One of our favourite places to eat barbecue in Los Angeles is Ahgassi Gopchang in Koreatown. I’ve previously reported on our first meal there in January 2019. If it weren’t for the fact that my mother-in-law moved later that year to Seal Beach, Ahgassi Gopchang would have become our regular barbecue spot. They’re famous for the gopchang (intestines) in their name, yes, but all their meats are very good. But thanks to that move, we can now only get there (or to other Koreatown places) when we’re in the general vicinity for something else. On this trip, for example, we visited a couple of exhibitions at LACMA—including the small but very interesting, “Dining with the Sultan“, on feasting in Islamic society—and Koreatown was an easy pick for lunch after. And so we were back at Ahgassi Gopchang.
This was our first time there for lunch. I can tell you that at weekday lunch they are not very busy (the place is heaving at night). However, we still had to wait almost as long for a table as we have when visiting for dinner. This because they seem to operate with a minimal front-of-house presence during lunch. There were only two servers and while the restaurant was empty, they were not seating more tables than they could handle. So we sat outside and waited a bit, perusing the menu.
The menu is now a QR code deal (a post-covid thing). Prices have also expectedly gone up quite markedly since our first dinner in 2019—the price of the small Beef Combo, for example, has risen from $60 to $81. A happier change is that in the intervening years our boys now happily eat offal. And so we were able to get a gopchang combo as well to meet our own strong desire for intestines. For the five of us (and the boys eat like adults at Korean barbecue), we got one small Beef Combo (thinly sliced brisket, short rib, tongue) and one small Modeum Combo (large intestine, small intestine, mountain tripe, abomasum). Each combo comes with a choice of jigae (we selected the soondubu jigae with one and the kimchi jigae with the other), and the Modeum combo comes with kimchi bokkeumbap or kimchi fried rice, cooked on the hot pan at the table at the end of the meal.
And then we got down to business. For a look at that business please launch the slide show below. If you do you’ll also see the array of banchan and accompaniments for the grilled meats (things to dip in, seasonings, things to wrap the meat in). Among the sides, their steamed egg was a big highlight. Having viewed the slideshow, scroll down to see how much it cost and to see what’s coming next.
I forgot to say that the staff do all the cooking for you. They will put out different cooking grilles and pans for the different meat you order, get things hot and then put the meat on. They’ll then turn the meat, slice it when it’s ready and tell you to eat it. And at the end they’ll cook the fried rice for you on the cast iron pan in which the intestines had been crisped up. Some of this is quite dramatic—see my Reel of the small intestines being flamed; all of it is quite a lot of work for the staff—see my Reel of the bokkeumbap being made at the end. And so it’s good to tip well. Our total after tip was around $210 or just over $40/head. That’s a pretty good price for the quantity and quality.
Alright, I know I keep promising I’m going to finish up my Seoul reports but tomorrow I’ll actually post another report from this California trip. This will be of a meal at another old favourite that we went back to after some years, this time in the San Gabriel Valley.