Matt Rodbard Talks Koreatown and Gives Us a Primer on Korean Cuisine 

On 35th street in New York, Cho Dang Gol almost disappears beside a large chain hotel, a small sign overshadowed by screaming midtown neon. Inside, the cold of the Northeast winter melts into the mists of warm Korean hotpots, clay bowls steaming with short ribs and tofu stews.

Matt Rodbard, former executive editor of Food Republic, meets me here. He wrote his Koreatown: A Cookbook with big-name Korean barbecue chef Deuki Hong, whose restaurant Kang Ho Dong Baekjong is just a few blocks away. But Rodbard didn’t want to take me to barbecue. He knows I’ve had barbecue.

The restaurant suits the day. It’s cold and drizzling, the in-between kind where you don’t need an umbrella but, after a few steps outside, you’re still wet and shivering. Inside the warm restaurant, the cookbook author from Kalamazoo sits me down between dark wood beams and begins planning out our meal.

For the last two-and-a-half years, the 35-year-old food writer has traveled the globe studying Korean food. He’s visited South Korea four times, and spent months in small communities around the country. He’s dined with critics in the expansive Koreatown in Los Angeles, visited farmers market vendors and immigrants outside Atlanta, ordered dinner in northern Virginia’s Korean pocket, and, of course, sat down for tofu hotpot in the New York neighborhoods where he fell in love with the cuisine in the first place.

“Even if you live in Boston, you still have the opportunity to try these dishes by buying these ingredients at an Asian market, online, or at Whole Foods,”  Rodbard says, looking over the menu. “You can make many of these.”

Now, Rodbard is back in New York, though he’ll be on the road again soon enough: He and Hong are headed to Boston to host a Korean dinner at Somerville’s Kirkland Tap & Trotter on February 10th. Those with tickets will sit down to a cocktail, marinated short ribs (kalbi), and kimchi fried rice at a communal table with Rodbard and Hong themselves. For those without a ticket to the feast, they’ll still be selling their book, ribs, and fried rice to all patrons who visit KT&T that night.

Back at our table at Cho Dang Gol, the kimchis come as banchan, which Rodbard describes as an “amuse bouche to whet the palate, but also you’re supposed to eat these throughout the meal.” He dives chopsticks-first into the assorted cups and tastes. “There’s fish cake in that. Wait — no. Which one is this?” he asks his waitress. “Dried squid.” I look down at the bowl. I thought that was radish?

Rodbard attributes his first lessons in Korean food to his “KBF” (Korean Best Friend), a term he uses in the intro of his cookbook to explain his interest. Koreatown isn’t the writer’s first foray into the cuisine: In 2013, Rodbard compiled a New York Korean restaurant guide, which is where he met his partner. Hong was a restaurant judge for the guide, and Rodbard thought he’d be an authentic guide, expert, and voice from within the culture. The cookbook author recognizes that he’s a “white dude from Michigan” — it’s why he knew, for a book that covers so much cultural ground, he’d need to speak to as many Koreans as he could.

“Cho Dang Gol is one of my favorite restaurants, I mean it,” he tells our waitress as she delivers a steaming clay bowl of kalbi jjim — marinated and braised short ribs dotted with cherry-red jujubes (dates). Orchard fruits often sweeten Korean marinades, along with rice syrup. Rodbard points out white lumps of ddeok in the bowl — chewy Korean rice cakes. They’re soft sponges for the warming sauce.

As we dig in, the waitress notices an early copy of Koreatown. Cracking the spine, Rodbard shows the waitress a few pages that feature menu items at Cho Dang Gol: steaming bowls of kalbi, soups, kimchis, and banchan. She also sees portraits of other emos — women who work as hostesses and waitresses in Korean restaurants. The author splices up sections of recipes with short vignettes: conversations with chefs and salespeople, portraits of Korean neighborhoods, interviews featuring non-Koreans with interesting connections to the culture. For Rodbard, keeping people at the center of his book gave its recipes and message clout.

Our emo brings out a bowl of kong biji jjigae, a milky-white tofu stew with the consistency of porridge. Cho Dang Gol makes its tofu from scratch. Rodbard asks her if the jjigae in fact contains pork, and she confirms with a smile. She tells him a story of when she was a child: In her tin lunchbox, she would put bean sprouts, rice, and pork belly on her steamer. The bean sprouts would cook inside the lunchbox, and then, by lunchtime, she could shake up the box for on-the-go bibimbap (mixed rice).

The jjigae is warm, homey, and remarkably flavorful. Rodbard explains that, because Korea is so cold and there’s so much access to water, Korean cuisine is dominated by soups. “It’s really cold there. It’s like Minnesota. In the wintertime, it’s about keeping warm,” he says over his soup. “Not a lot of land, not a lot of meat, lots of fresh water, lots of ingenuity — put that all together, that’s soup.”

“The food is ingrained into the Korean spirit and body,” Rodbard says, chopsticks looming over the steaming clay bowls on the table. “As a journalist, it’s really special to study a culture with an uncompromised view toward food.”

Koreatown: A Cookbook hits bookshelves February 16, koreatowncookbook.com
 

A primer for beginners:

Don’t stick to just barbecue. Korean barbecue may be the most accessible avenue, but Korean food is far more than bulgogi on the grill. “Think outside barbecue. Maybe go to a restaurant that just specializes in soups,” Rodbard says. “You’ll be really surprised by the quality of the meal you’ll get.”

There is no recipe for bibimbap, a favorite in Korean joints; it’s a mixed rice dish served with gochujang (hot pepper paste) and whatever is left over. Rodbard titled his bibimbap section in Koreatown “This is not a bibimbap recipe,” because the improvisational element to bibimbap is what he appreciates. “When we’re finished with our meal, and we’ve had our fill, we’ll save the leftover kimchis and kalbi and serve it over rice tomorrow,” Rodbard says. “What makes bibimbap bibimbap is the sauce.”

Kimchi is more than just cabbage; kimchi is a pickled, fermented salad made with a variety of vegetables and sometimes meat. Most beginners associate the funky dish with cabbage, but there are over 200 different types of kimchi. Of the three kimchis we tried at Cho Dang Gol, the standout was clearly a spicy slaw made with dried squid. “The fermentation piece comes from the fact that there’s a really short growing season and a really long winter,” he says, “I think of kimchi as more of a verb.” The older kimchi is used for soups, while younger kimchis are often used for banchan.

The Kirkland Tap & Trotter, 425 Washington St, Somerville, 857.259.6585, kirklandtapandtrotter.com