RESTAURANTS / Max Jacobson : To Communicate at Korean Restaurant, Let the Cuisine Do the Talking

Korea has been all over the news of late, but not enough notice has been given to its remarkable cuisine, a smoky, volatile one, full of musk and subtle flavors. Many of Orange County’s Korean restaurants are clustered on and around Garden Grove Boulevard, “Koreatown South,” as my L.A. friends refer to it. You should rush right over.

Friends and I recently visited Best Place Restaurant, where barbecue, soups, stews, grills, griddles and even sushi all are dished up with pride. You would need a week to get through this menu. We were seated on square pillows (called panggsug ) at a low table, and a waitress knelt beside us, placing cups of bo ri cha , or roasted barley tea.

Luckily, the menu is fully phoneticized and translated, so I had no trouble communicating our order to her. Little flagons of sake were brought (substituting for the commercially unavailable makkoli , Korea’s national beverage) , and the grill fired up.

Julie, who is Korean, recommended we begin with an appetizer of gool bo sam , and it proved a brilliant suggestion. The dish, which is presented on a large platter, is composed of raw oysters, salt pork, white radish and Chinese cabbage. A dark, fiery sauce sits alongside. When you get up your nerve, you combine everything, using the cabbage leaves as your binder. The result is a delight.

Korean meals traditionally are served with many side dishes (panch’an in Korean): pickled vegetables, little fishes and many other items. At Best Place, you get 11 side dishes--even if you order only a single main course. Two waitresses arrived, bearing a tray filled with just some of these dishes--four different kinds of kimchee (pickled, fermented vegetables), salted beef, marinated anchovy, chili zucchini, two types of seaweed, mung bean pancake and salted shrimp in bean paste. Julie’s Cantonese husband Kwong’s jaw dropped. “How we gonna eat all this?” he asked. “More coming,” said his wife.

Main courses are easy to spot: they come on the big dishes. Pa jeon is a giant pancake with green onion, oyster, pork and red pepper, cut into bite-size squares. It must be 2 feet long. Nag ji bok kium is fried octopus and white radish in a red chili sauce. I think it is the best dish in the restaurant--crunchy, tender, and burning hot. Saeng gul cho jang , another oyster dish, has pine nuts (which Koreans use a lot), radish, and still another kind of hot sauce. You can barbecue the oysters on the grill, if you see fit.

Families gather round the barbecues at Korean restaurants, clutching their chopsticks, poking at beef. Koreans eat more meat than their Asian neighbors; the sounds and smells of the roasting meats dominate the room.

We chose kalbi , short ribs, for our barbecue; they arrived nicely trimmed of both fat and bone on yet another enormous platter. The beef at Best Place is sliced much thicker than at other Korean restaurants I have been to, and the slices are generously marbled as well. My only complaint is that the restaurant uses a bit too much sugar in the marinade. That makes the slices brown up beautifully, but in the end, the beef tastes more Vietnamese than Korean.

There aren’t many desserts in Korean cuisine, and none on the menu at Best Place, so we finished with soup, seol lung tang , a savory tripe and boiled beef hot pot with bean thread noodles and a mild, comforting aroma. Just under it on the menu is hae jang guk , described as “broth to chase a hangover--boiled Chinese cabbage with meat and seasoning.” It’s a real delicacy in Korea, but the translation is a bit incomplete. Its principal ingredient is the congealed blood of the pig.

Sometimes what you don’t know won’t hurt you.

Prices at Best Place are fairly standard in this market. Barbecue platters are from $6.95 to $7.50. Main dishes are $5.50 to $9.95. Hearty soups like wonton and thick rice and beef porridges are $5.25.

BEST PLACE RESTAURANT

9693 Garden Grove Blvd.,

Garden Grove (714) 638-3600.

Open daily 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Full bar. Parking in lot.

Visa and MasterCard only.