Korean spot sizzles with authenticity
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As a metropolitan group of eaters, Boston is mad about ethnic food, searching out Chinese regional specialties, comparing North Indian and South, flocking to the newest Tibetan place or the Brazilian or the Vietnamese.
But we always worry: Is it authentic? Or are we getting a pale imitation tricked up for the uninitiated?
Well, plunked down in a faceless Burlington strip mall, amid a stream of faceless strip malls, is New Jang Su, 100 percent the real thing in Korean barbecue.
That's easy to see as soon as you walk through the door: Almost all the diners are Korean, with a smattering of other Asians and Caucasians in the mix. And it's really apparent when you look at what they're eating and settle down with a menu.
The tables of New Jang Su are fitted with grills, and waitresses bring out platters of beef, ribs, pork, squid, and vegetables. At some tables, the waitresses cut apart short ribs or arrange thin slices of bulgoki (ribeye beef) on the hot grills. At other tables, particularly those with Korean patrons, the diners take over, usually a woman expertly turning the slices, moving pork to one side as she repositions the beef, flipping a couple of cloves of garlic nearer the heat.
The conversation bubbles around the tables; the diners cheerfully pluck meat and vegetables off the grills with their chopsticks. There are big family groups of several generations; tables of smartly dressed young couples; others of businessmen and of older teens.
It's a party, even if it's a Tuesday evening. The family of chef Yon Cho, who own and run the restaurant, give the place a welcoming feel as they hurry to and fro, bringing platters of food, refilling water glasses, turning the meat of those unsure on the niceties of barbecue Korean-style.
There's not much in the way of decor here, beyond some bamboo screens used to block the view of the kitchen and a few prints on the wall. It's a utilitarian space, placing the emphasis squarely on the food.
A perfectly brilliant move, one decides about two seconds into the first bites of a Korean pancake. In this version, the green onion flavor predominates, so many slivers of them packed into the mixture bound together with just a little egg and rice flour that the pancake has a real bite.
That's nothing, though, compared to a stirfry of squid, red peppers, carrots, onions, and lots of hot peppers. The sauce is a deep dark red, and the heat is provocative, teasing, making one bite and then another mandatory.
Of course, many Korean dishes are not for the faint of heart. Red chili powder permeates many of the them, only gently suffusing the barbecued meats, but charging onto the top of the palate in the stirfries and the noodle dishes. A woman in an ice cream shop across the parking lot tells us that a customer, disbelieving the staff's warnings about the heat of the food, charged into her shop and tried to put his head into the freezer.
One evening, we ate bibim naeng myun, a bowl of cold buckwheat noodles with thin slices of beef, vegetables, and a hard-boiled egg on top. The dish looked quite innocent, but the chill of the noodles belied the heat of the sauce, strong with the nutty taste of sesame oil and vibrant with chilies. It was wonderful.
There's also a strain of sweetness in many of the sauces and marinades that offset the heat. My favorite is gop chang gui, seasoned beef intestines and vegetables barbecued in a flat metal container over the grill. I have to promise the waitress I've eaten them before, responding to her worried look about a Caucasian straying into unfamiliar territory (I lied, I hadn't had intestines, but have eaten plenty of things close to that). The intestines have a tender but just slightly chewy quality and the sauce was both briskly hot and a little sweet at the same time. A great discovery.
But not everything has to be taken hot. For a teen with me, the chicken barbecue is toned down to mild. Yook hwe bibim bab, shredded raw beef marinated in sesame oil with vegetables over rice, is as comforting as can be, gently combining dark greens with lettuce, carrots, and seaweed.
And then there are all the little dishes accompanying all meals: some hot things to pick up the palate again, cucumber kimchee and roughly cut cabbage. Plus some dishes to cool it down: shredded daikon radish in a sweet, vinegary dressing, bean sprouts, a pressed fish cake, tangles of dark seaweed.
I must mention the rice: Why talk about rice, one might say, it's ubiquitous. New Jang Su's short-grain, plain steamed rice is excellent, causing two Chinese companions to tell me they once ordered six bowls of it. The owner's wife says in a phone interview that there's nothing unusual about the way it's cooked, only that they buy the best they can find. Everyone loves it, she adds.
New Jang Su, which has been open five years, has no liquor license and for dessert serves only orange slices. The room is atmospherically challenged: Although there are hoods over each of the tables with grills, the room still gets smoky when many of the grills are in use.
Those details shouldn't impede the adventurous, though, those ever on the lookout for the next ethnic discovery. Put Burlington on your treasure map.
