Korean Goodness @ Hangook Kwan

As I'd mentioned before, St. Louis is not known for its Korean food. However, last week we celebrated Jake's birthday at Hangook Kwan in Creve Coeur... and we LOVED it! We heard it was the best around town, and now I can see why. Everything we ordered (and we ordered PLENTY) was great.

I really liked how we each got individual sauce plates with two quintessential korean cuisine dipping sauces: gireumjang (sesame oil + salt + pepper) and gochujang.

The restaurant offers the standard banchan (side dishes), and they were all gobbled down happily. We sat at a self-grill table, and we ended up ordering multiple orders of galbi and samgyeopsal (thick fatty slices of pork belly meat. Could anything be better? No). But while we waited for our meats to cook, we dined on other delicious things, like this seafood pajeon.

Crispy where it needed to be, this pajeon was pretty solid.

Here's the dukbokki (spicy rice cakes). It came hottttt and steaming, yum!

I don't usually order this dish, but it was really tasty! The rice cakes were fresh and had a nice 'bounce' to them.

Would you like to take a peek at our galbi on the grill? Of course you would, you carnivore, you! (*points to Han*)

Solid galbi. Well-marinated, and pretty much everyone's favorite.

The other grill, with a little bit of everything:

The above is a slice of the cooked samgyeopsal. This doesn't come marinated, and most people in my party didn't like it as much. However, I know a few folks in Fairfax (*ahem* John and Eric) who love samgyeopsal. I really enjoy it, too... dipping it in the gireumjang really brings out the basic flavor of pork. And that's really all you need in life. Flavor. Pork. Yes.

My favorite Korean noodle dish is japchae:

Hangook Kwan's version is pretty good. It may have been a little too sweet/saucy, but I still liked it a lot.

And of course we couldn't leave without getting an order of dolsot bibimbap. Deeeelicious. Sigh, I've missed the fantastic crunch of rice in a blazin' hot stone pot. So much love:

Here's our party, mid-feast. Look at that amazing spread. And we had no trouble finishing all of it!

Hangook Kwan
1261 Castillons Arcade Plaza
Creve Coeur, MO 63141
314.878.8893