This Manna Hails From South Korea

A nondescript building at the west end of Koreatown contains the kitchen and a few tables, but it’s not where you will eat; the dining hall is in the back. And don’t try to enter Manna by the front gate. The main entrance is actually on the side.

You pass women peeling daikons and sorting lettuce until you reach the dining hall, something like an enormous Quonset hut that has been sliced around the top like a tin can so the roof can be lifted to let in the breezes. The atmosphere is relaxed, garden-like.

Manna is the real thing--the first American branch of a restaurant chain based in Taejon, South Korea. The lunch-time waitresses speak little English (this isn’t a problem at dinner), but the menu is in both languages, so just point to what you want.

If you know Korean food, you’ll recognize bulgogi (barbecued beef), galbi (beef rib meat), bibim bab (rice tossed with vegetables and spicy bean paste) and galbi tang (short rib soup). But you may never have encountered sang dungsim, a thick rib-eye steak, grilled whole, which the waitress cuts into small chunks, neatly snipping off the fat with scissors. It comes with two dips: a roasted sesame sauce and sweet-sour soy sauce with a jalapeno slice. There’s some wasabi on the plate too, in case you want it.

Chadol is thin-cut brisket served with the same dips. It gives you the rare opportunity to sip pure mushroom essence from jumbo mushroom caps; the juices accumulate there as they’re grilled alongside the meat. The hot, clear liquid is exquisite.

Pork belly is basically uncured bacon--big slices of belly meat in two tones of pink edged with lots of fat. Like bacon, it shrinks to less than half its size as it cooks and acquires a pleasant crunchiness.

A couple of dishes have romantic-sounding names: rose peonche and yeona milssamari. Rose is certainly the color of the raw beef, seared around the edges and cut into fine slices that you wrap around shredded vegetables and aromatic sesame leaf, then immerse in a tangy dip. Try this one for an appetizer.

Yeona is salmon--in this case, smoked salmon--cut into bite-size slices and arranged on canape-sized pieces of lettuce. Milssamari means that the salmon is topped with vegetables: fine shreds of daikon, red cabbage, carrot and bell pepper. The bundles are served icy cold, garnished with richly seasoned mayonnaise, from which two capers peer at you like little green eyes. I could picture this as finger food beside the pool in summer.

Naeng myon is a lovely cold dish. It’s faintly sweet beef broth with overtones of citrus, mixed with beef, a hard-boiled egg, sliced cucumber and daikon, translucent buckwheat noodles, and a juicy white slab of Asian pear.

If you don’t object to rawness, try yukwhe, sesame-marinated raw beef and Asian pear mixed with a raw egg yolk. It’s cold, sweet and quite wonderful.

On a cold night, you might prefer sangchussam shabu shabu. The idea is to cook paper-thin beef slices in boiling broth, then place each in a lettuce cup containing rice topped with chopped mushrooms and carrots. The sauce, which comes with many dishes here, is mayonnaise blended with soy sauce, sesame seeds and--well, they won’t tell the rest.

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When nothing is left but broth, the waitress brings a plate of fat udon noodles, green onions and sukkat (chrysanthemum greens), which she adds to the pot along with black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, salt and sesame seeds. Presto: noodle soup.

Genghis Khan shabu shabu also winds up with soup. The idea is to poach vegetables (such as asparagus, cabbage, green onion tops, mushrooms) and eat them with that secret mayonnaise sauce. A cold lemon dip goes with the beef.

Hot barley tea comes with meals. The restaurant also serves California wines, Korean beers and soju (sweet potato spirits). The panchan (side dishes) include a sort of Korean Waldorf, a creamy, sweet apple salad that contains raisins, celery, red cabbage, potato or other ingredients, depending on what’s in the kitchen. That’s another candidate for a summer poolside party.

* Manna Korean Restaurant, 3377 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 733-8516. Open from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Beer and wine. Parking lot on Gramercy Drive; valet parking at night. All major credit cards. Lunch specials (until 3 p.m.), $6.50 to $11.95. Dinner for two, food only, $30 to $50.

What to Get: bulgogi, chadol, sang dungsim, yeona milssamari, rose peonche, sangchussam shabu shabu, Genghis Khan shabu shabu, naeng myon.