Atlanta etc.: Marilyn Wolf's Food Blog and Restaurant Blog

Bibibop is a BYO bowl chain in the Korean-ish style. Like most such establishments, they give their patrons a variety of choices to suit their tastes. I don't think of cheese as a big Korean complement to a rice bowl, for example. My tofu bowl was tasty and filling. The sauce had flavor but not much heat. Everything kept me going during a busy afternoon.

Lee's Tofu House has been on Buford Highway for quite some time. I finally paid a visit and was well-pleased with my experience. Tofu houses don't serve just vegetarian food and Lee's menu was no exception. Tofu is clearly a theme but it doesn't limit the palate of these retsaurants. Everything came at once. These are my appetizers in the traditional array of small dishes. All were delicious. None were, in my opinion, very hot. I particularly enjoyed the kimchi, pickled cucumber, and bean sprouts. My tofu hot pot was a big dish and a very hearty meal. The large serving of tofu was lightly oven-crisped to provide a nice texture. The surrounding vegetables were all very tasty. Everything was served on a bed of rice. I walked away satisfied and satiated.

Dish is one of the clutch of new restaurants in the City Farmers Market complex on Buford Highway. I caught them during their trial run; they should open later this week. So far, everything seems to be running well, brimming with the enthusiasm of a new restaurant. The space is high-ceilinged, bright, and inviting. Everything is accented with the blond wood trim of traditional Korean design. My meal started, of course, with some pickled vegetables. Everything tasted great; I have a weakness for the pickled turnips. After I gobbled everything down, the owner rushed back with another round. My main course was this beautiful tofu and mushroom steak. The tofu was very lightly crusted and topped with a hearty brown sauce. The combination of the sauce and the mushrooms gave the dish a great umami kick. And the serving was downright huge. I left very satisfied.

I visited Simply Seoul on its second day of operation in Ponce City Market's new food court. The staff was happily purposeful in its busy pursuit of meaty bun-filled bliss. They offer an open-face respin of traditional Asian buns. As you might expect from their name, kimchi plays a big role, too. This is two buns: one beef and one spicy pork. Scale is hard to tell from this photo---they are small so count on ordering several if you want to make a meal of them. They straight out of the server's hands and the freshness was very appealing. The ingredients were of very high quality. The bun is soft and pillowy, very comforting. The kimchi gives a bit of a crunch as a texture complement. I didn't find mine to be noticeably spicy, though. I don't know if they offer levels of heat---I wasn't offered any but perhaps that was due to the opening rush. But based on my one experience, I don't think that anyone needs to worry about burning their face off with th...

Hyesoon introduced me to Takorea, a Korean/Mexican fusion restaurant. We had a nice casual dinner and a trivia game as a bonus. We each had tacos: tofu and pork/kimchi for me, calimari and chicken for me. The pork/chimchi was a great combination; the heat in the kimchi sneaks up on you in a very tasty way. My tofu taco was tasty, too. Our fries were fried in sesame oil. I was surprised at this one---I think of sesame oil as something I buy and use in small quantities. But let me tell you, they were great. We could really taste the sesame in the fries. To add to the experience, they had a great cruncy coating and were liberally salted. They made a great treat.

Sobban is one of those only-in-Atlanta combinations: Korean food with a Southern twist housed in a classic Arby's chuckwagon building. (The horn-headed steers in the tile floor are from the Arby's days.) The restaurant is decorated in the style of a gracious Decatur home, modern and with character. The restaurant was jam-packed when I visited but the service was fairly efficient and very helpful. My food was spectacular. I chose the catfish as an examplar of the Southern/Korean fusion. It was coated with a blackening spice mix that was a bit different from the standard New Orleans blackening spices; the fish was very succulent and flaky tender. I don't know what was in the sauce, but it was in the style of a tartar sauce and complemented the fish very well. The hushpuppies were tasty and the pickled vegetables were wonderful and not overly hot. The Korean sweet potatoes were outstanding. They were made in the style of home fries, hand cut and ranging from extreme...

