| rev:text
| - With Kkulmat Korean Kitchen and TangTangTang opening up in recent weeks, Korean food in Las Vegas has taken a turn for the better. While KBBQ is all over the place and recently opened restaurants have taken towards improving the scene, non-BBQ restaurants have been hit and miss and most of them lean towards being bars before restaurants.
There are a few options around Las Vegas that have good Korean food, but Kkulmat and TangTangTang legitimately have the taste of Korea in their cooking, with very little to no lean towards "fusion." When I eat at these places, I think of my mom's best dishes or eating in Korea or perhaps Koreatown in LA.
TangTangTang has only been open a couple of weeks, but word seems to be getting out that there is a Sulleongtang-specialized place in Chinatown. The very professional wall signs made me suspicious this was a chain or had an established base somewhere else and I couldn't help but ask and learned that there are locations in Korea. So this one probably isn't as mom and pop as a lot of the Korean restaurants, but brings with it some history and an established menu.
Sulleongtang (an ox-bone soup that is light in flavor - you add your own salt, green onions, and whatever kimchi or radish you'd like), Naengmyun (Buckwheat noodles either served with spicy sauce or in an ice-cold broth), Ddukguk (rice cake soup optionally with dumplings and such), and Galbijjim (a stew featuring braised short ribs in a rich thick broth with veggies) are among the dozen or so options that are featured on the menu (with varities of almost all of these). They also have Bossam, which isn't particularly common which is a steamed pork belly served along with condiments and is traditionally eating wrapped in lettuce, though we didn't have wrapping lettuce when we tried it. Additionally, they have some BBQ plates like LA Galbi.
We haven't had a chance to try everything (and probably wouldn't ever try it all) but the Sulleongtang is solid. I found the broth a little thinner and lighter in flavor than ideal (for the best I've ever had, nothing competes with Han Bat in Los Angeles), but when mixed all up still creates that marriage of flavors that makes it very satisfying. Don't be shy about adding salt and green onions and throwing in your rice and kimchi. One thing that is particularly nice is their brisket is the best I've had in this type of soup (it's often an afterthought compared to other parts of the dish). Oh - the kimchi here is delicious with a strong garlic flavor and a satisfying sweetness to it.
My personal favorite so far was actually the Kimchi Dumpling and Dduk (rice cake) soup. It has a ton of flavor enhancing the flavor of the Dduk and Dumplings and was very satisfying. The egg and brisket complete the dish well.
The Bossam was quite good, though we felt the pork belly was a little overcooked. Instead of being melt in your mouth, the meat was a tad tough. When eating a piece with more fat than meat, it was a little better.
Lastly, we tried the Gamjatang in Hot Pot form to be shared. Pork neck-bone stew is not my personal favorite, but it was pretty decent with the meat falling off the bone and plenty of potatoes and other veggies with lots of spices added. Still, it's a little too much work for me to eat!
Service was quite adequate, with servers generally on top of things. However, I will note that the first day we went they were out of Sulleongtang and were running out of Bossam so we had to get the smaller portion. For a place that hasn't been open long, understandable if a little frustrating. Still, it didn't take away from our experience as we were able to try more dishes this way.
Prices are definitely reasonable - Sulleongtang alone is plenty to feed a person and is priced at 9.99. Other dishes are generally around the same price or a little more expensive with most of the individual portion sizes not exceeding 11.99, while bigger share-sized stews hitting almost 30 dollars and Galbijjim (which is normally quite expensive) nearly 40 dollars.
I was surprised this place didn't get much coverage - but nearly every table was occupied at lunch on a Saturday so I think the word is getting out there. I'd recommend this place to anyone looking for some solid Korean food that isn't fusion, bar food, or BBQ and along with Kkulmat have definitely upped the quality of available options in Las Vegas. If you haven't tried this type of Korean food, you're are definitely missing out!
Now we just need some better Jajangmyun places!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)