"A dip in a sparkling sauce, and you're on your way to tasting the world's best barbecue." Caroline Bates - Gourmet Magazine


Korean delicacies are featured in this highly acclaimed downtown LA restaurant establishment. Located on the hotel's lower lobby level adjacent to the Seventh Street entrance, Seoul Jung features the city's finest Korean cuisine prepared by traditional chefs.

This Korean restaurant in Los Angeles features a wonderfully contemporary, yet authentic with a vast number of its furnishings being imported directly from Seoul, Korea.

Seoul Jung's menu includes barbecue specialties such as Dea Ji Bul Go Gi (sliced lean pork marinated in flavorful hot and spicy sauce), as well as a variety of appetizers, porridges, noodle dishes, rice and desserts.

The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and dinner seven days a week from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Seats 130 people (including 3 private rooms for seating up to 35 guests for special occasions or events).

Direct Line: (213) 688-7880

Seoul Jung Menus:

Dining Like Dignitaries

After Cooking for World Leaders, Dong Hun Kim Brings Traditional Korean Techniques and New Recipes to Downtown

by Richard Guzmán

Published: Thursday, July 2, 2009 4:51 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Dong Hun Kim has cooked in places where even a small mistake could have led to national shame.

In 2007, Kim was one of eight South Korean chefs who accompanied then-President Roh Moo-Hyun to the Inter-Korea State Dinner in North Korea. There, he and his team cooked for an audience which included North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

“We trained for three months. We didn’t want to make any mistakes and bring shame to our country,” Kim said recently through an interpreter.

Flash forward two years and Kim is the still fairly new executive chef at Seoul Jung, the Korean restaurant in the Wilshire Grand hotel. Without the pressure of protecting his country’s honor in enemy territory, Kim is approaching his job with an adventurous spirit. He hopes to help advance traditional Korean cuisine in the city while he also experiments with local ingredients to create unique dishes.

“Korean food in Korea can be more global, and that’s what I’m trying to do here,” he said while seated in the dining room of the restaurant. “It seems like Korean restaurants here just stopped evolving in the ’80s. There are no new items, no new dishes, just barbecue and that’s it.”

Kim took over the kitchen in September, and while he may be relatively unknown in Los Angeles, he brought an impressive resume from South Korea. He was the head chef at Ondal, a respected restaurant in a five-star Sheraton hotel in Seoul. He also prepared several state dinners for presidential events at Cheong Wa Dae, the South Korean equivalent of the White House.

Kim studied traditional Korean cuisine at the Kyung Ju Hotel Management School. Since moving to the United States with his wife and two children, he has been busy learning about his new home’s culinary offerings.

“There are way more ingredients here than are available in Korea,” he said.

Although changes to the Seoul Jung menu have been subtle so far, the new ingredients he is discovering are beginning to make their way into his dishes. A new menu is expected to debut in a couple of months and will include some of the best examples of Kim’s new creations, such as his grilled black cod in blueberry sauce.

While seafood is abundant in Korean dishes, pairing it with a blueberry sauce is his own twist. Kim noted that it is also influenced by traditional Korean culinary philosophy.

“Korean food is focused on healthy, or ‘well being,’ which is a word we use a lot,” he said. “Blueberries are seen as a very healthy fruit, so I experimented a little until I got the right sauce.”

The result is a pleasant combination of a tender fish, one almost too delicate to pick up with chopsticks, and the fruity liveliness of the blueberry sauce. Add in the slight crunch of the grilled surface and it jumps with both flavor and texture.

Other changes that point to Kim’s growing exploration of Southern California ingredients include the use of more local vegetables, among them bell peppers and avocados. He is infusing those and other items, even broccoli or bananas, into traditional side dishes like dry seaweed, kim chi and soybean sprouts.

The Hae Mool Pa Jeon, a seafood scallion pancake with calamari and baby shrimp, includes a lightly seasoned bell pepper. Similarly, the Ya Chae Gui, a dish with marinated shiitake and button mushrooms, also holds asparagus, red bell pepper, yam and plantain. Another dish Kim serves is a simmered abalone and beef short ribs plate with dates, chestnuts and carrots.

Looks Matter

At any restaurant, presentation matters. It is another area where Kim is learning, and one that he sees as crucial in the evolution of Korean food.

Not that he rejects traditional Korean presentation. A sizzling, smoking hot platter is a familiar sight in most Korean restaurants. At Seoul Jung, the most sizzling of dishes is the Stone Grilled Abalone.

It is served on a hot stone, the intensity of the heat causing the food to sizzle and pop loudly at the table. Sometimes for show, the rock is lit on fire as it is brought to the diners.

As it cooks on the stone, the abalone acquires a rustic flavor, almost as if it had been freshly caught and cooked over a campfire. It’s a simple but tasty dish, as long as you eat it right away. Wait too long, however, and it burns, delivering an unpleasant charcoal taste.

While he is looking at new ways to prepare a traditional meal, Kim also serves the popular barbecue dishes that dominate menus at most Korean restaurants. They include the Kalbi, marinated beef short ribs served with grilled vegetables which are prepared with a simple soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic marinade.

Cooked at the table, the meat is tender and fresh. Tradition says to wrap the beef in a lettuce leaf, which is served with the meal. But dipping it directly in the ssamjang, a sauce made of fermented bean curd and pepper paste, is the best way to have it at Seoul Jung, since there is less between you and the flavor of the meat.

Although Kim is happy to explore the flavors of his new home, his days, like the restaurants, are numbered.

In April, officials with Korean Air, the owner of the Wilshire Grand, announced that the hotel will be torn down and replaced with a $1 billion luxury hotel, office and residential complex. Although construction is still at least two to three years away, it is unlikely Seoul Jung will reopen elsewhere with Kim.

So between now and the inevitable closing day, Kim plans to continue to look for new ingredients. He hopes one day to share his discoveries with his homeland.

“I want to bring that cuisine back to Korea and introduce to Koreans the more California version,” he said.

However, there is one California food Kim has discovered that he is unlikely to use in his dishes or take back home.

“In-N-Out, I really like that,” he said.

Seoul Jung is in the Wilshire Grand, 930 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 688-7880 or wilshiregrand.com.

Contact Richard Guzmán at richard@downtownnews.com.

page 10, 07/06/2009

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