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. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Barbecue
Woo Lae Oak (Seoul, February 2024)
Somehow we only ate one barbecue meal in Seoul. But it was a good one. Woo Lae Oak has been around since 1946 and is one of the most celebrated restaurants in the city. It’s not the cheapest barbecue place—they use only Korean beef—but it’s also far from the most expensive. What they’re perhaps most famous for isn’t even grilled beef. The origins of the family that owns the restaurant are in North Korea and they are especially known for their Pyongyang-style naengmyeon and some people go there exclusively to eat their naengmyeon. We were there principally for the meat. Of course, it’s a mistake to end any Korean barbecue meal without chilled naengmyeon and so we ate across both sides of their menu, so to speak. Here’s a quick look at the meal. Continue reading
Duck (Dublin, Summer 2023)
It’s been a while since my last restaurant report from our trip to Ireland in the summer. That most recent report was of a lunch centered on seafood, at King Sitric, in the coastal town of Howth, just about 30 minutes by train from Dublin. Here now is a meal eaten in Dublin proper, centered on Hong Kong-style barbecue or roast meats. Duck is located on Fade St. right by the George’s Street Arcade, and just around the corner from the excellent Asia Market—and not very far, for that matter, from either Good World or Ka Shing. It is a tiny operation. The room has seating for maybe 20 people, either around a larger communal table in the middle or at the narrow counter that rings the three walls around it. The fourth wall is taken up by the counter where you place your order and pick it up when it’s ready. It’s not a place to eat in at if you’re a large group—and even if you’re a group of four, your chances of getting seats together are higher if you show up right when they open at noon. After that they fill up quickly with solo diners on their lunch breaks. Not surprisingly, most of their business seems to be carry-away. The four of us did sit down. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Gwang Yang BBQ (Los Angeles, June 2022)
Alright: back to Los Angeles. On our trip in December we somehow managed to not eat in Koreatown, something that would have been unthinkable, and indeed downright impossible in the past when Koreatown was our home base. But in December we ate Korean food instead at the smaller Korean enclave of Garden Grove, south of Seal Beach. Those meals were good but we could resist the siren call of Koreatown only so long. The boys wanted to eat bbq and we wanted a location somewhat central’ish between us and friends in Pasadena and so it was to Koreatown we went, to Gwang Yang BBQ. Continue reading
Randy’s Huli Chicken (Big Island, Summer 2022)
My meal reports from the Big Island, where we spent a week towards the end of June, have so far covered both a formal restaurant (Volcano House at Volcanoes National Park) and a more informal affair at Kona Grill House, where a formal kitchen prepares food to be eaten casually at outdoor tables. Today I have a review for you of a more informal setup yet, one that’s not very unusual on the Big Island and probably elsewhere in Hawaii as well. Randy’s Huli Chicken sets up their grilling apparatus by the side of the Mamaloa highway, a little south of Kona, and they grill their namesake chicken—and other things besides—till they run out. Your best bet if you don’t want to be disappointed is to go early. We’d passed them the day before we stopped while on the way to a beach further away and had made a mental note to pick up food for dinner in the evening. By the time we got back there—long before sunset— however, they were long gone. We made no such error the next day, stopping in for an early lunch after a visit to a coffee farm in the vicinity. I am happy to tell you that the food is very good. Continue reading
Gates Bar-B-Q (Kansas City)
Here now is my last meal report from our brief visit to Kansas City in July and quite appropriately it is of a meal eaten at one of the city’s most sanctified barbecue institutions, perhaps second only to Arthur Bryant’s in that sense. I am referring, of course, to Gates Bar-B-Q. It too traces its history back to Henry Perry—the father of Kansas City barbecue and the man whose restaurant evolved into Arthur Bryant’s. The original location of Gates was founded in 1946, with the Gates family partnering with another of Perry’s employees/students, Arthur Pinkard. Unlike Arthur Bryant’s, Gates is still black-owned and indeed still in the Gates family. That original location, at 18th and Vine, does not appear to still be extant. Gates does have six locations in the Kansas City metro now. Of those, we dined at the large restaurant on Emanuel Cleaver Blvd., selecting it for its proximity both to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, which was our previous port of call and to access to the highway back to Minnesota, which would be our next. It was a fine meal and a fine farewell to Kansas City. Continue reading
The City Market and Lunch at Pigwich (Kansas City)
