Dan Sung Sa - 2775 Telegraph Ave. - 10.24.2007

This place looked about as unwelcoming from the outside as the previous Korean establishment, and we weren't sure if it was a restaurant or not. We don't know why these Korean establishments eschew windows. Curious.

Turns out that the interior of this place is super groovy. It's a bar with a kitchen and cool private booths made out of stables, decorated with bizarre Korean movie posters. Sweet. We might just hang out at the bar here regardless of this project.

Fortunately for us, the cocktail waitress was really knowledgeable about Korean food, and she spoke perfect English. She explained that this place was more Korean bar food, whereas Sam Won was more traditional BBQ.

Once we knew we were in for bar food, we ordered Soju. We asked what it's made out of and were told that it's 50/50 rice and barley as 60%, 20% sweet potato, and 20% tapioca. It's also 19.8% alcohol. Woo!

This place has lots of Soju specials, seeing as how it's a bar. Anyway...

What we ordered: Chicken wings, soup & Kim-chee pancake
Atmo: hipster Korean happy hour
Crowd: local Koreans hipsters + regular, younger neighborhood types
Spent: around $40.00
Chicken wing rating: 4 sporks
Other food rating: 3 sporks
Atmo rating: 4 sporks
Overall rating: (we don't divide evenly; food is more important)... 3.5

If you order the chicken wings, you'll be thrilled. They were massive drumsticks and covered in some hugely sticky honey-based sauce that we both loved. The kim-chee pancake was OK; the soup I liked, but the PIC wasn't thrilled about fish-based broth.

We'd go back for the wings and the interesting ambiance.