Description
Korean cooking, at least as it is presented in Los Angeles, is not an especially refined cuisine. Korean restaurants here tend to be either homey or raffish, Mom?s cooking or sophisticated bar snacks. Nobody seems especially concerned with royal delicacies from the Koryo empire: Korean restaurants, even the expensive ones, serve people?s food. The Kaesong-style restaurant Yongsusan may be in a class by itself, an elegant warren of discreet, private dining rooms, a redoubt of what seems very much like Korean haute cuisine. I have never tasted anything like the bo sam kimchi here, a green, round cabbage that has been hollowed out and stuffed, then wrapped up again and left to ferment whole. Roast pork is almost Italian in its voluptuousness, noodles are light as air, and the oyster porridge is divine.
