New Korea Restaurant

There is a scene in many martial arts flicks in which the weary protagonist – and his or her sidekick – stop for respite at a country inn where they are served rustic dumplings, tea or rice wine. Before they can get a cup or a dumpling to their mouths, someone from a gang of bullies halts their arms under some flimsy pretense. The camera zooms in on the eyes. Then all hell breaks loose.

New Korea Restaurant reminds me of those places. Before the destruction.

It’s hidden in plain sight in a mixed-zone Marina neighborhood, which seems to make it more attractive a find, like an Easter egg. Its neighbors in the recessed strip mall are Hong’s Market and Sook Hee’s Beauty Salon, a pair of one-story apartments with decks out front, and a trailer park tucked behind a wall. This Thursday presents a good time to stop in; it’s the Korean New Year.

“New” is an oxymoron. It’s throwback Korea. One enters through a screen door, past a hand-scrawled sign beckoning “Help wanted.” It’s small. The foyer crams in a hostess station, cash register, beverage cooler, Korean magazines, seating area, hot water urn, and wait station.

The dining area is roomier: two six-tops in the center, two two-tops near the windows, tables recessed behind walls for extra privacy in the intimate quarters. Wallpaper composed of old Korean script, which contains some Chinese, wraps around. My mom, born and raised in the country, tells me that the script is so old that young Koreans cannot read it.

They can read a sign that hangs in the back. It reads “Jang Chung Dong,” which is a neighborhood in Seoul, and it also says “pig,” which is the specialty food that comes from that same area.

Lunch for us came with six banchan, those little side dishes filled with flavor-inducing treats like marinated soybean, julienned strings of sour radish, kimchee (fresh and moderately spicy), soy sauce-soaked potato, and dark green broccoli sprinkled with sesame oil. The rice came purple with beans cooked into it – back in the day, white rice was prized by those who could afford it – but on one occasion those beans were undercooked. And the water comes in plastic jugs with Korean advertising pasted onto it, like Psy of “Gangnam Style” fame, endorsing a soju rice liquor (which New Korea carries).

For lunch, my wife, mom and I ordered mae-woon dak bulgogi ($8.99/lunch), spicy barbecue chicken thigh. It was not garnished with the diced green onions the menu’s picture promised, but it was hot as lava, probably beyond a reasonable amount for lunch.

The sul lung tang ($8.99/lunch, $11.99/dinner), broiled beef bone soup with beef and noodles, is a bland item to which you add salt and spicy red pepper to awaken the flavor. This one came chock full of meat, with a thin broth that seemed like a sparse and small bowl of pho.

The gal bi ($11.99/lunch, $22.99/dinner), sweet marinated beef short ribs, came to our table sizzling on a small clay skillet. The meat went down chewy and greasy, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on you perspective. But it wasn’t sitting on enough onions to separate it from the clay, so the meat continued to char and stick. Not cool – because “sizzling hot” Korean dishes should be dramatic, aromatic and sensory.

For dinner, the rice in a hot clay bowl of bi bim bap ($8.99/lunch, $11.99/dinner) with veggies and egg continued to cook until it hardened. Unless there is a bed of vegetables (like onions, which contain enough moisture to resist burning) as a buffer, sizzling meat and rice dishes must be stirred until the sizzling subsides. Waiters and waitresses should say that. Our lone waitress, a bit harried while the owner cooked in the back, did not. Once mixed, though, the bi bim bap proved a joy, a signature dish delivered well-balanced with a squirt bottle of gochujang red pepper spice sauce.

We also ordered go-deung uh gui ($14.99), grilled mackerel, filleted, not quite fully deboned, and cooked to a rich, oily, salty and succulent place. And we went for a pork sausage dish – an appetizer of soon-dae bok-ee ($14.99), seasoned sausage with gochujang. This proved deliciously complex, sliced up, ground with glass noodle, rice, barley and veggies, which gave it an unexpectedly crumbly texture. It was served with all manner of vegetable and other cuts of meat that looked and tasted like offal, drenched in a strong sauce I had never encountered before, something seemingly Middle Eastern in origin, with cumin or tamarind or something. Strange but interesting.

New Korea delivers the real deal, including jigae soups that come to the table bubbling hot like a cauldron, a kimchee pancake appetizer that’s scarlet in color and tingling spicy, and countless permutations of meat and vegetable meals accompanied by a rainbow of sides. Takeout seems a steady business. There are two-serving dishes ($32.99-$44.99) that a server will bring raw to the table and cook on a tabletop (not inset) grill, including pork belly and short ribs. All served up in a hidden locale, decorated by a rustic Asian atmosphere – no martial arts brawls needed.

NEW KOREA RESTAURANT 300 D. Carmel Ave., Marina. 11am-9:30pm daily (closed Monday). 384-7171.