A trip to Fry's is my usual excuse for a stop in Duluth's Koreaville. Fry's yielded a very useful cable. I celebrated with a trip to Sun and Moon Café. The interior is very heavily decorated. The menu has English translations but many of the signs stick to Korean. This is my rice cake with spicy vegetables. It is very different from what I expected but interesting. The base of the dish is rice noodles in a thick, spicy and slightly sweet sauce. Some vegetables and tofu are mixed in, though not too many. The cylinders are rice starch. This was one heavy dish. The fish stock soup was a good way for me to cut through the noodles' sauce.

Hyesoon introduced me to Jang Su Jang. The exterior is low-key and I probably wouldn't have paid much attention to it by myself. The restaurant serves both Korean BBQ and tofu. The room is in a more traditional Korean style and the service was very good. The Korean salad is one of the joys of a Korean meal. The dishes very widely and I don't think that two restaurants serve them the same way. My favorite was the cucumber. Its sauce was very complex: heat, sour, and just a touch of sweetness. Tofu houses serve the tofu in a soup. Hyesoon recommended that I try the seafood. It had some small clams or oysters and crayfish. Those little critters packed a lot of flavor. I ordered it spicy; the level of heat was just right.

Umma opened a few weeks ago in Tech Square serving sushi and Korean food. It's a very simple, low-key but attractive place. Think of it as a brigher, happier version of all the noodle shops that workers go to every day for lunch. They have a variety of noodle and rice bowls. (I saw the bowls and they are huge.) I concentrated on my usual sushi: spicy tuna and salmon. Both were quite good. They came with a traditional assortment of appetizers including a few slices of omlette and a simple soup. They seem to be open quite late as well, very good news since late-night fare is surprisingly limited around Georgia Tech.

My student Dongwon Lee celebrated his newly minted Ph.D. by taking me to Myung Ga Won. It's across from Gwinnett Mall. The decor is modern upscale, giving a fancier feel than one finds in most Korean BBQ restaurants.  I think that the food preparation also reflects this greater degree of care. This is Dongwon with our lunch for two. The grill is in the middle of the table.  Our server brought the raw meat to the table and cooked it for us. We had a classic Korean BBQ made of short ribs. The short rib meat had been spiral cut from the bone---I can't imagine how much practice it takes to do that. Our server then cut it into small pieces and grilld them without adding sauce, unlike American BBQ. I used the soy sauce you can see just in front of the grill.  The meat was excellent, balancing juiciness with the char from the grill. You can eat it wrapped in lettuce leaves or as is.  I always enjoy the huge number of side dishes that come with a Korean meal.  Kor...

category: interesting Chinese/Korean restaurant summary: ask for the special menu---ordering the right thing is important Hyesoon and I went to Golden Buddha on Clairmont for dinner. I've driven by there dozens of times and never been in. Even if I had, I probably wouldn't have ordered the right things. It turns out that this restaurant has a big reputation among Georgia Tech students as a good place for Chinese/Korean food that is good and reasonable. The restaurant is totally nondescript and, like many Asian restaurants, have a special menu that they generally give to Asians but not Causasians. I suspect that some of their dishes are ho-hum, but I definitely enjoyed our meal from the special menu.   My favorite dish was the seafood soup (which, by the way, is on the regular menu).  This large bowl is a half-serving.  It is chock full of seafood, a healthy dose of noodles, and a little greenery.  The broth was delicious. It was spicy but just enough to tick...

Tofu House is at the intersection of Buford Highway and I-285. A more accurate name would be Soup House since it has a lot of soups, many of which have meats and seafood. Tofu House is Korean restaurant. Given the name, I decided to order the tofu soup. This was my spread, which cost $9. This seems to me to be a traditional Korean spread, with a variety of hot and cold side dishes. The egg is raw and is to be dumped into the soup to cook. This was really excellent and enjoyable. The soup had a vegetable base that I couldn't easily identify but was both delicious and thick. The fish was served warm and was a very nice complement. The rice and beans includes both red beans and sprout beans; I'm not sure I've had it before but I liked it. I'm a kimchi fan and this is the first I've had in awhile, so I enjoyed it. I ordered everything with medium heat, but that was still enough to restore my sinuses. Just to be clear---this is very good food, not to mention an in...