Yongsusan (Acrovista branch)

On Wednesday last week, a wonderful foodie friend of mine introduced me to a restaurant in Seoul called Yongsusan.  There's a branch in Los Angeles (950 S Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90006, 213 388 3042) -- anyone within driving distance of this place should go.  And if you don't go on your own, I will make you go when I come back.

The food served is modern Korean, based on Kaesong style traditional food.  The decor is modern Korean at this particular branch (Acrovista -- which is near the JW Marriott), with traditional Korean tables (small and short) used to create modern tables and used as decoration on the walls.  Below is the place setting.


Sea weed soup.  This was light and tasted like the ocean (minus the gagging saltwater experience).  It's difficult to describe, but it was like essence of seafood.


Tofu encrusted with black sesame seeds. I'm not a fan of tofu normally, but these were slightly crunchy, light, and oh so delicious.


The next course was bean sprouts with dried persimmon (the orange stuff in front), with noodles with bean sprouts (in back).  First, I had a bite of each separately.  The persimmon one was slightly sweet.  Then I combined the two for a totally different flavor.


Then there was this dish.


Which became these little guys. Which were dipped into a mustard sauce.

Next was a dish with pork marinated in a slightly sweet sauce, white kimchi, and radish.

Combine the pork, white kimchi, and radish into an amazing combination of salt and sweet.

Next was the Nine Gods dish, which was a broth with all sorts of delicacies inside it, including walnuts, shrimp, oysters, fish cakes, and other goodies.  There was a special shaped spoon that we used to eat this that fit into the bowl.






















And then there was tempura.  Things dipped in batter and fried always taste better.  These are peppers stuffed with minced pork with some herbs (bottom part of the plate) and oysters with kimchi (upper part of the plate).


Jellyfish salad with mustard sauce.  The mustard sauce was sinus clearing, kind of like a large dose of wasabi. There were also small slices of beef and mushroom, plus finely julienned cucumber.  Jellyfish salads are really like noodle salads, and if you didn't know it was jellyfish, you'd think you were eating noodles.


Even more tempura... shrimp and ginseng.  The ginseng has a consistency similar to that of a sweet potato, and has a very slight gingery tang to it.  I've had it in samgyetang, and to me it has a woody taste to it that I'm not particularly fond of.  Shrimp tempura... 'nuff said.

Seafood and vegetable skewer with shrimp, squid, mushroom, and broccoli in a light teriyaki sauce.


Galbi, or ribs, that fell off the bone.


Kimchi, which was brought out just before the main course.  Yes, the main course.  The main course is considered to be the rice or noodle dish at the end.

These are the side dishes that came out with the main dish.  From top clockwise, freeze dried squid, garlic tops in red pepper paste, and dried anchovies.  The garlic tops (you know, what you get when you let the garlic sit for too long in the pantry), are kind of woody in texture.  They look kind of like green onions, but they didn't have as much of a tang to them as I thought they would.  The freeze dried squid are salty and semi-sweet at the same time.


The main dish.  In this case, I opted for the hot noodles.  The choices were hot noodles, cold noodles (potato starch noodles with red pepper paste), or rice (sort of a rice porridge with water added to the rice where a crust is allowed to form at the bottom of the pan).  The hot noodles are thin buckwheat noodles, with a small bit of kimchi and some shredded beef brisket.


The dessert...  Rice cakes.  The one on the left is kind of chewy, with a light flavor to it.  The one on the left has a half a cherry tomato in it, so when you bite it, there's a burst of tomato flavor mixed in with the rice cake.

With the rice cakes came this drink made from grapes.  This is nothing compared to the Welch's grape juice found in the grocery store.  It was sweet, yet light, and really tasted like fruit.


Even though this all seems like a ton of food, it really wasn't.  Each of the courses ranged from one to three or four bites each.  The noodles were not that plentiful.  It was just enough food to feel comfortably full at the end.  This was also one of the most memorable meals I've ever eaten.