The snack that went up the hill and came down a feast!

It was a balmy and breezy light spin when I, your own loyal Metrowalker and my very hungry companion Musomom went lookin for some grinds. Musomom wanted something light, what with her dinner date that dark spin, and I, wanted something that satisfied, seeing as I had elevated some iron and ped all over Hollywood before lunch.

So what to do? Burgle a burger? Snatch a salad? Perhaps procure a piece of pre-prepared pizza? No brothers and sisters, that would simply not do. There had to be something, and then a luz flashed in Metrowalker’s own giant head.

Korean! We were close, there was time, and it fit Musomom’s and my desires! What better lunch is there than a big ol bowl of bibimbap? What? Not know you of one of the worlds most amusingly named all in one meals?

Bibimbap is rice topped with an assortment of vegetables and meat, served with a spicy pepper paste called gochujang…It’s like a little mosh pit o comestables right on your table. I skulled this place in K-town where they do a righteous bibimbap, and so we packed up and headed there wiki wiki.

Jeon ju is a small place on Olympic just off of Vermont, and when I say small, I mean poco friends, leave those metrostalking SUVs at home cause parking will be a hassle during the dinner hora. Jeon Ju although small, is quite comfortable, and the folks who run it are copasetic. Musomom and I sat down to cups of cool barley tea and although it was a weak brew, it was a most thirst quenching bebida, a wonderful thing to have while we viddied the menu.

I of course went straight for the bibimbap, though to twist the dish I ordered the seafood version. Musomom wanted something a little less fun to say, she got the bulgolgi, which is to say gyu, marinated and then grilled. I rounded out our orders by snagging some mondoo..or boiled dumplings to share between the both of us. Light and tasty, so far lunch was five by five.

Musomom and I happily raised cups of barley tea to old friends who had fallen, and the ones who still ped with us. We spoke of the halcyon times of our youth, adventures that we would have just down the road, and generally caused much the bally rackum until the food came.

Oh friends and come it did, slowly at first with panchan, which are the small dishes that are the pride of many a Korean meal. Everything from a cool, tart, and acidic turnip soup, to crunchy chili soaked cabbage kimchee was placed before us. With a bowl of hot rice, a moke could make a meal out of just these, and we hadn’t even gotten our ordered dishes yet!

Panchan!!!

Cabbage kimchee, Green onion pancakes, Rice Cakes, Broccoli with chili ,and Turnip kimchee

Cold turnip soup, and salted soy beans....dig the thin metal hashi, cool huh?

Musomom was astounded by the amount of food we got, and to tell you honto so was I but I didn’t show it cause I am so cool. Our lunch was beginning to become a feast. Then our dishes came and we were overwhelmed…there was food all around us. The bulgolgi gyu wasn’t prime prime meat but it wasn’t sizzler either. The folks at Jeon Ju cooked this dish in a skillet, and then transferred it to a hot iron platter on a bed of onions. So we didn’t get the funk and crunch of the gyu being cooked over live coals, but was it good?

Cause something its all about the sizzle!

Yes brothers and sisters I tell you it was, we wrapped the hot meat in crunchy lettuce and smeared it with ultra salty soybean paste. We customized our lettuce wraps with chili, kimchee and little bits of panchan, so each bite was a new meal, my ami, I tell you righteous grindage.

Bibimbap, as fun to say as it is to eat!

The seafood bibimbap was a wonderful triumph of veggies, fish bits, clams, mussels and what else….oh yea, fake crab…remember what I said about the fake crabbage in my last missive to you oh my dearest friends? Well it’s still true. Still with a couple of dollops of fiery red chili paste it was like a Metallica mosh pit in a bowl…lotsa color, lotsa texture and a hella lot of heat.

An let us look at the bowl cousins, it’s made of stone, the folks at Juon Ju load that petros into a blistering hot oven so when the bibimbap comes to your table its jumping and popping like that famous cereal trio on meth. The rice on the bottom of the bowl kinda toasts, and this creates a crunchy crust that you mix in to add accents to the dish. This cousins, according to thems that are in the know, is where the ono hides, in the crunchy caramely goodness of toasted rice.

Mandoo!!!

Humble looking, but they tasted like they were made for royalty!

Even the humble boiled mandoo were good, mildly spiced chicken and spinach in a plain dough wrapper served with a citrus spiked soy and sesame dipping sauce. The boiling made the dumplings bland and a bit chewy on the outside, and brothy and flavorsome on the inside. Like a chewels liquid center gum…but made of meat.

So there we were cousins, eating like Aristos and loving it, we had more food than we could eat in a sitting, but by Odin and all the Valkyre we tried. What started out as a snack for two became a banquet for four, and at about $15 a person quite affordable.

Can I suggest Jeon Ju to you my cousins? Well if you go there, you are in the bright red pump of K-town, and there are hundreds of panchan parlours in the area, but for the rubber off my sneaks I wouldn’t say no to it. Their specialities run to the white hot stone bowls, but as you can viddy they ain’t no slouches at the rest of it either.

Jeon Ju

2716 W. Olympic blvd.

213 386-5678