That Korean sizzle

KOREATOWN is home to dozens, if not hundreds of barbecue restaurants. Some are smoky hole-in-the-walls where you come away smelling like charcoal and beef. Others are grand, well-lighted spaces with big comfy booths and servers in old-fashioned waitress uniforms. Some have tented outdoor dining rooms where you grill octopus over a gas flame while the rain pelts down outside.

For my money, though, Park’s Bar-B-Q on Vermont is the best of the genre. With its hard-edged contemporary decor -- black walls and sleek stainless-steel hoods above the grills -- it evokes modern-day Seoul more than a rustic place in the country. This is the new Korea, urban and fast-paced. Servers are mostly male and buff, dressed in black T-shirts and sporting the latest gelled coif. And instead of scrolls or country textiles, the walls are decorated with signed and framed photos of Korean television stars and athletes. When South Korean baseball player Chan Ho Park was pitching for the San Diego Padres, he was a regular here.

But what really sets Park’s apart is the quality of the beef, which is prime. The typical slightly sweet marinade seems lighter too, allowing the flavor of the beef to come through loud and clear.

Park’s Bar-B-Q is one place where you won’t have to wonder whether the chef will be in if you decide to go out on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s because, at this Korean barbecue restaurant and at every other of the genre, you are the chef.

Sure, the waiter helps by spreading the meat over the hot coals in the middle of the table and stops by from time to time to see how things are going, moving some of the short ribs or beef brisket toward the cooler edges of the grill as it cooks, cutting it into smaller pieces with a giant pair of scissors. Or snipping an onion into neat slices, the better to char and caramelize at the edges. But the main cooking is done by you and your party. You are the one who decides when the beef or tongue is done.

Some people like their meat on the rare side, the better to appreciate the quality of the beef. Others like it really charred, and if everyone at the table gets caught up in conversation and distracted, you may have no choice. Turn over the cooking chopsticks to the most responsible party. My friend Sonya, who is Korean American, says her father insists on bringing his own pair of scissors with him to the restaurant, just so he won’t have to wait for the server to arrive at a critical moment to cut the kalbi (short ribs) off the bone.

I’m always worried at Korean barbecues that we won’t order enough food. At Park’s, though, six can easily share four orders (i.e., pounds) of meat, or, if you’re not particularly heroic eaters, probably three would do you. So while at first glance it seems more expensive than similar restaurants, that $27 for marinated prime short ribs is by the pound, not necessarily per person. Remember, too, that that price is not just for the one hunk of beef, but for the entire meal, from the array of complimentary pan chan, or little dishes, at the beginning to fresh fruit at the end.

The selection of pan chan is a little more sophisticated too. When the server comes out, she starts setting down a dozen different items for each side of the table until the entire surface is covered with round white dishes. Some hold fiery kimchi, the cabbage condiment fermented with garlic, ginger and chile that’s so much a part of every Korean meal. There’s the bean paste dosed with chile to dab on your meat, something like a tanked-up miso.

With all these strong flavors, a salad of thinly sliced boiled potatoes in oil and vinegar slips in like a wallflower, shy but interesting. A mound of mashed yam dotted with raisins is starchy and sweet, offering relief from the heat. There are a couple of raw crab legs in a deliriously complex red hot sauce (save some to go with your meat), squid in more red sauce. And much more. The selection changes all the time.

We ordered a seafood pancake as an appetizer, but it came in the middle of the meal: a gorgeous-looking thick disk, almost like clafouti, bubbled up around raw shrimp that have just been warmed in the cooking. The bright yellow pancake is comforting and delicious.

*

Gather ‘round the fire

MEANWHILE, ladies and gentlemen, prepare to grill. A female server wheels over a cart with the meats we’ve selected from the menu. First is our rib-eye, which, surprisingly, is a thick, well-marbled steak, instead of being pre-sliced. It goes on the grill with an audible sizzle. As it begins to cook, when it’s still rare, the server takes her scissors and cuts it into bite-sized pieces, the better for the beef to get a char on all sides.

We’re snatching pieces off while the beef is still pink, tearing off pieces of red-leaf lettuce and adding a little kimchi, sliced jalapenos or raw garlic, maybe a dab of that rich, rustic bean paste, rolling it up into a bundle and eating. That way the meat doesn’t scorch your fingers, but juices do drip. The combination of flavors is sheer fireworks and each bite is different.

Next the server unfurls the prime short ribs, wide ribbons of beef still attached at one end to the bone. The marinade here seems less sweet than it is at some Korean barbecues, just enough to help the meat caramelize. As these, too, begin to brown, our server is back with her scissors, deftly snipping the beef into bite-sized pieces. When she’s about to make off with the bone, one of our party stops her, and she laughs. Of course we want the bone. Who wouldn’t? There isn’t much meat on it, but those shreds of beef, burnt at the edge, are delicious.

I’ve tried the beef brisket a couple of times, but it’s less compelling. And I’m not inclined to order the short ribs sans bones, which is an option here. In my opinion, everything tastes better cooked on the bone.

*

A filling deal

FINALLY, the piece de resistance: pork belly, an impressive half-inch-thick slab of wide fat and lean streaked pork. When it first goes on the grill, you’re thinking, ugh, I can’t eat that much fat, but trust me, in the cooking the pork belly shrinks and solidifies, the fat and the lean meld together, browning, turning a rich red-mahogany on the outside. It’s utterly seductive.

If, after everything has been cooked and eaten, someone at the table is still hungry, you can always order a bi bim bap (the typical stone bowl of rice with condiments stirred in to taste) or a bowl of noodles. But this circumstance has never come up in any of my numerous visits.

The great thing at Park’s is that you can eat and eat, and just when you’re looking for the bill to give you a body blow, it comes to $20 a person, or at most $25. And given the fact that upstairs are a couple of private rooms with long tables fitted with two grills, Park’s would be a perfect place to celebrate a birthday or any other event (finishing the marathon, your dissertation, your diet). The wine list is perfunctory, but you can always bring your own. Corkage is free for the first bottle, $10 thereafter.

On one occasion when we are eating upstairs, all the other chairs upstairs have been turned upside down and the floor scrubbed by the time we emerge at 10:30. Downstairs, however, is still in full swing. Groups of young hipsters in graphic T-shirts are sharing a meal together. At a table across the room, a toddler seated between her mother and her grandmother reaches for the rice. In Korean culture, eating barbecue begins early in life.

*

virbila@latimes.com

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Park’s Bar-B-Q

Rating: **

Location: 955 S. Vermont Ave. (at San Marino Street), Los Angeles; (213) 380-1717.

Ambience: Two-story Koreatown barbecue in strip mall with private rooms upstairs and downstairs, a savvy urban crowd reveling in prime beef and other meats grilled over coals at the table.

Service: Brusque and efficient, helpful to non-Koreans.

Price: Barbecue items, $22 to $30, including an array of side dishes; soups, stews and noodle dishes, $8 to $15.

Best dishes: Pork belly, marinated kalbi, rib-eye steak, seafood pancake, pan chan (little dishes).

Wine list: Very limited; corkage fee, free for the first bottle, $10 thereafter.

Best table: One of the private rooms upstairs.

Details: Open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Beer and wine. Valet parking, $1 daytime, $2 at night.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.