First Night in Koreatown
Neon lights and cars everywhere. Valets for parking lots the size of a one bedroom. Restaurants, liquor stores, and nail salons. Our first night in Koreatown and we’d moved what we could into the apartment and we were starving. We’d have to get up early and move everything else the next day, just Lena and I. We’d done it before, in New Orleans, but moving never actually gets easier. I mean, you can get better at it. I’m like expert level Tetris style when it comes to stacking and fitting boxes and suitcases and cats where they need to go. But the fact of the matter is, moving is never really easy. It’s probably why I’ve traveled so light all these years.
The streets were busy and all lit up. The sidewalks stained with things you’d rather not know about. We wanted to eat at this place we’d seen while we were driving but we couldn’t seem to locate it on foot. We passed a small crowd of sharp dressed Koreans kids and I’m thinking let’s just walk around them but Lena pokes her head in a door of a building with no windows, nothing on the door, just a foreign language above the entry, and even that wasn’t illuminated.
She looked back at me and she was excited and I took a look myself and it looked wild inside. The place was packed and it smelled fantastic. It was dark and tight and the chatter of conversation mixed with the music from the speakers and the sound of silverware doing work.
She asked, “What do you think?” I said, “Fuck it.”
She put her name on the list and we waited outside but not a long time and when the guy called for her, he was stoked and I liked that. He led us in. It was a small maze and every space of wall was covered with graffiti and bugged out ads for Korean drinks with models smiling ecstatically. All of the seating were in booths and every one of them was taken. We were the only people in there who weren’t Asian. I want to say they were all Koreans but I’m not that good yet. I’m close to being that good. I feel like normally I can distinguish Koreans from, say, Thai. I’ve had a crush on a couple of Koreans in the past. Let me stop before I get into trouble here.
We got into our own booth and there was a menu on the table already. It was all in Korean. Lena looked at me and said “No” and I was thinking “Fuck” but then our waiter came around wearing a headset and gave us the English versions. It was a straight forward menu. The name of the dish and the price. No name of the restaurant anywhere to be seen.
First things first, we ordered some booze. Korean wine. Bek Se Ju, it was called. Kind of reminded me of some run of the mill sake. Served in the little glasses you drink sake in. It was fine. More than anything, I enjoyed the memories it gave me of being back at Uchi. Reminded me how fun it was to get drunk off this stuff. We ordered some dishes next and the waiter said, “Whoa, that’s a lot,” but we’d only ordered one thing each. So Lena subtracted one and added a couple of skewers and the waiter nodded and was replaced with another fella who dropped a bowl of popcorn and a bowl of broth with potatos in it. The broth was good as hell and I couldn’t spoon it fast enough to my lips.
I looked around some more as we waited for our dinner. Occasionally some curious eyes checked out our table but for the most part, everyone there was caught up in their Friday night. I heard some English and I heard some other things. Conversations were rapid and the glow of cellphones incessant. I was instantly in love with this secret world. I loved knowing this was hidden from the outside. No one knew we were in here. No one had any idea. I wanted us to become regulars here. I wanted to learn little phrases in their native language that would endear me to the staff. Bring carefully selected friends and have solid recommendations. Life was giving me one of it’s fruits and it wasn’t hard to tell.
There was one television and the screen was fuzzy as hell but you could just see the Dodgers were playing somebody. This city really loved their baseball team. Their new football team wasn’t doing too bad either. I still didn’t know who was playing quarterback.
The two skewers were beef and spicy rice cake. I had no idea what a spicy rice cake was and I’m still not sure of much besides it’s fucking spicy as hell and it tastes really good. It’s smothered in some kind of red sauce. The cake itself is soft and chewy, like a perfect fluffy piece of gnocchi. The entree dish we ordered was a pork kimchee stew and the man was right, we couldn’t have handled two dishes of this size. It was huge and the broth blood red and the steam that rose off from it was sinister and enticing at the same time. We spooned smaller portions into our respective bowls and went to town. I don’t know if I got past five slurps before I had to take off my hat. I was perspiring like a motherfucker. I like spicy food but Lena is really on another level. She’s won hot sauce contests. I’m sitting there saying “whew” a hundred times but I don’t want to give up. I guess it’s a pain with the pleasure kind of thing.
Again, the broth of the stew was amazing. The kimchi was crunchy and flavorful. Again, memories came back from my time in Texas. One of those nights, some of the sushi guys had invited me over. Late night. I was surprised and honored by the invitation. I got along well with all of them at work, we always joked around and talked shit. But really I knew nothing about them except that they’d been all over the world and they were sick with a knife and they didn’t give a shit about management. It was one of the chefs apartments and it was small and held little but he didn’t care. He was just sending the money back to Japan to his family anyway. Again, I was the only guy there that wasn’t Asian, though I guess I could say my mom was half Indonesian so technically…
That night, all we did was sit around and eat kimchi and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. It was such a simple thing but I felt so honored to be there. Nobu was the name of one of the chefs. He called me Wolf like everyone else at the restaurant and whenever he’d spot me he’d smile real big and let out a howl to let me know he was happy to see me. I miss that guy.
We couldn’t finish the stew but we did a pretty damn good job. Our waiter reminded me of a young Keeanu Reeves. Like from the Excellent Adventure era. The hair fell perfectly over one of the eyes and his doofy smile was spot on. I wanted to put my own little signature on the wall next to me. You know which signature. But I told myself, next time. We’ll be back soon, and you’ll have another chance.