I do very much enjoy walking around urban markets in cities I visit. Accordingly, a stop at Kansas City’s City Market was on our itinerary. Originally, this was supposed to be our last stop on the Thursday of our trip. It’s located in the north of the city, right by Highway 35 and the plan had been to go for a walk by the river, browse the market, eat a quick lunch at Pigwich and hit the road. All of this got thrown for a loop by my lame trip planning. I’d put a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on the agenda for Wednesday (preceded by lunch at Gates-Bar-B-Q). Of course, since I only bothered to look at the museum’s website closely on Wednesday morning I discovered rather late in the game that the Nelson-Atkins is closed on Tuesday and Wednesdays. (Isn’t all this detail fascinating?!) So we went to the Nelson-Atkins and Gates on our last day and on Wednesday started out with a walk by the river, a stroll through the City Market and lunch at Pigwich. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Arthur Bryant’s (Kansas City)
Our eating in Kansas City began at the original gas station location of Joe’s Kansas City, a few hours after our arrival. When I say the “original” location I don’t mean to suggest that this is a very old restaurant: it opened in the late 1990s. Arthur Bryant’s, where we ate lunch the next day, on the other hand goes way back to the beginnings of Kansas City barbecue, being indeed the place where the genre solidified and gained renown. The original proprietor, Henry Perry, the “father of Kansas City barbecue”, had begun to sell his wares in the early decades of the 20th century, first at a stand and then to a restaurant in the 18th and Vine neighbourhood. On his death Perry’s business passed to his employee, Charlie Bryant in 1940 and his brother Arthur took over in 1946 and moved the restaurant to its current location at 18th and Brooklyn in 1949. (All this information is from Wikipedia, in case you’re wondering.) Continue reading
Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que (Kansas City)
Okay, let’s get the Kansas City meat-a-thon going. As I said at the end of last week, we drove down to Kansas City for three days for a trip that was largely built around the eating of barbecue. As you doubtless know, Kansas City is one of the four traditional centers of barbecue in the United States—Texas, Memphis and the Carolinas being the others. The major differences between Kansas City barbecue and the others is first of all a more catholic approach to meat: there is no meat that is given emphasis over others in Kansas City. Anything that can be barbecued is. The other is the deployment of a tomato-based sauce with more than a little sweetness to it. Our main desire with the eating of barbecue was to eat at places with historical/cultural significance rather than places that top “Best of” lists. To this end I looked up reviews and articles online and canvassed recommendations on social media. We settled on Arthur Bryant’s and Gates for the historical/cultural significance. But we began our eating at the relatively much-newer Joe’s Kansas City which does often land at or near the top of those “Best of” lists. We had dinner there just a few hours after arriving in Kansas City. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 61: Rack Shack (Eagan, MN)
In the last year we may have eaten more barbecue in the Twin Cities metro than in our previous 13 years here. We’ve certainly eaten barbecue from more restaurants than ever before: Ted Cook’s 19th Hole, Smoke in the Pit, Firebox, Black Market StP. Hell, we even got barbecue at opposite ends of the spectrum from Tenant during their pandemic takeout pivot and the far humbler Quarterback Club here in our town. Some of these have been among the best restaurant meals we’ve eaten since the pandemic began; all have been at least solid. Which brings me to our latest round of takeout barbecue, which we picked up from Rack Shack in Eagan on Saturday. Located right off Cedar Avenue (on Cliff Road in the strip mall that also houses Atomic Liquors), they’ve caught my eye in the past as well and so I was interested to finally try their fare. I’m sorry to say that while there were a few things we like fine, on the whole, this was the most uneven of our barbecue outings. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 59: Black Market StP (St. Paul, MN)
The first pandemic takeout meal for May saw me driving up to St. Paul to pick up barbecue and bring it home to eat with friends on our deck. The last pandemic takeout meal for May saw me driving up tp St. Paul to pick up barbecue and bring it home to eat with friends on our deck. Three weeks ago it was Firebox’s St. Paul location on Marshall at Snelling that was my port of call. This past weekend it was Black Market StP just off the High Bridge. I wish I could tell you the name of the neighbourhood but I am terrible with my Twin Cities geography. I can tell you that it’s right where Smith meets Cherokee as you get off the High Bridge going south and that you’d have to really not be paying attention to miss it. We were paying attention and turned and parked on Cherokee and in a matter of minutes had picked up our order and were headed back home. Here’s what we thought of the food once we actually ate it. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 56: Firebox Barbecue (St. Paul, MN)
