Kobawoo House — Restaurant in Los Angeles

All the times I was just a stone's throw away, I had never thought to come here until my friends suggested it for dinner one evening. The inside is quite adorable with lots of wooden structures and burl wood benches. They serve a variety of Korean dishes including your usual bulgogi, galbi, bibimbap, mandoo, etc., but their specialties are bosam and Korean pancakes.

First they served us banchan with cucumber, beef cubes, kimchi, sliced potatoes. It's looking like a meal already. I especially liked the beef cubes.

$26 Bosam - Napa cabbage wraps, radish slices, w/ boiled pork and spice mixture, wild rice: I believe we shared the medium portion. The boiled pork belly was very tender and almost melts in your mouth. I enjoyed wrapping it in cabbage or radish slices with spicy fermented vegetables and pickled jalapenos. When I got lazy, I just ate the ingredients individually over the purple rice.

$19 Haemul Pajun - shrimp, mussels, squid, crab meat, and scallion pancake: This is such a thick pancake, loaded with seafood. It was just slightly crispy around the edges with a very soft and meaty center.

$30 Kalbi - marinated barbecue charbroiled short ribs: Very oily and fatty, but very delicious and juicy. Definitely good with rice to soak up the fat.

If I happen to be in the area again, I'd definitely come back to try other menu items, such as the jangban guksoo or one of the chigaes. They look great. The food is delicious, but...

Oh boy. I'm going to start off by saying that I've never had bossam before, so I have absolutely no basis with which to compare Kobawoo's to. That said, my friend and I met up for dinner here last week, waiting for a little over an hour before being seated. Going with the seemingly two most popular items here, we ordered their:

Seafood Pancake - Not quite as good as some other places I've had, mostly because theirs was a bit on the mushier side, and I much prefer mine to be more crisp. Without the dipping sauce, there's nothing to write home about, but with the dipping sauce, they were fairly tasty.

Bossam - What Kobawoo is famous for. Again, I can't compare it to other places, but as general food dish, it was solid, though not particularly mind-blowing. Tender slices of pork belly presented with an array of veggies, allowing one to eat it any number of ways, but, ultimately, still just some combination of raw-ish veggies and pork belly, which makes it hard to get as excited as, say, with Taiwanese pork belly over rice.

Accessibility Info

Venue - A spacious restaurant, but a somewhat cramped one at that, as the tables are arranged in such a way that there's really only one path that allows access to all the tables. But, at least that path exists, so seating shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Bathroom - Didn't...

The short: known for their bossam. Hidden gem for their cold noodles and (for the adventurous) stinky fermented soy bean paste soup! Expect curt but diligent service designed for Koreans not American style customer service

As a kid this was my favorite place for bossam. My friends and family all still love it so would highly recommend.

As a vegetarian now, would highly recommend their 절반 국수 (jangban guksu aka cold noodles) and 청국장 (cheonguk jjang aka fermented soybean paste soup). Today was my first time back since being a kid and it's my new fave.

Noodle dish is refreshing with lots of fresh veggies mixed with a spicy + soy sauce. If you like bibimguksu it's in that lane of freshing noodles but much less spicy.

The cheonguk jjang is an acquired taste and not for everyone. If you like stinky, fermented soy beans that are super healthy with probiotics for your gut plus delicious like Japanese natto you will love this like I do.

Service is average like Korean restaurants. They are to the point and don't mess around with niceties or coming to check on you. Push your button and they promptly arrive to bring whatever you need. Some love this kind of service. Others find it rude. Just set...