Inkwatu

DELIGHTS, NEAR AND FAR

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Emphasis on Florida and the Tampabay area (St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater, etc.), but also far beyond.
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Atlanta: Seoul Gardens Korean & Japanese Restaurant

June 25th, 2008 · 6 Comments

This post, the one before it, and the next one, all concern three Asian culinary treats I recently explored in Atlanta with my son who lives there. The last post mentioned kimchi and banchan. Those, of course, were a part of our meal at Atlanta’s Seoul Gardens Korean & Japanese Restaurant (5938 Buford Hwy NE, Doraville, GA 30340-1332; 770-452-0123).

We’d been to another restaurant in this same building ages ago, long before it was a Korean restaurant. At that time, it was a typical suburban Friday’s inspired fern bar. The Seoul Gardens owners who bought the building transformed it into a quiet respite from Atlanta’s traffic. The privacy provided by the booths create an intimate atmosphere. But the open, at-table barbeque grills enliven the ambiance. A very inviting place. As my son might say, “A good place to take a date.”

This was our second time eating at Seoul Garden and we both had the same dish again: Bulgogi. I’d become addicted to bulgogi at the Sa Ri One in Tampa (discussed much farther down the page), so I’d been anxious to compare the dish with how it’s prepared at Seoul Gardens. They were obviously made from entirely different recipes. The two versions were so dissimilar, I would never guess they were named the same. The Tampa Sa Ri One version has a heavier sauce and is a lot spicier. The Atlanta Seoul Gardens version has no sauce, but is sweet, and had obviously been marinated much longer. I love both versions! I truthfully don’t know enough to compare either version to how it might be authentically made in Korea.

It should be no surprise that the recipes for bulgogi available on the Internet are as varied as my two experiences with it; however, they all seem to share a few basic ingredients: soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, pepper and onions. Plus, one unusual key ingredient to be revealed shortly!

A few, representative recipe links:

maangchi.com is a vast website about Korean food that simply must not be missed. It’s the definitive source of information about, and photos of, Korean food. She also has a blog. Here are a couple other Korean food blogs I subscribe to: Seoul Eats, whose author I quote a little later, and Food Korea. You might also enjoy this interesting article of observations on the Do’s and Don’t’s of eating Korean barbeque.

When I lived in Honolulu, a friend introduced me to the whole at-table barbeque thing. The number of Korean barbeques in Honolulu is staggering. Check out this list at Chowbaby. My favorite one in Honolulu had, as does Seoul Garden in Atlanta, at-table grills: shallow wok shaped grills set into holes in the centers of the tables. Sometimes these grills are heated by gas (as it was in my Honolulu favorite), sometimes, electricity. At Seoul Garden, the meat is brought to the table for you to grill yourself. At the Honolulu one, the meats were available in a long buffet of various raw meats, from which you chose the meat to take to your table to grill. A buffet of raw meats is a little intimidating, even to a guilty carnivore such as myself. (All due respects and acknowledgments for that expression, “guilty carnivore,” the title of one of my favorite, non-Korean-food blogs: Guilty Carnivore. It’s such an inspired title, it sums up my own food attitudes: I would love to be a vegetarian but just can’t, for whatever reason.)

The experience of getting to cook your own meat at your own table is a lot of fun. One bit of clarification. Bulgogi is a Korean barbeque, but not all Korean barbeques are bulgogi! (For a further discussion of syllogisms, see Aristotle). See this Wikipedia page for a full discussion of Korean barbeque. Further, the times I’ve had bulgogi it was served as an already cooked entree. The at-table barbeque meals I’ve had were all non-marinated meat Korean barbeques. Bulgogi is definitely a marinade in all recipes I’ve seen.

I asked Daniel Gray of Seoul Eats for clarification of this. Here is what he wrote: “Bulgogi is a marinated thinly sliced beef that’s grilled. It is a form of Korean BBQ. Essentially anything on the grill is BBQ. As for spelling, EVERYTHING is misspelled in Korea. The Korean name “Lee” is really pronounced “Eee” but people spell it like, “Rhee, Ree, Yee, etc.” I’ve seen bulgogi spelled “pulgogi” here. [Daniel is in Korea teaching English as a second language.] Real bulgogi is meat marinated with Asian pear, soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, and a little wine. It’s all about the Asian Pear.”

To my knowledge, there is no sit-down Korean restaurant in St. Petersburg, but there are at least 5 on the Tampa side of the bay. My absolute favorite at which I’ve eaten many times is Sa Ri One Korean Restaurant (3940 W. Cypress St., Tampa, FL 33607;813-874-2911). I’ve also eaten at Coreawon (926 East Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL 33612; 813-866-8262), but since I tend to favor smaller, cozier, family owned and operated places, I prefer Sa Ri One.

I’ve eaten several times at Matoi Sushi (602 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, FL 33609;813-871-3233). Although the name stresses sushi, they have a rather large number of Korean dishes, all good. There are two other restaurants I have yet to try but intend to soon. The first is Rice Restaurant & Lounge (7525 West Hillsborough Ave., Tampa, FL 33615-4103; 813-889-7766), which has the at-table barbeques. A very web savvy restaurant, they publish PDFs of their menus and even provide an off-site link with excellent information about Korean cuisine.

The other Tampa restaurant I have yet to try is Soul of Korea (7612 N. 56th St., Tampa, FL 33617; 813-989-9030‎). I’m also trying to track down a restaurant out on Waters where a Korean friend took me and a visiting educator from Korea for a lunar new year’s dinner (with the traditional new year’s soup). It was packed and I was the only non-Korean eating there. (A sure sign the food is good.) If I can ever relocate this place, I’ll report on it…after I finish having some more of that spectacular soup! If you know the name of this restaurant or even if it’s still in existence, please comment!

