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Choi's Garden, a closer look
Aloha!
3/28/09 - Outside of the Korean community, it surprises me how few there are out there who actually know anything at all about the wide variety of excellent Korean eateries on the island. Yes, there's not a single, red-blooded local who can't describe a plate from Gina's, Yummy's, or Tasty Korean BBQ house in a fast-food-flash, but c'mon, now, there's so much more to this particularly feisty cuisine than bbq meats and rice packed to the hilt in rubberband-wrapped styrofoam, along with kim chee and a whole lot of other spiced or pickled vegetables stuffed into side-compartments!
I dunno, maybe it's the stigma involved. Maybe it's the fact that so many of them are located in such close proximity to gentlemen's clubs, hostess bars, and strip clubs, not that I'd know. Choi's Garden may not be on any of those street's directly, but it's definitely right there, within the Hawaiian Bermuda triangle of Kapiolani, Sheridan, and Keeaumoku, where many a lonely soul have become as lost as Flight 19, not that i'd know.
Located just behind The Keeaumoku Wal-Mart, on a small street called Rycroft, this cool establishment is, along with Shillawon, one of the best places to experience authentic Korean cuisine in an atmosphere that's about as upscale as it gets, as far as Korean restaurants go. I'm not talking fine-dining upscale, as rubber slippers, shorts, and t-shirts are just fine here, but it is clean, comfortable, and designed well, with a bright, cheery dining room that houses well-kept, reasonably classy furnishings.
Waiting to greet you right upon entering are a number of gracious, uniformed waitresses, who don't speak much English but are nevertheless friendly and up-beat, along with a cool, up-lit display of fancy, traditional vases and pottery designs. Couple that with the old-time photographs displaying a proud Korean ancestry, and you almost have a literal mini-museum to check out, as well.
Lining the perimeter on two other sides are a healthy number of high-backed booths, where you'll find arrangements for that staple of many a fine Korean meal - yakiniku. With a drop-down fan that sucks up the smoke created from luscious, marinated meats grilling right there on the table, you can't always expect a 100% success rate, as far as no smoke-smell on your clothing goes. They do help, however, and unlike many other similiar operations, the smell of smoke doesn't hit you like a blast of hot air right upon entering, permeating right through to the very walls and furnishings. Believe it or not, there are a few places out there that still have carpet lining the entire floor - I don't care how much you shampoo, you ain't getting that smell outta those packed fibers, for sure!
Mom almost never prefers yakiniku, as she figures you go to a restaurant so someone else can cook, not to cook something yourself! Makes sense, I guess. In fact, she doesn't even like buffets for a very similiar reason - she not only wants someone to cook for her, but also someone to serve her! Princess, I tell you, this one...
As hinted at earlier, most people know Korean food for bbq meats, all marinated in shoyu, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, green onion, and peppers - very similiar to local teriyaki, with the biggest difference being a heavy dose of sesame oil and sometimes sesame seed. On this particularly lovely day, however, the only bbq meat variety came as a side-dish to mom's combination meal, in the form of a small platter of kalbi short-ribs. For those from the North Pole or Timbuktu or a remote island in the South Pacific accessible only by boat, fatty, highly-flavored kalbi is probably your best bet when trying to get a good picture of what Korean bbq is all about. If these delicious meats don't getcha, nothing will!
The one dish I failed to capture on-card was the other half of mom's combination order, a bowl of cold, spicy naeng myun (noodle). She loved every bit of it, but with an entire table of so many dishes, all coming at the same time, I just couldn't keep up!
But almost immediately before that, the very first things to come a'rollin' out were the standard line-up of complementary side-dishes, collectively known as banchan. There was kim chee, tofu, daikon, bean sprouts, cucumber, muk (term for any number of jelly-like foods similiar to Japanese konnyaku), mountain greens, bamboo shoots, and, as always, a few things I've never seen before! Most of these items are familiar, but there's usually one of two things that vary every time. These little bowls here are one of the big reasons mom loves Korean dining - it's a good way to get down a whole lotta veggies - but just watch out on the salt intake!
My choice for the day was one of their stone pot meals, which here comes with at least two different varieties of rice, beans, peas, pumpkin, chestnut, and even a stalk of ginseng, along with other ingredients I'm probably missing. Though there is a black rice that stains purple after cooking, most Korean restaurants use white rice that is stained from the addition of black beans.
