There are many reasons why I love Los Angeles, but truth be told, most of them are related to food. Though cuisine isn’t limited to fondue, my city is the quintessential melting pot of culinary culture. My favorite spot? Koreatown – specifically Soot Bull Jeep (or as Grandma calls it “Simple Jeep”). Admittedly, our phonetic spellings of the restaurant’s name would be considered offensive by most Korean-speakers, but I assure you that my butchering of the words is pronounced with the fondest appreciation.
Stepping inside, any hope of re-wearing the jeans you currently sport is lost in a cloud scented heavily with charcoal and meat. The meal is always delicious, though severely rushed by the impatient waitresses who will throw all your raw meat on the grill at once unless you use your tongs to fight back. But the risk of any server-customer hostility is miniscule compared with the delectable and all too filling meal that is devoured until the last meat-soaked grain of rice is scraped off of each metal bowl.
Visiting Koreatown is an experience that I cherish and look forward to with anxious anticipation each time I return home. But this weekend, I was informed that I wouldn’t have to wait any longer to satisfy my taste bud’s cravings.
“So, this is New York’s Koreatown,” Matt tells me. Suddenly surrounded by a significantly homogeneous crowd and a plethora of signs written in a foreign language, I take a deep breath in and am overcome with nostalgia as I smell the charcoal, the Kim Chi, and the sizzling Bulgogi. We wander from place to place, looking at the menus and pretending to understand everything on them. Not unlike most college students, we’re mainly focused on the dollar signs. After finding a few decent options, we round the corner and find ourselves back amongst affluence. The taxis are honking, the Forever 21 lights are flashing, and the gargantuan poster of Victoria’s Secret’s newest lingerie model is difficult to avoid. Somewhere far over the rainbow, I realize, we’re not in Koreatown anymore. Coming to terms with the fact that New York’s rendition of my L.A. favorite is incremental in comparison, we walk back to the hustle and bustle of the compact block of culture.
My first and last visit to New York’s Koreatown took place at “NY Kom Tang Soot Bul Kalbi.” Where one might expect to find a blue, upper case “A” or “B” there was a sign posted to the window that read, “Grade Pending.” This should have been our first signal to abandon ship and settle for a slice of the always-reliable New York pizza. But without a second thought, we walk in casually and are immediately accosted by a screeching woman who summons us toward her. Kom Tang wasn’t the most authentic, but “Soot Bul” was included in its ostentatious name, and that was enough for me.
Taking our seats in the back of the establishment, we are squished in between the bathroom and the kitchen. A meek Korean man tiptoes toward our table and waits in silence until we place our order. “What?” he asks when I order the Bulgogi. Unlike “Soot Bull Jeep,” “Bulgogi” is a word that I’ve mastered the pronunciation of with confidence. “The Bulgogi,” I repeat, pointing to the menu. He looks down and then up at me with more confusion in his glance than a baby subjected to an unfair game of Peek-A-Boo. Walking away, he watches from around the corner with fright as another waiter writes down our order. As our food arrives, the same screechy woman who drew us in comes uncomfortably close to my nether region, bending over me to turn on the barbeque’s gas. A Mexican man chatters in Spanish-accented Korean with the timid waiter who has become frazzled by the commotion of making our barbeque function. As the woman stands up and brushes her thick, curly hair against my cheek, the more aggressive waiter plops the heaping pile of meat onto the grill, not even giving us the chance for a fair fight. In moments, they are all gone, not to return until the end of our dinner.
Though the food isn’t nearly comparable with that of “Simple Jeep,” it satisfies my craving and I’m thankful for the company. After every sliver of Bulgogi is digested, Matt leans over in his apparently unstable chair and topples to the floor. With a mouth full of rice and sesame bean sprouts, I, of course, burst out in laughter (I’ve never been good at taking potentially worrisome situations seriously). Waiter number two rushes over followed by his entourage, consisting of the Korean-speaking Hispanic, the bushy-haired hostess, and our apprehensive server. They watch with consternation as Matt lifts himself up to recover from his tumble (Scarlet would be proud). Quickly scampering away, they resume their positions as if nothing had happened. With a look of utter revulsion, Matt gulps, “I don’t even want to tell you the worst part.” Still struggling to swallow due to my unhindered laughter, I ask, “Whuut?” He points down. Looking under the table I see a perfectly preserved Gregor, on his back, arms still wiggling. That’s right, Matt had landed on a cockroach. My eyes grew large. I screamed. Matt winced, “I’m gonna go wash my hands.”
I summon our second waiter and inform him of the homicide. He arrives, followed again by his posse who look down in disgust as I point out their lifeless squatter. The Mexican bus boy was assigned to clean up the mess. I’m sure he would have much preferred wiping Cow Tongue remains from tables to playing gravedigger for the goopy, pre-historic, Kafkian corpse.
Upon Matt’s return, our bashful server silently places two orange slices on our table. With feet lifted off the ground and semi-permanent furrowed brows, we look down at the shiny, fluorescent slices and push them aside. Waiter Two drops off our check, which failed to recognize our nauseating encounter.
We paid full price for our meal in attempt to evacuate in haste and hurried to the door without looking down. Finding solace in the sterile streets of New York City, we felt safe knowing that we had escaped to territory un-trampled upon by filthy vermin.
