630-848-0884

For more on food and drink, see our blog The Food Chain.

Beyond Bi Bim Bop

Nineteen more Korean restaurants

Bbop
3952 N. Sheridan | 773-868-0828

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Reservations not accepted | BYO

Attempts to make Korean food less intimidating to non-Koreans are typically directed at a demographic more impressed by hipster sojutini gimmickry than food. But another avenue is no-frills, bulgogi-and-rice-slinging fast food. Bbop, in the shadow of the Sheridan Red Line stop, takes the latter turn, with a stripped-down, mostly take-out operation focusing on the basics: marinated meats and rice, bi bim bop, soup, and cellophane noodles and vegetables. The food is greasy, hot, and plentifully portioned, cooked guerrilla style by scruffy young dudes in a tiny open kitchen. There are a few cafe tables in the narrow fluorescent-lit storefront, a caricature of Kim Jong II in drag on the men’s room door, and perhaps a few skateboards leaning against the wall. —Mike Sula

Cheogajip/Pizza & Chicken Love Letter
8273 W. Golf, Niles | 847-583-1582

$Korean, Pizza | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 11 | Reservations not accepted

In South Korea curious interpretations of American fast food are extremely popular. Fried chicken “hofs” serving beer and whole chickens, cut up and drenched in thick sweet-spicy sauce, seem to be on every street corner, and Italian restaurants, hilariously but less successfully to my taste, dress pizzas with bulgogi, root vegetables, and sweet mayonnaise. Pizza & Chicken Love Letter, the first local incursion of Korean megachain Cheogajip, offers both (but no beer) from its location deep in a suburban strip mall. Small hacked chickens are fried to order in a neutral batter—similar to Brown’s, a friend observed—and served plain or drenched in sweet or sweet-hot sticky sauce with a powerful cinnamon note. Though Korean-Chinese restaurants like Great Sea and V.I.P. do a much better job with this style, the chain also offers rotisserie and popcorn chicken. Pizza crusts are thick and biscuitty, and in the case of the Royal Potato pizza, stuffed with mashed sweet potato, topped with pepperoni and potato chunks, and drizzled with mayo. Eat-in orders are preceded by diced daikon in supersweet vinegar and repulsive shredded raw cabbage smothered with Thousand Island dressing and canned corn. Order a combo for the full Lost in Translation novelty and brace for a hallucinogenic MSG rush. —Mike Sula

Cho Sun Ok Restaurant
4200 N. Lincoln | 773-549-5555

F 7.2 | S 5.8 | A 6.8 | $ (8 reports)Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days

Woo Bok Lee opened his restaurant in 1979, and it stands today as the oldest operating Korean restaurant in the city. People still line up nightly for a table in the tight, smoky room, where the specialties are five varieties of naengmyeon (buckwheat noodles) and “stone pan cooking.” The latter (for two or more people) involves gas burners on the table fueling a heavy stone griddle upon which a variety of seasoned meats are seared—octopus, beef, tripe, or a combination. Marinated vegetables and steamed rice (or noodles) are then cooked in the rendered juices, the rice crisps on the pan, and the resulting fabric-penetrating aromas can be whiffed down the block. Originally a North Korean specialty, naengmyeon are served cold and slippery, a bracing refreshment in hot weather, usually in light beef broth garnished with slivered cucumber or radish, hard-boiled egg, mustard, and red pepper paste. I prefer the two “dry” variations served here with hot sauce, one topped with raw, chewy skate. Unfortunately barbecue orders don’t include lettuce to wrap the meat, and the varieties of panchan are fewer—and in some cases less aggressively seasoned—than those in other Korean barbecue houses. Perhaps because Cho Sun Ok is so venerable, the crowds forgive it. —Mike Sula