This bowl of goodness is actually the very reason I wanted to come here, as I've been eating a whole lotta rich foods recently, and something like this was exactly what my stomach needed! I know there are lot of folks who consider white rice as equal to empty carbs, void of any nutritional benefit, but I don't happen to be one of them, especially when thinking of the billions of people in Asia whose food intake consists of, what, 60 to 70 percent white rice? There's gotta be something more to rice then that. All I know, is that after an evening at Alan Wong's, Yakiniku Hiroshi's, or any other place that serves up super-rich, decadent foods, you'll likely find me the next day chowing down on several bowls of good 'ol package-flavored chazuke! Settles and de-acidifies the stomach like nothing else! Except maybe charcoal...
Yeah, that's the cool-looking stand my hot-pot was housed in. They don't want you getting anywhere near the pot, itself, as those things will burn the skin right off your fingers if you're not careful! When serving any of these hot-pot's, a small container of tea or hot water is always served alongside, as the rice on the outsides will get burnt to a crisp if you don't pour some in after a while, not to mention the headache you'll cause for their dishwasher's, who must have a fit trying to get the burnt rice off the walls of the bowl! Some pour a whole bunch in all at once until it's the same as tea-rice, or chazuke, while I like to just pour intermittently, making sure the rice on the outsides are slightly browned, but not crisped-up to the point where they become hard and over-done, and just enough to loosen the rice and keep it from sticking to the bowl. Plus, I don't like the build-up of liquid, preferring instead to add just enough water so the rice actually soaks most of it up.
Wifey also ordered a stone-pot meal, her's coming with a mix of fresh, raw vegetables, a pile of raw beef in the center, and a single, raw egg placed on-top. You can't see it, but underneath is a thick layer of white rice, which also burns if you're not careful. I know you're already squeamish on the thought of raw beef slices, but no worries - give it a toss and that same beef can be cooked well-done by the heat of the pot, if that's what you want. In Japan, they call this style of cooking ishiyaki, and their versions can be found at a few spots around town, a great one coming from Shokudo, next to the Ala Moana Shopping Center - try the unagi, or eel - oishi deshu!
Besides my order of healthy, stone-pot rice, I also had a side of soondubu, or tofu soup. Another very common Korean dish, this small bowl is stained red from chili paste and loaded with soft, silky tofu, another great remedy for settling the stomach and de-acidifying - not that chili helps the cause in any way, though! Besides, wifey played an exorbitantly large part in me deciding upon this latter half of my combination meal, and saw to it that by the time I was done taking pictures, more than half this bowl was already gone!
The final dish on the menu was the savory Korean pancake called pajeon, this one coming with the simple addition of kim chee. Being just a vegetable mix, it was much thinner than the meat or seafood pajeon. Seafood versions filled with squid, shrimp, scallop, and more are also highly popular, but hey, this was only a side-dish shared amongst the table, is all.
The thick, black pan is very hot to the touch and similiar to a Pizza Hut pan pizza, which creates a super-crispy, light crust that is simply delicious. The longer it stays there, the crispier it gets!
As usual at Korean restaurants, at least for us, there were plenty of left-over's to take home - half the naeng myun, half the pajeon, a healthy scoop of rice, even a few pieces of kalbi!
And again, for all you folks out there who's only experiences with Korean food are fast-food bbq houses or Kim Chee 2, please do expand your horizon's! Hey, I'm not knocking Kim Chee 2, as I love that place just as much as the next red-blooded local boy, believe me, nor am I knocking fast-food, but it's just that, as with so many other things, there's so much more to the story than that! I remember the first time I came to an authentic restaurant like this several years ago, and couldn't recognize anything off the multi-paged menu, save for the very last page, which contained a listing of bbq'd meats. Walking into a fast-food Korean place, on the other hand, and I'd have known everything off the menu! It's just that big of a difference.
Choi's Garden does tend to get crowded, the lot outside then turning into a valet service, so I suggest going early if you don't want to deal with these issues, whether it be for lunch or dinner. They used to be open almost 'round the clock, closing for only a few hours each day, but now they have a more standard schedule, opening for normal lunch and dinner hours only. That's probably a good thing, however, as they don't pick up the drunken hostess bar crowds milling around the Hawaiian Bermuda Triange late at night or early in the morning!
I'll leave you with a parting shot of the entrance, the lot very much empty, as I do follow my own advice of going early!
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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