Normally, I'd say that you could use the banchan as a guide to see if a Korean restaurant is good or not. Kobawoo House is wonderful exception to that, because the side dishes really aren't all that. Fortunately, as you're digging into your mung bean pancake and other goodies, you won't notice at all.
The most prominent things on the menu at Kobawoo are the bosam pork platters, which offer up slices of that ubiquitous menu item, pork belly. The Korean twist comes in the presence of marinated squid and shrimp paste. All the ingredients are meant to be served inside of a sliced radish, akin to a tortilla. The marinated ingredients provide a healthy dose of salt while the the radish provides a nice crunch. The whole thing acts like a wonderful umami taco.
Not content with just the bosam, Erik and I decide to go for the whole broiled fish also. This type of dish is steeped in so much nostalgia that it's comfort food. Needless to say, I didn't grow up in a mac and cheese house.
To further distance ourselves from the horrible banchan, we also ordered the famous mung bean pancake (bin dae duk). Rather than possessing the omeletty consistency of most Korean pajeon pancakes, the mung bean pancake here at Kobawoo almost approaches that of a large slab of polenta. Truly, the piece of pork sausage on top only heightened the connection between South Korea and southern Italy.
I'm happy to find anything that bucks any trend, even if it means that I have to find a new way to calibrate how I measure Korean restaurants. Perhaps I should consider the bosam plate as the world's largest appetizer plate, in which case the apps here were awesome!
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