Seoul Cowboy

If there were such a thing as a Korean cowboy bar, the barbecue joint Sa Rit Gol would be it, a rustic Koreatown place decorated with raw wood and Korean beer posters, full of two-fisted drinkers, double-dating locals and guys who just like to eat. The owner, a bluff, friendly guy, is likely to cuff you on the shoulder the second or third time you come in, and it’s not unusual to see a brawl out in the parking lot . . . the kind of brawl where the parties involved bearhug each other after a missed swing or two and then come back inside for a teary reconciliation. Even the name--it translates as “the Valley of Bushes”--seems like the title of a “Gunsmoke” episode.

As at many Korean restaurants, the tabletops at Sa Rit Gol have grills built into their centers, ready to be greased and fired up, on which you cook your own entree. As at practically all Korean restaurants, you are brought little plates of panchan , cool marinated stuff, more or less, as soon as you sit down--the classic, pungent, marinated cabbage kimchi; radish kimchi; bean sprouts fragrant with sesame oil--in addition to a selection that may include chile-marinated cuttlefish, dried fish, vinegared cucumber, squid, whatever’s around. There will be a metal bowl of bland soup per person, and lidded metal capsules that contain the rice. The waitresses generally seem amazed that non-Koreans are willing to eat cuttlefish or kimchi, or casseroles hot with chile, as if they are sure you are there only because the lines are too long at the Sizzler down the street.

Sa Rit Gol is locally famous for its pork barbecue, thin loin strips that are well marinated in a sauce of red chile and garlic and that cook up brick-red on the tabletop grills. The meat caramelizes black in spots and glistens with juice. Slightly chewy, it is as subtle a creation as you might reasonably expect from food that you essentially cook yourself. (Don’t let it sit on the grill too long. It will become indistinguishable from chile-smeared rawhide.) If you like, you dab the pork with a bit of fermented yellow bean paste, fold it into a crisp leaf of Romaine--creating a sort of Korean equivalent of tacos de adobado --and eat the package with your fingers.

Or grill fat slices of belly pork, like uncured bacon, until they are charred and crisp, and then dip them into a little saucer of sesame oil and salt. It is classic Korean drinking food, rich enough to absorb any amount of rice wine, perhaps a bit decadent for the American taste. (It is on the menu in Hangul script only, but you should ask for it.)

Grill sweet, marinated slices of flank steak, gritty with black pepper, or snipped wedges of marinated short-rib meat that become crisp and juicy over the flame. Grill--or more likely, have grilled for you in the kitchen--marinated squid, cuttlefish or the long, needle-nose saltwater pike that the Japanese call sanma .

Of course, barbecue and kimchi are not all there is to Sa Rit Gol. Barbecue and kimchi are not all there is to any Korean restaurant, no matter how much the proprietors may try to persuade you otherwise. There is a delicious casserole of baby octopuses, tender tentacles and such waving out of a sweet chile-scallion stew; braised shiitake mushrooms with spinach, full-flavored and bosky; crisp, egg-y pancakes that enclose aromatic shredded vegetables; giant bubbling casseroles of crab; pungent fish soups served seething in superheated iron bowls.

Dessert will inevitably be a thin, chilled broth, garnished with pine nuts, tasting almost like a tea made from gingersnaps.

Sa Rit Gol Korean Restaurant

3189 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 387-0909. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Beer and wine. Guarded lot parking. Takeout. Mastercard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $18-$28.