Pull Up a Table--And Grill--at Duk Su Jang

There’s great coziness to a barbecue grill; it’s a hearth, a center and gives a basic satisfaction that must date from mankind’s old campfire days. In Korea, the grill is essential to daily life.

You’ll discover just how essential at Duk Su Jang (Green Oaks) in Van Nuys, a most authentic and elegant Korean barbecue house.

Gorgeous, intricate woodwork and rice paper partitions run throughout the restaurant, but the front room, with its handsomely upholstered booths, chandeliers and dense bank of silk foliage, is somewhat fancier than the back rooms where the tables are long, more open and informal. Most but not all of the tables are “barbecue tables”--they have a well that holds a gas grill and a venting system that hangs overhead.

A fleet of waitresses in blue uniforms runs the floor, and they couldn’t be more efficient. They’ll have you in, fed and out in 45 minutes.

No sooner is an order taken than on goes the grill, and up comes a stainless steel cart from which our waitress unloads countless saucers of fermenting cucumber, pickled dried radish, kimchi, spinach and bean sprouts, seaweeds, shredded daikon --an array of contrasting, condensed flavors. Some, like the kimchi, are heating agents; others (the vinegary radish, the spinach) are cooling agents. There’s also a big plate of red-leaf lettuce, and, last but not least, the marinating meats.

We try dark gui (chicken) and bul ko ki (beef); both are tender and delicious. But what we love the best is dye ji gui (pork) in a thick spicy chili sauce. We also order kal bi (beef ribs) and get something that’s identical to bul ko ki-- the previously mentioned sliced beef.

We load up the grill, and while waiting for the meat to cook, we have a simple, utterly clear broth that on occasion may have a shred of meat in it. Then, taking a surreptitious lesson from our Korean neighbors, we pour a little soy sauce and vinegar on our plates, uncap our stainless steel cups of rice, munch on the side dishes, and man the grill.

The thin slices cook quite rapidly, but not dangerously so--you’d have to be lost in conversation or fast asleep before anything actually chars. I do manage to pick up tongs that have been on the grill and spend the rest of the meal with my hand in a glass of ice water. It is pointed out to me that, however painful, thismishap does not slow down my intake.

Once cooked, the meat morsels are dipped in the vinegar-soy mixture and chased with rice and lettuce. Then, more meat goes on to cook. Barring one minor, bloodless squabble over an artfully grilled onion, we find it an altogether positive, interactive social experience.

In fact, we like barbecuing so much, it is with intense reluctance that I form a lunch entourage that bans the activity, if for no other reason than to report back on a few of the other dishes on Duk Su Jang’s extensive menu.

Lunches themselves are served in cute little trays; they have a compartment of rice, a compartment of kimchi, pickles, and other condiments, one of an iceberg lettuce salad and a big square for the entree; it’s a compact, clever, bargain meal ($4.95), but I spend a lot of time poking chopsticks into a side order of delicious pan-fried black mushrooms with vegetables. “Fresh raw oysters in a seasoned sauce” are like eating oysters from a jar with a little red pepper on them; and the pan-fried crab meat and eggs turn out to be flat scrambled eggs with shreds of artificial crab legs piled on them.

When a member of our party orders spicy buckwheat noodles, the waitress asks him if he likes a HOT chili sauce. He does, in fact, but the direct question stops him cold; he hesitates ever so briefly. This condemns him to a bowl of cold, slightly sweet noodles that are bland by any standard. A friendly touch, however, is that the scissor-wielding waitress offers to cut noodles into manageable lengths.

Japanese influences are clearly seen and tasted in japche, a vermicelli with beef and vegetables, and in a pretty but not particularly tasty tempura. There are Chinese pan-fried dumplings, too. All meals close with wedges of watermelons and reasonable checks.