Credit cards: American Express, Discover, Visa, MasterCard.
Access: Fully accessible.
KOREANA
154 Prospect St.
Cambridge
(617) 576-8661
Restaurant reviewed 12/30/96 by Alison Arnett
Sushi bars have become fixtures even in non-Asian restaurants these days, since Americans' craze for raw fish is seemingly insatiable. And Korean restaurants have long gone under a double identity, hoping to snare more customers with Japanese dishes that might be more familiar to American diners.
But from my vantage point at a barbecue table near the sushi bar one evening, it was obvious that the chef had time on his hands.
That's not to say Koreana, a sprawling restaurant that has grown over several years to encompass two former eateries, was empty. No, on a weekday night, there were plenty of customers.
It's just that like us, other diners were busy flipping curls of spicy pork or beef over the surface of the grills built into the tables. Others were huddled over steaming stews or dipping into big bowls of bibimbop. On a rainy evening, the Korean fare obviously outranked the cooler values of sushi.
The virtues of Korean cuisine are just beginning to be appreciated by a wider audience. It's hearty food, matched to Korea's cold climate and well-suited to New England winters. The heat isn't just in the temperature: Authentic Korean food can be fiery hot and heady with garlic. As manager Mary Lee said in a telephone interview, Koreans subscribe to garlic's health-giving properties and feel spicy foods "make the cold go away."
And Koreana's food is nothing if not authentic. One wouldn't go here for the ambience. The predominant color is a dull tan, the walls are decorated with rather worn-looking travel posters of pretty young women advertising Korea, and the furniture is strictly utilitarian. And the wait staff, while willing and sweet-tempered, is a little forgetful, hesitating overly long before asking about drinks, bringing only barbecued pork when we had ordered pork and beef, and now and then omitting an order altogether.
But the food, rolling over the uninitiated American palate like thunder, is highly flavored, sustaining and often just plain delicious.
Stir-fried hot rice cake were two long, white rolls over a tangle of bright vegetables. The blandness of the rice cake was a good foil for carrots, onions, red peppers and scallions, all imbued with a vinegary, chili-rich sauce.
This appetizer was a wake-up call to what would follow: strong flavors and a pleasing mix of textures in each dish. In fact, even the little dishes that are placed down on each table to eat along with the meal have the same variety. There's kimchee, of course, the Korean national dish without which a meal wouldn't be a meal. This pickled cabbage, rubbed red with chili powder, was delicious, mildly spicy and refreshingly crisp. Big kernels of mung bean sprouts crunch under the teeth; a little salad of finely shredded daikon and carrot was a cool respite from spicy dishes. Steamed spinach sprinkled with sesame and seaweed were also presented in tiny bowls.
Koreans love pot-cooked dishes, a cross between soup and stew, often mixing many forms of protein. Seafood tofu chi gae contained a wealth of ocean creatures, from octopus to squid to flat fish and clams. Creamy chunks of tofu floated to the top, slightly tempering the chili-rich broth.
Other stews were variations on the theme, each one underlying varieties of seafood with a strong, pungent broth. In augu manu tang, the principal ingredient was monkfish, cut into large chunks, but the bubbling pot also included tofu, radishes, scallops and a clam or too. Blue crab stew held not only that shellfish but tiny shrimp, clams, bok choy and other vegetables.
Barbecued dishes, done on grills fitted into the tables in one section of the restaurant, are a special draw to Koreana. There's something festive about huddling around the table, watching the ritual as the waitress flips the beef, cloves of garlic, onions and hot peppers for bulgoki onto the hot grill, then clips the meat with a scissors, explaining in hand gestures to the diners how to complete the cooking.
The aromas of the meat, heady with a spicy marinade, and garlic, and the communal feeling as diners continuing the cooking combine to make these dishes great party fare. I especially liked the bulgoki, spread with a chili paste and wrapped by hand in a lettuce leaf, although the barbecued pork, spicy and tender, was also good.
Barbecued yellow croker, grilled in the kitchen rather than on the table, was not a dish for the timid. Salty and strong with a spicy marinade, the two small fish tasted almost like sardines. Long tentacles of squid in a garlic-rich chili sauce also made a definite statement. Both were wonderful, though, for those of us who like our flavors assertive.
The impact of Kalbi chim, stewed beef ribs with red dates, carrots, water chestnuts and radishes, arose from its surprise factor. At first glance, the beef, stained a deep red from the dates and mild chili powder, looked odd, almost as though it was still awaiting a toss on the grill. But the taste immediately changed one's mind - the beef was fork-tender and the dates gave an unusual sweetness to the dish.
All these heady flavors made the milder dishes seem pallid. Dolsot bibimbop, a mixture of rice, beef and vegetables and egg in a stone pot, seemed a little tired, even perked up with the accompaniment of chili paste. Another bibimbop with steak tartar and a raw egg along with the rice and vegetables was livelier. But the dish of cold beef broth, fine noodles, boiled eggs and cucumber, called naeng myun, must surely have been a restorative to soothe a hangover or an illness, since it tasted so unlike the other fare.
Oh, and about the sushi. We shared a combination of sushi and maki rolls, and though they were fine, I've had better elsewhere. But the memories of fiery chi gae stews, of garlic and thin slices of beef on the grill, of the unlikely sweetness of red dates and beef ribs, will draw me back.
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