St. Petersburg does have Dong A Market (2600 30th Ave. N., Saint Petersburg, FL 33713; 727-321-3300), which carries some packaged Korean meals. I haven’t yet tried Dong A.

One parting, additional comment about Atlanta’s Seoul Gardens: their fried rice is simply—without exaggeration—the best I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t explain it. The flavor is elusive and multi-layered. I had no idea such a simple dish could be so good. I have a new quest: discovering other restaurants with fried rice as good as that at Atlanta’s Seoul Gardens.

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Tags: Asian · Atlanta · International · Korean · food · restaurants

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 hkj // Jun 25, 2008 at 8:28 am

    Hilton,

    Both forms of bulgogi you have eaten and read about are called bulgogi. There is the type that is cooked at the table on a grill.

    There is also a type of bulgogi that you actually cook in a “hot pot” at your table. They will put a butane cooktop on your table and bring a pan full of vegetables and bulgogi, and usually some noodles. They will pour broth on top of it all and let it cook down. The vegetables will get soft and the bulgogi marinade will cook out into the sauce. Essentially making a “stew” of sorts. The sauce/juice from this dish is excellent on top of rice.

    Each dish is called bulgogi, but they have a different adjective modifier to the name of the dish. Maybe Daniel knows the diffent names between the different ways bulgogi is prepared.

    Also, Im not sure how familiar you are with Korean food. There is also a very popular dish called Kalbi/Galbi. Which is rib meat specifically that is marinated and grilled at the table. The marinade is slightly different usually to Bulgogi. To me its usualy not as sweet. This maybe what you had in Honolulu? It is probably the most famous/favorite BBQ type grilled meat dish in Korea.

    Richard

    [Re-posted from a comment in a thread regarding my query about bulgogi on Seoul Eats.]

  • 2 Richard // Jun 25, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Nice article you wrote here. I always love seeing non-koreans being introduced to Korean food. I think if every American tried Korean food once, they would almost always love it.

    Here are some quick comments:
    1. The traditional soup at lunar new year that you ate is called “Mandu-guk”. Guk is one of the Korean words for soup. Mandu are the “dumplings” in that soup (a Korean version of the pot stickers in Chinese food).

    2. Im not familiar with a “spicy” version of bulgogi (doesnt mean it doesnt exists). However, Ive been eating Korean food most of my life and I have been to Korea for 13 weeks in the last 8 months, and never had a spicy Bulgogi.

    3. The bulgogi in your picture looks like it was just cooked on a gridle, there is also bulgogi that is cooked in a pan with broth and has more sauce, and then obviously the grilled type.

    4. Beside bulgogi, the other famous Korean BBQ is called Kalbi/Galbi. You should try it some time.

    5. Here are some suggestions of other food that you can probably find in a Korean restaurant in the US:

    BiBimBop - Korean staple, usually considered a “light” lunch. But if you have ever seen a true Korean, they can eat their own weight in food! Its simply amazing. (Dolsot bibimbop is my favorite which comes in a hot stone bowl so the rice gets crispy)

    JaeJae Myun - Actually is a korean/chinese fusion that is eaten by Koreans. Its noodles in a black bean paste.

    Kimchee Chigae - well you know kimchee, this is a stew that is made out of kimchee, tofu, and kimchee…sometimes there is a little meat. This is really good on a cold day.

    Jap Chae - Kind of a Korean/Japanese fusion. This is “clear” noodles (I believe rice based?) with a mixture of vegestables. Very good. If think you getting pretty good with chopsticks. Order this and test yourself. If you can eat this with chopsticks your getting real good.

  • 3 Say Lee // Jun 25, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    We are fortunate to have a Korean friend right here at Tampa who has taken us to many a Korean restaurant, including Sa Ri One, Rice, and Han Il Kwan Ginza. We have blogged about our gastronomic adventure at Sa Ri One toward the end of 2006 here. We visited Rice while the restaurant was still serving Buffet. It so happened that the third one on the list is also located at Waters. We are not sure whether that’s the one you are looking for. But if it is not, we think it will be well worth your time too. Its address is 8104 W Waters Ave.

    If you are still in Atlanta, do try Top Spice (here and here, run by our friends from Malaysia (Howie and Judy, and Howie’s brother).

  • 4 hkj // Jun 26, 2008 at 5:32 am

    Ah, Say, thanks for both the comments and the info. I wonder if Han II Kwan Ginza is the one I was taken to…I’ll try it soon. I used to go to Rice before it was Rice (it was a buffet back then, too). But haven’t been in its current incarnation.

    Yes, I love the durian. I had it for the first time flying first class, through frequent flyer miles, on Air China. They asked if I wanted a Chinese meal or a western meal. Of course, I said Chinese. I could have stayed home and had western!. Got a huge chunk of a something white and funny smelling and an egg that looked like an abandoned Easter egg turned to brown cheese. They both tasted wonderful. Only later did I find out what they were. I’m addicted to both now. Yes, “heaven sent” is the only way to describe durian.

  • 5 Seouleats // Jun 30, 2008 at 7:46 am

    maangchi is awesome. I watch her on my ipod all the time. Great post. If you’re ever in Seoul, you have a tour guide.

  • 6 hkj // Jun 30, 2008 at 8:53 am

    Thanks for dropping by, Dan. And thanks for your help.

    Hilton

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