Chun Ju Restaurant
5707 W. Dempster, Morton Grove | 847-470-0066

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days

Among foods in Korea said to improve virility (octopus, dog), goat seems to play a few more roles, at least according to posters on the walls at Morton Grove’s Chun Ju, which tout it as a tonic for wrinkles, osteoporosis, circulation, liver, kidneys, and poor vision. (It’s allegedly good for pregnant women and for stamina in the hot summer months too.) The specialty of the house here is jeuk suk yum so bok um, or goat stew, an exceptionally earthy tabletop meal (for two) that combines a huge pile of fresh wild sesame leaves and toasted seeds (with their own medicinal properties) with green onions and shreds of rich gamy goat meat. The leaves cook down in a thickish, mildly spicy broth and mingle with the meat and vegetables. If enough of the cooking juices are conserved afterward, rice, kimchi, and bean sprouts are dumped in the pan until crisp on the bottom; called nurungji, this is scraped and amalgamated with the rest of the rice and vegetables for a satisfying final course. There’s a good selection of typical Korean noodle and rice dishes, soups, and stir-fries here, but the real attractions are the stews, which aside from goat include beef, pork, tripe, octopus, and monkfish. Panchan are good quality and include a terrific, chewy raw pickled skate with shredded daikon (ask for hongeo hwe if it doesn’t come immediately). Note: the menu is bilingual but the only identifying English outside says “Korean Restaurant.” —Mike Sula

Hai Woon Dae
6240 N. California | 773-764-8018

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch: saturday-sunday; dinner: seven days | open late: every night till 5

When it comes to all-night Korean barbecue, the small, sedate, and friendly Hai Woon Dae is a better bet than the vastly more popular San Soo Gap San. As at SSGS, grilling over live coals is the focus here, but there’s a greater, more interesting, and lovingly prepared selection of table meats and kitchen-cooked dishes. I particularly like the yook hwe, beef tartare dressed with raw egg and julienned Asian pear (also available on bi bim bop), or panfried bacon with kimchi (sam gyeop sal kimchi bokum), steamed eggs (gyelan jjim), cold spicy buckweat noodles with raw fish (hwe naengmyeon), and a thick, tangy kimchi pancake. There are three kinds of grilled mackerel; a great selection of two- person “casseroles,” hot pots bubbling with goat and vegetables or pig trotters and shank; and a plate of pungent preserved crabs (gye jang bak ban) you won’t forget for weeks. —Mike Sula

Han Bat
2723 W. Lawrence | 773-271-8640

$ asian, korean | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: sunday-tuesday, thursday-saturday | closed wednesday | cash only

This unassuming, half-hidden hole wedged between a defunct Korean bar and the late, great Penguin does one thing well enough to win written testimonials from Korean pop stars and luminaries such as Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park. It’s sul lung tang, or ox bone soup, a great bowl of goodness with its origins in centuries-old harvest rites, after which the bones of a sacrificial beast of burden were boiled for hours to make a milky white broth. Bland, silky, and rich with marrow, it’s a specialty of the region surrounding Seoul, and in these times, valued as hangover remedy or a soothing morning meal. Here it’s available with a choice of chap chae or white noodles and a variety of cow parts (flank, brisket, tongue, tripe, spleen, tendon, or a combination), and accompanied only by hot roasted corn tea and the refreshing, crisp, and spicy contrast of kkakdugi (diced radish) and whole cabbage kimchi, which a waitress scissors into pieces at the table. The soup can be livened at the diner’s discretion with sea salt, chopped green onions, and chile paste. Should one desire some additional protein, plates of boiled brisket, tendon, or tongue are available, but a single spicy beef-vegetable soup is the sole alternative to the house specialty. —Mike Sula

Hourglass
3658 W. Lawrence | 773-478-4050

$$Asian, Korean, bar/lounge | Dinner: seven days | Open late: Saturday till 3, other nights till 2

