Seoul Gum Tang - 3801 Telegraph Ave

Seoul Gum Tang almost looks like a Korean Community Center from the outside. It's on the corner of Macarthur and Telegraph, and has a parking lot on the Macarthur side.

We don't remember that this place has actual windows either. Glass doors, yes. Windows? We don't think so (we'll check for sure next time we traverse past).

We didn't know what we'd find inside, but the PIC was feeling a bit tired of Korean food already. Fortunately, this isn't a Korean BBQ place. The specialty here seems to be big huge cauldrons of dumpling-filled soups, which come to you on your own personal bunson burners. I'm not sure why the Koreans are so fond of portable grills and so averse to windows - one would think they'd be best off going hand-in-hand. 'Tis a mystery.

We asked the waitress what was good, and she told us "Everything!" As per the norm in our Korean restaurant experience, we were the only non-Koreans in the place and the staff was Korean. Other than Dan Sung Sa, all our waitstaff in the Korean establishments speak Korean as their first language and have spotty English, making it somewhat difficult to really get to the bottom of mysteries like "Hot ball." Hmm.

What we saw on the menu: Assorted casserole of dumpling. We don't know what was in that dumpling, and we feel better off not knowing. (It was some kind of meat.) It cost $28.95, so whatever it was I hope it's good. Something about "Hot Ball" (yes, you can giggle - we did). Most things on this menu are served in a bowl.
What we ordered: Beef/kimchee dumpling
What it came with: steamed rice, marinated zucchini, green onion and kim chee.
Atmo: Korean community center
Crowd: Korean folks of all walks of life
Spent: Around $30
Overall rating: 3 sporks

The atmo in here is very bright and has flat screens with Korean news on them. These folks get extra style points for having utensils in a little box, cool lightweight metal chopsticks, and metal rice holders for your personal rice serving to keep it hot.

The dumpling soup was service in a ginormous cauldron on aforementioned personal stove, and it had cabbage and other fresh veggies on top that you can put in and let wilt. The broth was cloudy and light cream/salmon-colored, and this freaked us out. We still don't know what was in this broth. It was good, but not knowing what was in it and the vaguely fishy flavor scared us both a little.

The soup also contained udon noodles and fish cakes - the latter of which I hate and the PIC loves.

The dumplings themselves were extremely flavorful, and we ate almost all of them.

Advice: don't take this stuff for leftovers. We brought it home to see what would happen and discovered that it became a gelatinous, milky mass when it cooled down. This was less-than-appetizing for us, but absolutely delicious to the canine residents of the house.

The dogs give this place 5 paws for allowing them three major loves all in one dish: fish, beef and noodles.

This restaurant cemented the PIC's opinion that she just doesn't really like Korean food very much, and that the only way she plans to eat it again is if we do Korean BBQ somewhere with fire grills and good meat. Exception is the Dan Sung chicken wings.

So, we may just skip the rest of the Korean restaurants. If we do, we'll list them anyway and note that we skipped them.

Kang Tong Degi - 3702 Telegraph Ave

This is the sign outside Kang Tong Degi, which is why it is known by PIC and I as "Nameless Korean place next door to New Big Daddy's."



Thanks to Yelp for filling in the blanks and giving me a name (and photo!) of this place for our blog.

Note that this is yet another Korean restaurant without windows. What on earth is the deal with this trend? Enlightenment from someone Korean, please.

In any case: This was our third try at Korean food, so we were feeling a little more comfortable with things. We walked in to find a vaguely hipster atmo much like Dan Sung.

We had two guest eaters with us for this adventure. One is a vegetarian, which would prove to be her undoing.

Like Sam Won BBQ, this place will bring you little grills to cook your meat. Unlike Sam Won, the grills are electric rather than giving you the satisfaction of actual fire. Also unlike Sam Won, you get way less condiments and groovy veggies, and the meat was frozen.

The quality of this meat paled in comparison to our impression of the Sam Won meat, and without actual flame we knew that this place just wasn't going to be as good. However, the atmo is groovier and it really puts you in the mood to drown yourself in some soju.

Unfortunately, vegetarian options are extremely limited. Our veggie friend ended up ordering some crazy noodle dish in a spicy sauce that was so hot she couldn't eat it. We're not sure what it was called; the menu wasn't very non-Korean-friendly.

What we ordered: Double beef BBQ (Sirloin and something else in chunks), vegetarian noodle thing with Ass-Burn-hot sauce, soju
Atmo: Korean hipster bar
Crowd: us and young Korean hipsters
Spent: Around $40 for 4 people
Overall rating: 3 sporks

We wouldn't go here again for the Korean BBQ (we'd go to Sam Wong BBQ), and with Dan Sung down the street with a similar groovy atmo and awesome chicken wings, we probably just wouldn't go here again, period.

However, we're glad we tried it out. At this point, the PIC has decided that she may actually be tired of Korean food. This is a problem, because we have at least 2 more Korean places that we know of before we get into the fancy stretch of Telegraph where Dona Tomas and Pizzaiolo live. Yikes.

New Big Daddy's Chinese - 3700 Telegraph Ave

New Big Daddy's is an interesting, fluorescent-lit cafeteria-feeling takeout Chinese hole-in-the-wall.

