Description
The chef, Simon King, comes from the Woo Lae Oak empire, whose brand of upscale Korean cooking dots better neighborhoods around the world. While the banchan - pickled small first courses - are a little wan, as if the establishment doesn't quite trust that its customers will understand kimchi, King's cooking is actually spry, subtle and fairly traditional. Yuk hwe, a salad of raw beef, sesame oil and slivered Asian pear, may look like Italian-restaurant carpaccio but tastes of nothing but Korea; and the menu is dominated by things like monkfish soup, stuffed squid and cod stew instead of the usual barbecue. The stew - jjigae - of kimchi and pork is deeply flavored; and the dolsot bibimbap, rice with vegetables or meat tossed in a searingly hot stone bowl, develops the requisite crunchy crust.