Variously welcoming and uninviting, this weird little bar serves tasty Korean boozing food. Owned by master kumdo swordsman Suk Do Im, it’s decorated with fake foliage, dark wood, and an empty fish pond schizophrenically accented with classical busts, a suit of armor, steer skulls, mounted swords, and reference books. There are two kinds of fried chicken here, one a simple marinated crispy-skinned bird, the other dangerously glazed in a dark, cinnamony sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Various noodle dishes and roiling spicy stews—fish cake, mussel, or kimchi—gird the brain, stomach, and tongue against the effects of strong spirits. Any and all can be consumed at a pace befitting a gentleman or lady of leisure: Master Im is a personable and attentive host not above supplementing your choices (“Eel make you strong”). In his absence, however, beware the sullen young slicksters he employs, who seem more concerned with pumping crappy dance music through the bar than tending to the clientele. The kitchen’s open till 1 nightly. —Mike Sula

Kang Nam
4849 N. Kedzie | 773-539-2524

$$asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days

When a meal starts with a man wearing flame-retardant hand gear bearing a blazing bucket of coals from the kitchen, it conjures all sorts of enjoyable medieval associations, as if he’d just taken a break from pounding out broadswords and horseshoes to provide fuel for your feasting. Kang Nam is one of the handful of Korean barbecue houses around town that offer that sort of spectacle (unlike those that use gas burners), and among them it’s probably my favorite. The little accompanying bowls of panchan at this most generous of kalbi joints are plentiful, varied, and bottomless, and the glistening morsels of lean seasoned pork, beef, and cephalopod sizzling over the flames at the center of the table taste like you bagged them that morning. The primeval pleasure of eating such food with your hands is contrasted with the civilizing possibility of wrapping it in circles of pickled daikon or fresh red-leaf lettuce. Off the grill there are other good possibilities: the dolsot bi bim bop is particularly well executed, with crispy nurungji on the bowl’s bottom, and rich gamy goat soup is robust with bright greens. Other bowls and soups are amply sized and aggressively seasoned. Food here is given individual attention, as the occasional sight of workers gathered round a table stuffing great piles of dumplings testifies. —Mike Sula

Kim’s Korean Restaurant
1827 W. Algonquin, Mount Prospect | 847-545-9210

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Sunday, Tuesday-Saturday | Closed Monday

In Korea, tableside grilled pork belly, or sam gyeop sal (literally “three-layer pork”) is a revered piece of the pig, often matched with equally special partners like raw fermented skate or superaged kimchi and eaten wrapped in sesame leaf with schmears of soybean or red pepper paste. At Kim’s it is treated with a similar seriousness, marinated in one of five seasonings: wine, herbs, soybean paste, powdered bamboo leaf, or garlic-curry sauce. These marinades are subtle, and the pork can be jazzed up with a number of wrappings (red leaf lettuce, thinly sliced pickled daikon) and condiments (bean paste, soybean powder, orange-onion sauce, pepper paste-dressed shredded green onion). The pork belly itself, known as “black” pork because it comes from Stygian-hued heritage Kurobuta pigs, is fried on an inclined griddle so the rendered fat runs into a collecting bowl. There’s a selection of “casserole” dishes—more like soups—and kitchen-cooked dinners (very tender and sweet bulgogi), but a couple of the enormous appetizers can make a prodigious meal in themselves. Gol baeng i mu chim is a heaping mound of vegetables, whelk (a chewy snail known elsewhere as scungilli), and hand-cut noodles. A less refined but no less satisfying way to enjoy the house specialty is a gigantic plate of sliced pork belly with kimchi and tofu, and even the haemul pajun—the ubiquitous seafood pancake—is fat and crispy, more green onion and shrimp than batter. Panchan are plentiful and of high quality, particularly the very fresh and very spicy kimchi. —Mike Sula

