Location: Dining - Korean
March 17, 2003
One AM Korean BBQ
In the summertime, when my band tends to play a lot of shows, we often wind up at 1 am packed up and starving. We used to resort sometimes to the culinary hell of Jack-in-the-Box - and I admit that I acquired a taste for their chicken fajita pitas. But last summer I discovered that Koryo Wood Charcoal BBQ on Telegraph at 43rd is open until 3 am, as is its sister establishment right next door, Koryo Sushi, which is decent if unexciting fare. Still, when it's that late and your other option is fast food, decent sushi gets pretty damn exciting.
Last night I went there with my family again. We got the four-person special, which translates to nearly a hundred dollars of meat - marinated beef, spicy pork, chicken, a heaping plate of tempura, the yummy green onion pancake, another dish of beef and mushroom over the thin vermicelli noodles, and all the kimchee dishes you can eat. In the Korean tradition, if you run out of sides, you can always ask for more. We stuck to the roasted barley? corn? tea, but it's customary of course to drink beer while eating barbecued beef. That's a tradition as religiously observed in Texas as in The Land of Morning Calm.
If you arrive before midnight, you can do your own cooking on glowing hot coals if you like; but if it's too late they won't let you handle the tongs. And frankly I think I prefer it that way when I'm tired and really hungry. It's wonderful to just sit there sipping Korean beer while they bring out dishes of beef. Wrap up bits of meat in fresh lettuce with a dab of the spicy miso paste and maybe a sliver of raw garlic and enjoy a luscious midnight snack.
Koryo BBQ contact information: (510) 652-6007 4390 Telegraph Ave # J