Going Back to Basics

On the pages of Time or Fortune, South Korea comes off as a modern industrial powerhouse, intently pumping out millions of Hyundais and digital gizmos. But Korea’s flip side is a deep nostalgia for the food traditions of old-fashioned village life. Most adult Koreans can still remember when families made their own kimchi, chile paste and toenjang, a dark, miso-like, fermented soybean paste. Cooks were proud of these homemade basics and used them daily to put a personal stamp on their cooking.

Si Gol, a modest family-owned barbecue in L.A.’s Koreatown, satisfies both sides of the Korean disposition. In the time-honored way, the restaurant makes its own condiments and kimchis, but it presents its food in a style that brings it into the 21st century.

The plain dining room is fitted out with the usual hooded grills and heavy wooden tables of a Korean barbecue.

Meanwhile, the walls are hung with a museum-like series of carefully restored old photographs. Many chronicle Korea in its horse-and-buggy days: white-bearded elders in pantaloons and flowing robes, jars stacked Ali Baba-style in an outdoor food market and a troupe of freshly scrubbed children dressed in traditional Korean clothes.

The specialty at Si Gol is ssam-bap, grilled meat rolled up in your choice of leafy greens. It’s a very primal meal. The sizzling meat--crisped at the edges, their juices still running--is sparked with herbaceous flavors from the lettuces and herbs provided for wrapping the package. Eating with your hands creates a sensuous connection to the simple, direct flavors.

Whenever you eat ssam-bap style, you slather the leaves with ssam-jang, a seasoning paste used much the same way as ketchup on a burger. Ssam-jangs based on toenjang, as many are, can be extremely salty. But Si Gol’s roughhewn, slightly peppery ssam-jang (as the menu explains) is composed of 20 sorts of ground seeds, nuts and legumes, including sprouted wild sesame seeds and apricot kernels--ingredients regarded as health-enhancing in Korea. The sprouting adds intricate grace notes to the sauce’s flavor.

Many Korean barbecue places offer a plate of lettuce; at Si Gol, every table has a gargantuan platter piled with about 25 kinds of greenery. Larger leaves serve as wrappers; others, such as edible chrysanthemum and dandelion greens, are herbal flavorings.

There are only seven items on Si Gol’s dinner menu. All, apart from a rather ordinary seafood soup, are grilled meats for ssam-bap.

My favorite is pork bulgogi. Sliced paper-thin, fragrant with sesame oil and bright orange from its faintly sweet, chile-laced marinade, it caramelizes slightly on the grill. When black pork--like thick bacon with wide swaths of lean--is wrapped in leaves, it’s like a hand-held spinach salad. There are also paper-thin beef bulgogi and a thicker-cut chicken bulgogi.

Marinated meats tend to make grills sticky, and the waitresses happily provide a clean one in the middle of the meal. Some meats aren’t marinated: beef chuck flap (choice grade, according to the menu), which comes cut into bite-size squares like miniature steaks with a good meaty flavor; and the Si Gol Special, combining sliced beef and thick-cut fresh bacon.

Kimchi devotees will appreciate Si Gol’s fastidiously made kimchis. One involves chile-laced baby white radishes with their tops on. Another, a mixture of lettuces and greens, comes in a chile sauce made with crushed nuts. Kimchi, rice and a robust spicy tofu soup round out the meal.

Not on the menu but available in a refrigerated glass display case are Korean beer and soju, a sort of barley vodka.

For dessert, the scoop-your-own ice cream, stored in a small upright freezer by the door, is just one more element that gives Si Gol a personal touch.

Finding Si Gol may pose a challenge because the outside sign is written in Korean. Look for the bright yellow sign of the Original Thai B.B.Q next door in the same mall, located at Maplewood and Western (between Beverly and Melrose).

Si Gol Restaurant, 478-480 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 467-0100. Lunch 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, dinner 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Beer and soju. Parking lot. All major cards. Lunch for one, $5.99-$7.99. Dinner for two, $26-$32.

What to Get: pork bulgogi, beef chuck flap, black pork, Si Gol Special.