Kokeeri Restaurant
4346 W. Lawrence | 773-205-5680

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday

The menu at Kokeeri is a carb counter’s nightmare: homemade dumplings, noodles, and wonton skins. Round, fluffy dumplings look and taste like the more familiar Chinese bao—the jjin bbang is even stuffed with sweet red-bean paste. Other dumplings offer different textures: the gun mandoo (fried dumplings) come crispy, while the beef-and-pork-stuffed tong mandoo are steamed. The wonton skins in the soo jae bi are thick and chewy like a southern dumpling, but the soup broth they come in tastes deeply fishy—not offensively so, yet it’s possible that someone not accustomed to anchovy broth might be startled. Since there’s no cook-it-yourself barbecue here and the bi bim bop is just OK, why not take the opportunity to try something you’ve never heard of before, like gaeran dup bop (fried rice omelet) or dak do ri, a homey hot chicken-and-potato stew? —Kristina Meyer

Korean Seoulfood Cafe
560 W. Van Buren | 312-427-4293

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 1

The name of Korean Seoulfood Cafe may pun on South Korea’s capital, but owner Dan Choi employs a cook from Chonju, in the southwest of the country. There the food is spicier, saltier, and generally more highly regarded than the rest of the nation’s—and here in Chicago the cook isn’t trying to coddle patrons with oversweetened glop. Chonju is the home of the ubiquitous rice dish bi bim bop, and at Seoulfood it’s available with chicken, shrimp, or pork as well as the more common beef. It’s a deep bowl filled with quality grains, but like most items on the menu, it’s a mite pricier than what you’ll find on the northwest side. Then again, that’s where you’d otherwise have to go to find less common dishes like beo sut jeon gol, a hot pot filled with chap chae and assorted mushrooms, and nak ji bok keum, broiled octopus with noodles and vegetables that’s usually eaten while the critter is still in its death throes (not here, unfortunately). A few panchan come with each order, including a salty-sour jalapeno kimchi I’d never seen before. The house cabbage kimchi is fresh and crisp, and though I prefer a bit more funk myself, it has a respectable burn. I like this place—even if some dishes are served in tinfoil containers like TV dinners, giving the impression that they’ve been held and reheated. I guess that’s the price of offering such a large menu of relatively obscure items. —Mike Sula

Lincoln Restaurant
5501 N. Lincoln | 773-784-5225

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday

Of all the reasons people give for being intimidated by Korean restaurants—no English spoken, dark windows—I think the most legitimate is that they’re so darn communal. I’ll be the first to admit it ain’t easy to stroll solo into some place whose tables are filled with extended families or soju-soaked businessmen all attacking giant bubbling centerpieces of delicious-looking food that can’t be found on the menu. This tiny lunch counter with a handful of red leather booths renders the problem moot, serving a small selection of extremely well-made simple Korean standards, from a very red shredded beef soup (yuk gae jang) with nice big chunks of meat and radish to a fat, fleshy grilled croaker to an incendiary sam gyeop sal (stir-fried pork belly with kimchi), one of my all-time favorites. Add in an irresistible eggplant kimchi I’ve never seen before, table rice flecked with red beans, and the sweet mother-and-daughter team that runs it—this place is full of little surprises that make it one of the more comfortable and welcoming places I know for Korean food. —Mike Sula

Mi Na Ri
3311 W. Bryn Mawr |773-267-3590

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday

Minari is the Korean name for an herb related to parsley and dropwort that typically makes an appearance in seafood hot pots and stews, the house specialty at this spare little spot on Bryn Mawr. Hot pots of cod, assorted shellfish, and “honkfish” (a species identical to monkfish whose habitat seems to be strictly limited to the English portion of the menu) come steaming to the table with radish, tofu, mushroom, and minari in a spicy red broth. For whole grilled fish one can choose among saury, hairtail, and yellow corvina in addition to the usual mackerel. Besides seafood there are a few other atypical dishes, including four varieties of jook, rice porridge, popular nourishment during periods of unruly digestion; an enormous bowl of house-made noodles in thick chicken broth; and a selection of refreshing “summer special” noodle dishes. The side dishes vary according to availability, but if you’re lucky you’ll get gejang, sweet raw crabs marinated in soy and spiced with red pepper paste. —Mike Sula

