As I have previously mentioned, I subscribe to BlackBoard Eats, which means that at least once a week, I get an e-mail coupon offer for up to 30% lunch and/or dinner at some NYC restaurant. I always get excited when the offer is at a restaurant that I'd been wanting to try and a few weeks ago, Judd and I headed down to the West Village for dinner at Do Hwa with our 30% coupon in hand.
Do Hwa, on the corner of Carmine and Bedford Streets, describes its menu as Korean home cooking. I'm not sure I know the difference between Korean home cooking vs. Korean restaurant cooking since the only Korean food I'd ever had was at Madangsui in K-Town, a bustling and ambience-less restaurant where the food is cooked on the grill in the middle of your table and served by actual Korean people (they looked Korean at least -- I didn't check any passports to confirm). Do Hwa, on the other hand, has a sleek, and fairly contemporary decor with a dark, L-shaped bar and a more brightly-lit dining room. Only four of the tables have that trademark grill-it-yourself feature, and we didn't get one of them, which is fine with me since I'd prefer to have someone else do the work and smell like a barbeque if I'm going to pay for the food, even with a 30% discount. Also, unlike the servers at Madangsui in K-town, each member of Do Hwa's ambiguously ethnic and androgynous wait staff had on loose-fitting black tee-shirts and black pants; our unshaven waiter donned a knit cap and geek-chic glasses to complete his Williamsburg hipster look.
I had checked out Do Hwa's menu ahead of time, but still had no idea what to get when our waiter casually stopped by to take our order, so we asked for his recommendations and STILL had trouble narrowing it down. I knew I wanted kimchi (a traditional Korean condiment made from spicy fermented cabbage), something barbecued, and bibimbop (a rice dish with many ingredients and spicy chili sauce in a hot stone pot). As a result, and as is often the case when we have a 30% off coupon, we ended up ordering far too much food for two people, almost all of which I am delighted to report, was excellent.
To start, we shared mandu gui (pan-fried beef dumplings), kimchi pajun (kimchi scallion pancake), and mak gooksu (cold buckwheat noodles with sesame kimchi). The dumplings were the least exciting of our three appetizers -- despite being crispy and fried (a combination I almost always enjoy), they didn't have much flavor, so I ended up drowning them in the salty dipping sauce. The kimchi pancakes, however, were amazing. Crunchy and still soft, with big pieces of kimchi throughout. I was surprised that the vegetarian pancake was so expensive compared to the other appetizers ($9.50 when the dumplings were only $8 and the noodles were only $7), but we had the coupon, so they were only $6.33 to me. The cold buckwheat noodles were a refreshing temperature and texture contrast to our two fried selections, and I was glad to sample a different flavor of kimchi.
For our entrees, we shared classic bibimbop with beef and a fried egg and deji bulgogi (spicy pork barbecue with chiles). When the bibimbop arrived, our waiter stirred it all together with the chile paste, turning a bowl of rice topped with multiple exotic looking ingredients into something resembling fried rice. I honestly am not sure I could tell you what was in there besides the rice, egg, beef, and sauteed vegetables, but I am now officially a bibimbop devotee, despite its extremely silly name (no disrespect, Korean speakers).
The barbecue, which I don't think was actually barbecued on any kind of coal or flame, was a hair greasy for my taste (perhaps because we selected pork?) but nonetheless quite delicious. It arrived sizzling on a cast iron skillet, not unlike a fajita, and was served with fresh lettuce leaves, sliced chiles, and miso sauce. I love the idea of wrapping things in lettuce, but it is always such a messy endeavor (lettuce can't withstand heat and tears so easily) that I usually don't bother. The barbecued pork was also served with more kimchi and an assortment of "seasonal side dishes," many of which I suspected could contain fish or fish parts, so I steered clear of those.
My one complaint about Do Hwa would have to be their chopsticks. Think longer thinner knitting needles. It was quite a challenge/nearly impossible to get rice and slippery buckwheat noodles into my mouth using such thin round chopsticks. I almost asked for a fork, but feared the dirty look our hipster waiter might shoot my way.
Overall, I really enjoyed Do Hwa. I am glad I strayed outside of my French-Italian-Mexican comfort zone, and I even spotted a reality TV star, known to many of this blog's readers as my old friend Charlie, and his handsome fiancee in the process (all the cool kids hang out downtown).
**
Details:
Do Hwa
55 Carmine Street
New York City
(212) 414-1224
Korean home cooking for two: $80 (pre-30% discount)
No comments:
Post a Comment