Kimchi, Only Cooler

Manpuku serves Korean food prepared Japanese style--and that’s a big difference. At this West Los Angeles place, you barbecue your own meat on a table grill as usual, but the beef, for instance, is almost unseasoned, rather than soy-marinated, and comes with a very sweet, light dipping sauce.

The procedure, as explained on the menu, is to lay the meat on the grill--carefully; the rods are rather widely spaced and my first slice plunged through to the heating element below--and cook it quickly without turning it over. The meat is done when the juices rise to the surface.

The meats include prime short rib, skirt, liver, chicken and mixed seafood. There’s a vegetable combination too. The three Manpuku “originals”--tongue, tripe and lush, tender prime rib eye (the best choice, in my opinion)--are all sprinkled with salt, pepper, sesame and green onion.

Chicken comes either with the sweet soy dip or “salted”--sprinkled with salt, pepper and sesame seeds. Be careful with it, though; a moment too long on the grill toughens and dries the thinly sliced breast. The chicken leg is juicier and more forgiving.

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The seafood mixture includes squid, scallops, shrimp, the uncommon shellfish whelk, bell peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, onions, a carrot flower, a thin slice of cantaloupe and one small asparagus spear. This too is served with the sweet dip.

Korean restaurants serve lots of side dishes automatically, but everything is a la carte here, even rice, kimchi and the lettuce for wrapping the barbecued meat. (An excellent sweet, spicy red bean sauce accompanies the lettuce.)

The cucumber kimchi is more delicately seasoned than Korean kimchi. The cucumber is artfully carved, too, in accordance with the Japanese taste for beautiful presentation.

If you like peppery dishes, order the harusame and vegetable salad. It’s translucent vermicelli mixed with bell peppers and a dressing of sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar and chiles. (Another salad of glossy seaweed, red lettuce and fine daikon shreds also has a sesame oil and soy sauce dressing, but no chiles.)

The sesame oil and sugar are from Japan, and that makes a difference, says owner Shoichi Yokoyama, who came from Tokyo about a year ago to open Manpuku. Yokoyama and his partner own seven restaurants in Tokyo, including a wine bar and two Italian restaurants.

This menu does not use the Korean names of the dishes. Bibim bap, for instance, hides under the designation “steamed mixed vegetables and rice in hot stone pot.” The waiter tosses a raw egg yolk with the contents of the pot at the table while stirring in as much dark red chile paste as you can tolerate. The stone pot is so hot that the rice will actually get crunchy after a while.

Spicy cold noodle uses long, long Korean noodles, so firm you’ll have to swallow them whole unless your teeth are uncommonly sharp. They come in a bowl of tart red broth, garnished with kimchi, cucumber, hard-boiled egg, sliced beef and, interestingly, a red apple wedge.

There’s a hot noodle soup with the same noodles (cooked until chewable this time) in a very spicy broth along with tofu, thin strips of beef, shiitake mushrooms, soy bean sprouts and spinach. When I ordered this to go, either the waiter drained the broth off or the noodles absorbed it. The result was a remarkably good pasta dish.)

Manpuku is easy to pick out among all the restaurants in the mall where it’s located. In front are bamboo and a curious arrangement of a wooden crate topped with empty wine bottles and corks. Is it art or is it trash? That’s up to the viewer.

Inside, the cream-colored walls are splashed with bold characters related to food (“meat,” “drink,” “chopsticks,” “steel” and the ominous word “burning” are the few translations I could get from the waiter). Manpuku (its name means full, as in having eaten a lot) draws a young Asian group. Get there early, because it becomes crowded, with people waiting for tables even on midweek nights.

BE THERE

Manpuku, 2125 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles. (310) 473-0580. Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays; dinner 5 to 11 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays; closed Tuesdays. Beer and wine. Parking in shopping center lot. Visa, MasterCard, Diner’s Club. Dinner for two, food only, $20 to $45.

What to Get: Manpuku originals prime rib eye steak, harusame and vegetable salad, spicy cold noodle, noodle with tofu, beef and vegetables in hot spicy soup, cucumber kimchi.