Korean Cuisine Could Join Hot Emerging Trend

Food experts say the American appetite for hot peppers keeps growing. And chiles are habit-forming, they add--so the hotter our food gets, the hotter we’ll want it. This bodes well for the future of Korean food in this country.

Korea’s is probably the least known of the major Asian cuisines. It’s more substantial than the cooking of neighboring Japan, more rustic and strongly flavored than that of China. And brother, is it hot. Many dishes are seasoned with crushed red pepper, garlic and sesame oil, a combination that really brings on the heat.

Mi Nong should benefit if people really do want ever-hotter food. This hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the culturally diverse Heritage Square Mall in Irvine specializes in soft tofu and clay-pot dishes not easily found outside the heavily Korean neighborhoods of Garden Grove and L.A.’s Koreatown.

The drop-dead specialty is soft tofu (soon du bu), one of the most elegant foods of Asia. Soft tofu bears only a faint resemblance to the familiar spongy tofu served in Chinese and Japanese restaurants, a kind of curd made from soybean milk. That sort of tofu has a neutral taste and the texture of an overcooked omelet.

Soft tofu is made by filtering the liquid from soybeans through silk (yes, silk fabric). So, where commercial tofu is stiff and slightly gelatinous, soft tofu has the texture of a fine mousse.

It has the magical ability to absorb flavors like a sponge. On top of that, soft tofu is high in protein and low in fat. In short, it’s a nearly perfect food.

Soft tofu is the star here, with a variety of supporting players: oysters, clams, sliced beef, mushrooms, seafood, pork or hot bean paste. Mi Nong serves the tofu in a clay pot with a wooden base containing a butane burner, so the tofu stays hot throughout the meal.

The first dish I tried here was the fresh oyster soft tofu, and it was astonishing. Little clouds of tofu swam to the surface as I spooned up the hot broth, which was suffused with the iodine tang of fresh oysters; the oysters themselves were in there too, of course. On another visit I ordered beef and soft tofu and got a dish hearty with slices of flavorful, well-spiced beef.

When you order soft tofu, that’s not all you get. Korean restaurants always serve a variety of side dishes known as pan chan with the entrees, not to mention massive stainless-steel bowls of rice. The pan chan, usually numbering seven or eight, always include one or two varieties of kimchi, the notoriously loud Korean pickles. Imagine cabbage or radishes pickled along with dried shrimp, garlic and red pepper.

Yes, kimchi is an acquired taste, but its stinging flavor (followed by a clean sweetness) complements Korean food beautifully. And the variety of the pan chan is staggering. You might get boiled spinach with fermented soy dressing, hot chile bamboo shoots, tiny fish in a red chile sauce, jiggly cubes of pale white acorn jelly topped with hot sesame paste, cucumber and cabbage kimchi and a dish of marinated seaweed. Or there might be yellow bean sprouts, marinated octopus or fiery anchovies.

And the menu is by no means limited to soft tofu. Another specialty here is dolsot bibim: mixed raw and cooked vegetables, hot bean paste, a poached egg, raw beef and a mountain of rice, presented in a heated stone pot.

Sitting discreetly under the egg are the vegetables--julienne carrots, thinly sliced cucumbers, yellow bean sprouts, seaweed and spinach--along with the raw beef and a heap of spicy red bean paste. As you mix everything together, the beef begins to sizzle, and a delicious golden rice crust forms around the hot sides of the pot. It’s one of the most satisfying dishes served anywhere.

In fact, there are several good clay-pot dishes on Mi Nong’s menu. Dumpling soup is a beefy broth flavored with green onion; it’s full of chewy oval rice cakes and plenty of the huge, thick-skinned Korean meat dumplings called mandu. Another good choice is the chicken clay pot, a sort of Asian chicken casserole. It’s meaty chunks of chicken in a rich soy-based sauce along with carrots, onions and mushrooms, served over a mound of steamed rice.

Other dishes are listed as appetizers, although they tend to be as filling as the entree dishes. Seafood and green onion pancake is a thick cake of eggs and rice flour dotted with bits of squid, shrimp, oyster and octopus. It’s served with anchovy sauce. Japchae are fried rice noodles mixed with vegetables, beef and a good bit of sesame oil. Here they are eaten hot, although most Korean restaurants serve them cold.

I also like naki bokkum, pan-fried bits of octopus and vegetables served in a spicy sauce. As with any dish on Mi Nong’s menu, you can order it mild, medium hot or very hot. A suggestion: If you order a dish very hot, have them ice down for you a bottle or two of OB, a smooth imported Korean lager.

The complimentary dessert is chikkei, a sugary rice beverage that provides a refreshing lift after a spicy meal. All the Korean-speaking customers get it automatically, but my waitress seemed surprised when I asked whether my table could have some. “You know that?” she asked.

I predict her customers will know that and more about her native cuisine, and sooner than she ever imagined.

Mi Nong is inexpensive. Soft tofu is $6.99. Clay-pot dishes are $7.99 to $9.99. Appetizers are $4.99 to $16.99.

BE THERE

Mi Nong, 14120 Culver Drive, Suite G, Irvine. (949) 726-9424. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. MasterCard and Visa.