San Chae Dol Sot Restaurant
3737B W. Lawrence | 773-588-5223

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch: monday-thursday; dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday | BYO

Located in a Lawrence Avenue strip mall, San Chae Dol Sot is easy to drive past, its vague signage of little help. Once inside and seated, guests are greeted briskly but benevolently (the controlling-mother-type service will continue for the rest of your visit, so it’s best to just accept it). Dolsot bi bim bop is the house specialty, and few places offer more variations. The dish consists of a hot stone pot, or dolsot, filled with steamed rice and a combination of meats, vegetables, seafood, and kimchi. Assuming you mix your bi bim bop correctly, you’ll be rewarded with the prized crispy golden rice clinging to the bottom of your bowl—the best part of the meal. An egg topper, to my mind a critical component of bi bim bop, is not normally served here—if you want one you’ll have to ask for it by its Korean name (dal-gyal) while miming the act of cracking an egg. San Chae Dol Sot has one of the better panchan selections in town, and while they don’t give you a lot, whatever they put on the table is fresh. Typical soups and stews are also on the menu, and you can get barbecue cooked for you in the kitchen. Unlike many Korean restaurants, San Chae Dol Sot isn’t open late at night, and be forewarned: anyone still on the premises at closing time is asked to put down the chopsticks and leave. —Kristina Meyer

San Soo GaP San
5247 N. Western | 773-334-1589

F 7.4 | S 6.9 | A 5.8 | $$ (9 reports)Asian, Korean, Japanese | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 5

Ever since the demise of 24 Hour Korean Restaurant, San Soo Gap San (and to a lesser extent Hai Woon Dae) has ruled the night and early morning in terms of after-hours Korean food. And after undergoing a recent renovation that scuttled its sushi bar and opened up the formerly high-walled labyrinthine table scheme, SSGS has become even more inviting, notwithstanding the occasionally grouchy service. The coals are live, the panchan are plentiful, and there are a number of very well done nonbarbecue items available, including a resurrecting hot-sweet stir-fried sam gyeop sal (bacon) panfried with kimchi and hearty hot soups like kalbi tang (a soup of slow-simmered short ribs), yuk gae jang (spicy shredded beef soup), and tofu stew. Additionally SSGS gives very good tongue, thinly sliced, tender, and delicious smeared through a little red pepper paste. While it’s not my favorite Korean restaurant, at 4 AM it hardly ever matters. ­—Mike Sula

So Gong Dong Tofu House
3307 W. Bryn Mawr | 773-539-8377

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Sunday-Tuesday, Thursday-Saturday | Closed Wednesday | Reservations accepted for large groups only | BYO

In Korea, soup (guk) or stew (chigae), along with rice, is considered essential for a complete meal. Everything else is an accessory. At So Gong Dong Tofu House, each order of soon dubu chigae (tofu stew)—be it ginseng, miso, vegetables, seafood and/or beef, or kimchi and/or pork—comes to the table red and roiling angrily. Before it subsides, crack a raw egg into the deeply rich beef brew and stir. Whatever meat and vegetables swim in the broth provide just enough textural contrast to the pillowy tofu curds and egg to make it a soup that eats like a meal. The house conjures a handful of other classic Korean soups and stews, including kimchi chigae, yuk gae jang (shredded beef soup), the medicinal sam gae tang (chicken-ginseng soup), and dan jang chigae, an aggressive bean paste stew—Guinness to Japanese miso’s chardonnay. But the real magic here is a side of the impossibly tender marinated ribs with a bowl of soon dubu chigae. Guests who linger may be treated to a refreshing cup of sikhye, a lightly sweet postprandial rice punch. —Mike Sula

