A Korean's Guide to Korean Restaurants in NYC

The best way to describe Han Bat is with the words "peasant food." The dishes are hearty, basic, and traditional, with the emphasis on large portions rather than appearance, ambience, or the highest quality.

I recommend any of the chi gae dishess, spicy Korean casserole/stews that will warm your belly in the winter. The bibimbap, which is rice mixed with vegetables, egg, and meat served in a stone pot with red pepper paste, is also a consistently solid choice. They bring plenty of ban chan (side dishes), with the kim chi usually on the e-guh (ripe) side. One thing I will warn against is the man doo. These are fried Korean dumplings and it's listed as a main dish, but really should be considered an appetizer-type dish to be shared by the table. There always seems to be a non-Korean person who orders it whenever I'm eating there and it takes everything I have to keep from jumping out of my seat to advise them not to do it. But then again, they seem to like it well enough when it comes out, so what do I know? P.S. There’s no "on the table" BBQ.

Cho Dan Gol, like its next-door neighbor Han Bat, is a few blocks away from the rest of the Korean restaurants, bars, and businesses located on West 32nd St. between 5th and 6th avenues.

Cho Dan Gol has a cozy, warm dining room that makes me think this is what a restaurant in the Korean countryside would look like. They specialize in fresh tofu dishes and stews, and, in my opinion, have the best kimchi in Koreatown. I usually order kimchi boekhuem, which is pork, kimchi, and some onions and peppers stir-fried and served with huge slices of fresh tofu. I have to warn you that this dish is very spicy, so if you are sensitive to spicy food, you may want to pass on this one. Unfortunately, I would say the same thing about all of their signature dishes like soft tofu chigae (stew), seafood chigae, and their other casseroles. The bottom line is that you're probably better off eating at another restaurant if you don't like spicy foods.

Gam Mee Ok is THE place to go in New York after partying all night. It's open 24 hours a day so it doesn't matter whether you crawl out of the bars at 2am or 7am, there's a hangover cure waiting for you here.

The menu at Gam Mee Ok is limited, with a few things on the menu like "blood" sausage, pig ears, and boiled squid that only the bravest will want to try. I actually really like these dishes, but when I go to Gam Mee Ok, it's for the Sul an Tang, a beef marrow soup with noodles, slices of beef, and some organ type meat, that you salt to your taste at the table. They don't serve ban chan, just kimchi and the turnip kimchi that they cut with scissors at your table. I know a lot of people who say that this is the best kimchi in the city, but it's a little too sweet for me to call the best, and I prefer Cho Dan Gol's.

Back to the Sul an Tang and its anti-hangover powers.... Well, that's the legend, but I'm not 100% convinced. But then again, just because it doesn't avert a hangover after drinking till 7am doesn't mean it doesn't work at all...

This is supposedly one of Quentin Tarantino's favorites, further support of his rumored asian fetish, yellow fever, egg...Margaret Cho even claimed in her concert movie that she was dating Tarantino when she was doing her sitcom bomb, "All American Girl"... but I digress. It doesn't matter much because there really isn't that much to say about the restaurant. It's small, crowded, food is Americanized a bit, but it's fun and relatively cheap in a great neighborhood to go out in after dinner.

I had the bulgogi, which is cooked marinated beef, and my friends has the bibimbap, which is as hard to make special as it is to mess up. The best part of the night was going across the street to a bar after finding out there was a 45 minute wait, and discovering $1.50 Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles.

Kum Gang San is probably the best known of the Korean restaurants in Manhattan's "Koreatown". It's a huge restaurant with two levels and a big fountain and a rock canopy where a woman in traditional Korean garb plays a harp. Unfortunately the ambience is ruined by a projection television that plays against the far wall, which they installed when Korea made a run in the 2002 World Cup. It was great to have a place to go to at 5am to watch the games, but someone needs to tell them that Mets baseball is not enough of a reason to keep the television turned on in a nice restaurant.

About the food. The food is high quality, which you notice from the very beginning with the ban chans (side dishes) they bring out. Not only do they bring out a lot, they are fresh, and delicious. Whatever you order there, you can count on it to be good. I've had Galbi (beef rib) soup, marrow soup, any number of chigaes (casseroles/stews), as well as plenty of Galbi (ribs) that you can cook right at the table in front of you, and haven't been disappointed yet. It is a bit pricier than the other Korean restaurants, but still well within a reasonable price range.