I’ve been promising (threatening?) a pandemic takeout report from the St. Paul outpost of Firebox for a while now. This past weekend the stars finally aligned and I was able to go up to pick up a large order. I’m not sure what their hours were in the Before Times but at least during the pandemic they are only open in the evenings (see the posted hours in the slideshow below). Like most barbecue restaurants they have a compact menu—even more compact, in fact, than at either Ted Cook’s 19th Hole or Smoke in the Pit. We got almost everything on it. It was our first time eating their food and it seemed like it would be a mistake to not be comprehensive (also: we were being joined on our deck by two sets of vaccinated friends and so there were a lot of mouths to feed). Well, we had no regrets. Details follow. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 16: Smoke in the Pit (Minneapolis)
Smoke in the Pit is located at 3733 Chicago Avenue in S. Minneapolis, just a hundred feet or two from 38th St.. Even if you don’t know South Minneapolis you should know that intersection. It was right by it, in front of Cup Foods, that George Floyd was murdered on May 25 of this year. The protests and unrest that followed, coupled as they were with various revelations and confirmations of racism within the industry’s own precincts, led to an outpouring of declarations of affiliation with Black Lives Matter from most of American food media. Almost two months on, it’s not very clear what’s become of all those declarations, what their afterlife will be or what forms it will take. One hopes that there will be more to the statements than a few weeks or months of conspicuous coverage. We’ll see, I guess. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 11: Tenant (Minneapolis)
Last week I had a review of takeout barbecue from a restaurant in South Minneapolis. Today I have a review for you of takeout barbecue from another restaurant in South Minneapolis. The two restaurants could not, however, be more different. Ted Cook’s 19th Hole is a 51 yo Black-owned restaurant that is takeout-only and which serves no-nonsense barbecued meats and sides. Tenant, on the other hand, is a 3 yo hard-to-get-into, cheffy prix fixe restaurant in what I call the Global Cosmopolitan school. That’s in normal times. The pandemic has caused a temporary convergence as Tenant, like most other local fine dining restaurants, has pivoted to a takeout model to keep its doors open and its staff employed. The restaurant’s bare bones structure—very few people in the kitchen, doing all the jobs—has perhaps allowed it to be more flexible in this regard than most of its fine dining peers. They’ve not, however, been serving the food people normally book six weeks in advance to eat. For the first couple of months of the pandemic they were selling takeout soup and sandwich packages; as of about a month ago they’ve pivoted to barbecue. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 10: Ted Cook’s 19th Hole (Minneapolis)
I had planned to post this review of this large takeout barbecue meal earlier this week. But the prefatory comments I’d wanted to make about American food media and race became a much longer thing, and rather than have this review disappear into that I posted those as a separate piece on Thursday. One of the things I noted in that post was how little awareness I have of Black-owned/run restaurants in the Twin Cities metro beyond Somali and Ethiopian places. Indeed, the other two that I have reviewed—Big Daddy’s* and Handsome Hog—are also barbecue restaurants, albeit at different ends of the price and ambience spectrum. Ted Cook’s 19th Hole is even more informal than Big Daddy’s—it’s takeout-only here and things are as functional as you might imagine for a takeout-only establishment: a counter where you order and pay, the kitchen behind and a few seats in the bare bones room in front for people waiting (in non-pandemic times) for their orders. There is little here that signals the history of the restaurant—it’s been around since 1969. You pick up your food, you pay, and you go on your way. Continue reading
Lunch at the Keg and Case Food Hall (St. Paul, MN)
We visited Keg and Case in March and again in September, both times to eat dinner at In Bloom (reviews here and here). On both occasions we walked by all the other food businesses without paying very close attention to them and on both occasions we resolved to come back soon with the kids for lunch and try some of them. Well, at the end of October we finally got around to doing that. We met friends there for an early lunch on a Saturday. Our main targets were Pimento, a Jamaican counter (and a branch of a more formal restaurant in Minneapolis) and Revival Smoked Meats, an outpost of the Revival empire. We did eat and drink the wares of a few other merchants as well (doughnuts, ice cream, beer, coffee) and after lunch we sauntered around the rest of the complex. I have descriptions and evaluations for you of the things we ate and pictures of everything else. Continue reading
Yoon Haeundae Galbi (New York, August 2019)
We’ve been curious about the Korean food scene in New York for a while. Koreatown in Los Angeles is usually our stomping ground when we’re there, and it is, of course, a rather hardcore Korean enclave. But New York has a sizable Korean population too and we were interested to see how the food would compare. The boys’ vote, of course, was for Korean barbecue. I looked around online to see what the options were and hit upon Yoon Haeundae Galbi, a recent’ish Manhattan outpost of a restaurant in Busan. Located in Midtown, it was the perfect pick for another evening when we needed a dinner close to a play the missus was going to and when we needed a place that would be an easy sell to some old friends that we were meeting for dinner. And a good meal it proved to be. Continue reading