Solga Charcoal Grill and Noodle
5828 N. Lincoln | 773-728-0802

$$$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Saturday till 11

Located in the formerly drab space that housed Pyung Yang Myun Ok, Solga is a smarter-looking, sleeker outfit. The new owners have redecorated, furnishing the restaurant with dark lacquered wood and equipping the tables with charcoal pots for barbecuing. (Pyung Yang had gas-powered pots.) Purists may still be disappointed: Solga’s pots get a boost from a gas flame. But the flavors don’t suffer. The house special, kalbi (short ribs), comes plain or marinated in a piquant mix of soy, garlic, and sugar. Other meats for grilling include tripe and baby octopus. Mixed seafood or red-meat hot pots and assorted Korean standards like sul lung tang (beef marrow soup) are solidly rendered. One holdover from Pyung Yang’s menu, naengmyeon (homemade buckwheat noodles), is served chilled in broth and makes a refreshing summer meal. Panchan come eight strong (including kimchi, kimchi daikon, fried tofu strips, seaweed salad, and boiled potato) and are cheerfully replenished. Raters praise the waitstaff’s friendliness and attentiveness—“not too common in a Korean restaurant,” says one. Tatami rooms are available for larger parties. —Peter Tyksinski

Ssyal Ginseng House
4201 W. Lawrence | 773-427-5296

$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday

In Korea it’s traditionally eaten in the summer, but when I find myself weakening in the early stages of the grippe and the usual fortifying regimen of zinc, vitamin C, raw garlic, and Wild Turkey won’t vanquish it, sam gae tang, chicken ginseng soup from this Koreatown dispensary, is my tonic of last resort. A stewed Cornish hen stuffed with rice and small dates sits meekly in a small bubbling cauldron of murky yellow broth. Whole, softened, and slightly sweet ginseng root swims under the surface, and side dishes of green onions and sea salt are meant to enliven what is otherwise an appropriately bland remedy. I’ve heard others say they find an off-putting, slightly bitter undertone to the broth, but I’ve never detected it. As a further reminder that you’re not so much meant to enjoy yourself as heal yourself, the pot comes with a side of sticky brown rice and red beans. For the healthy there are four other hot soups (codfish, bean with seafood, beef with cabbage, and bean and vegetable) accompanied by the usual assortment of panchan. And you don’t have to take your medicine in a bowl: there’s a $3.95 ginseng shake or hot ginseng tea floating with pine nuts; for the home cure you can buy ginseng fresh, dried, powdered, and infused in a molasseslike solution, all displayed under tall clear containers of whole roots, with an extraterrestrial appearance resembling something I once saw in the woods devouring a squirrel. —Mike Sula

Woo Chon
5744 N. California | 773-728-8001

$$Asian, Korean | Lunch, dinner: seven days

This ramshackle shotgun brick house is a curious sight from the outside, wedged into an odd, angled alley behind Lincoln Avenue, across California from a convenience store that stocks Libertarian Party literature. It doesn’t look like it could handle a stiff breeze, let alone the throng of 17 birthday partiers that recently stormed its doors, a motley mob of experienced Korean barbecuers as well as novices, hard-core carnivores, and squeamish plant eaters. But the waitstaff were pros, juicing us with soju and beer and commandeering the tongs to flip tender slices of beef whenever we revelers got lost in our own noise. Did it matter that the panchan arrived after appetizers, buckets of hot coals, and the huge platters of marinating meat? The vegetarians were placated, huddling over their bowls of bi bim bop, while the meat eaters filled up with heavy appetizers like yook hoi, shredded raw beef tossed with Asian pear, sesame oil, and egg yolk, and goon mandoo, fat, beefy fried dumplings. The house regained control when the waitress firmly removed the beef short ribs after a greenhorn mistakenly placed them on a grill already crusted with the sirloin’s sweet marinade. A scoured metal rack was delivered and the ribs were given the green light, though after the lean steak, their relatively stringy spare flesh was superfluous. A late-arriving peppery miso soup with zucchini and tofu floaters made a bracing dessert and probably the only suitable finish to such relentless meating. —Mike Sula

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