Mini Bar Hop in K Town

Somewhat recently I had the good fortune of meeting Mattatouille and friends, who then introduced me to Tai, the owner of Scoops.

I will leave our conversation with Tai for another post. What I wanted to blog about today is what happened after :) Mattatouille's friend (don't want to put her real name here, especially when I may misspell it :P ) suggested we go bar-food hopping in K-town. Being a non-Korean-speaker or reader, this was untested waters for me, and I like these new people I just met, so I took them up on it!

First Stop:
Dansungsa
3317 W 6th St
Los Angeles, CA 90005 (213) 487-9110

This place a complete Korean dive. Well, not that I would know. But with the dark interior, smoky haze from the bbq in the middle, and old movie posters, it sure seemed like it to me.

The menu is completely in Korean, so I wasn't sure what we ordered. All I know is that we got these spicy kalbi which were delicious, and were #52 on the menu! Don't know what it's called, but it's #52 my friends!Not that spicy, and extremely addicting.

We also got some scallion pancakes (pa jeon? I tried googling it).
Somewhat thick, with tons of scallions, and a nice crispy exterior!

This segment, with some Hite beer, was ~$10/person total.
I wanted some more ribs, but we gotta move on to the next one!



On to stop #2: The Hite Bar
Hite Kwang-Jang
3839 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90010 (213) 384-7999
In direct contrast to the previous place, this place looks like a little western cafe you might find in Asia, probably selling spaghetti. It might've even been called Bear House. But no, it's actually Hite cafe (supposedly used to be Hite factory) serving up (in addition to some western style dishes) blood sausages, and - what we came there for - chicken wings in sweet & spicy korean sauce.I think this was called "yang nyum chicken" ? Not completely sure ...
This was ... spicy! The sauce was deliciously sweet and sticky but also spicy, spicier than the kal bi from dansungsa. I was having trouble eating this and ended up gobbling tons of the marinated turnips.

Oh, and drinking a lot of Hite.

They had a dark, light, and "special" Hite which is just a mix of the two. Sounded interesting enough, so we went with a pitcher of that.

Not much difference than the regular Hite - still light.



We also got some scallion pancake here, which was served there for free. Thinner and crispier than the previous one, which in a way is better, but I did like the fact that the previous one was more loaded with scallions!
I had to stop here for the night, unfortunately. I had a great time and hopefully will get another chance to hang out with these people! I'll be training to eat spicy food beforehand ...