Good Chinese food is hard to find, so we had low expectations of this place and figured it was just a proverbial notch in the Telegraph belt.

And it was. EXCEPT for one big happy surprise, and that was the "dry fry ribs" which are, I believe, actually called "dry fried ribs." I don't remember, but the first is more fun to say.

I don't know what animal spawned these ribs, but they taste vaguely like Kentucky Fried Chicken - oddly, in a good way. (This is the second establishment in this project to offer us something that tasted like KFC - odd.) They're bizarrely tasty, and the Partner in Chow ate so many that we feared that she might contract a coronary of some kind.

It seems that the dry fried ribs are in fact the specialty here, as they're called out on the menu, on the wall, and some neighborhood dudes pulled up in a hoopdie and rolled in clamoring about dry fried ribs. They were loud and boisterous, and they really wanted some ribs. On the plus side, they didn't ask me for money.


We had two standout dishes from New Big Daddy's: the ribs and the green beans with chicken. Both were unique to this establishment, and both were bizarrely good.

What we ordered: Dry fried ribs, Hot and Sour Soup, Spicy Green Beans with Chicken, Mu Shu Pork, Broccoli Beef and steamed rice. (This is way too much food for 2 people, but for the purposes of a review and PIC's taste for leftover Chinese we splurged).
Atmo: fluorescent Chinese takeout
Crowd: the 'hood
Spent: About $30
Dry fry rib rating: 5 sporks (though we don't have a baseline)
Chicken and green bean rating: 4 sporks
Everything else: 2.5 sporks
Atmo: 1.5 sporks
Overall rating: 3 sporks

The Broccoli Beef had slightly too much fish sauce, but it was still pretty good. I fear weird fluffy Chinese food beef, and this beef wasn't the usual weird rubbery/fluffy beef. It was thin and still slightly scary for me; PIC didn't mind it.

The Hot 'n Sour Soup was OK; thinner than usual, and nothing to write home about. This is one thing I order nearly every time I eat Chinese food, and this one was forgettable.

So: go for the ribs or the green beans, or don't bother.

Louisiana Fish and Chips - 2817 Telegraph Ave

I'd actually heard from a neighbor that he loves this place. I don't like fried food, but I figured we'd give it a try anyway. Hey - they have burritos, so yet another "fried seafood and burrito" place on Telegraph. The first one didn't disappoint...

Unfortunately, this one did disappoint. All the fried fish was bizarrely hard, though to be fair the crust wasn't greasy. Vaguely tasteless and otherwise kinda nasty, but not greasy. Woo.

The hushpuppies were also bland. The burrito was bland. Everything was bland and left us feeling like we were glad we stopped eating before we felt gross.

I believe that this is the place that made 2 other friends sick. I was hoping this wasn't the same place, but after eating there I fear that it was. Yuk.

What we ordered: Fried fish that came with fries, hush puppies and a burrito
Atmo: takeout fish fry
Crowd: us
Spent: Too much, probably $30
Overall rating: (we don't divide evenly; food is more important): 0 sporks

Yes, 0 sporks. We didn't like a single thing. Sorry, Louisiana Fish & Chips. Wait - no, I'm not sorry. You owe me $30 and some calorie credits!

Our advice? Avoid this place and go to Off the Hook if you absolutely must have fried fish and burritos.

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.

Sam Won Kai Bi - 2606 Telegraph - 10.19.2007

Sam Won Kai is a Korean BBQ place that has a mysterious look about it from the outside. My Partner in Chow (PIC) was truly frightened to walk in here, as no windows and zero experience with Korean food were daunting.

Inside, this place was filled with Korean people. We took this as a good sign.

Not ever having had Korean BBQ, I don't know what I was expecting. I *wasn't expecting a shit-ton of smoke and actual mini BBQ's at tables below massive fans, but hey. When in Koreatown (or, more accurately, the Korean minmall)...

Anyway, our waitress was really nice and helped us pick our meal.

What we ordered: Mung bean cake with vegetables for an appetizer, which was huge and awesome. We then had 2 kinds of beef, and before they brought it out with our groovy personal BBQ they brought us a boatload of vegetables and condiments. They were: soup, rice, salad, kim-chee, mung bean sprouts, lettuce, cucmbers, broccoli, seaweed, tofu, weird fishy stuff, mushrooms (?), jalapenos and garlic, and peanut sauce. Phew!
Service: eager to make sure we didn't order something we wouldn't like
Atmo: smoky & a bit cafeteria-esque
Crowd: local Koreans, their friends and family
Spent: around $40.00
Overall rating: 4 sporks

I love condiments, so all these groovy things made me very happy, and that gives extra bonus points on the rating.

We had barley tea, which was interesting and good. It was also hot.

Grilling our own beef was fun, and while the quality of the beef certainly wasn't Niman Ranch I wasn't entirely afraid of it. Both beefs were marinated and tasted like delicious, fresh jerky.

Overall, as you'll see from subsequent reviews this is by far the best Korean place we've been to yet. But as of this writing we haven't tackled the Koryo plaza Korean BBQ place yet, because we've been slackers. Yes, I know it's March. Unfortunately our love of food sometimes pulls us off Telegraph... we're trying to be better about that.