Speaker A
for korean americans according to the stereotype anyway it used to be that you grew up to be a doctor a lawyer an engineer there were a specific set of rules and expectations are you asking me to be in
Anthony Bourdain explores Los Angeles' Koreatown, Korean-American identity, the 1992 riots, and chef Roy Choi's Kogi food trucks.
Key Takeaways
- Koreatown's identity was shaped by immigration, economic marginalization, and the trauma and resilience of the 1992 riots.
- Korean-American identity involves tension between traditional family expectations and personal self-definition.
- Food serves as a bridge between cultures, as seen in Kogi's Korean-Mexican fusion and Koreatown's multiethnic dining scene.
What the video covers
- Bourdain introduces Korean-American identity and the stereotype of children expected to become doctors, lawyers, or engineers.
- The 1992 Los Angeles riots are recounted, including how Koreatown was left largely undefended by police and Korean-American business owners organized their own rooftop defense.
- Koreatown's history begins with post-1965 immigration, when many Korean immigrants, unable to transfer credentials, opened small businesses in underserved areas.
- Roy Choi, a second-generation Korean American chef, is profiled as the owner of several food trucks and restaurants.
- Roy Kim's family restaurant, opened in 1978, illustrates traditional Korean food culture and family dynamics.
- Korean barbecue, banchan, and table-side cooking are highlighted as central to Korean dining.
- Kogi, Roy Choi's Korean-Mexican fusion truck, grew from one truck into a restaurant empire, announcing locations via social media.
- The episode explores the diversity of Koreatown's food scene, including Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Oaxacan, and Pakistani restaurants.
- Dave Chang and others discuss the blend of cultural identity, humor, and family in Korean-American life.
- The episode closes with reflections on how Korean Americans navigate expectations, belonging, and the city's multicultural food landscape.
Chapters
- 00:00Korean-American Identity and Expectations
- 02:31Koreatown History and the 1992 Riots
- 05:13Roy Kim's Family Restaurant and Korean Dining Traditions
- 07:11Roy Choi and the Kogi Food Truck Story
- 10:10Venice, Breaking Tradition, and Second-Generation Identity
- 15:00Koreatown's Multicultural Food Scene
- 26:00Dave Chang and Family Life in Los Feliz
- 38:00Closing Reflections on Koreatown
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
a porno is that what you're asking me thanks to some remarkably bad koreans though things are beginning to change i went to one year law school and i walked out so you're a bad korean any final advice for someone who's
Speaker A
actually about to marry a korean woman the answer don't do it i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder [Applause] [Music] beautiful [Music] [Applause] [Music] shy all i knew was that this town was going
Speaker A
down and no one was showing up and so we as koreans figured that out really quickly there's a point where you and i look at each other and say they're not coming they're not coming tony you don't like it the choppers will
Speaker A
not be here anytime so that's when all the stuff started to go down roy choi is a second generation korean american he lives in los angeles he's the owner operator of four groundbreaking and much-loved food trucks among the first
Speaker A
to harness the strange and terrible powers of social media to alert customers to where to find delicious food [Music] this was the command post from here you know you could look and you could see if fires were going on
Speaker A
when the los angeles riots happened in 1992 roy was 22 years old and this plaza's rooftop played a central role for koreans defending their town but let's back up a bit after the immigration act of 1965 thousands of koreans began arriving in
Speaker A
la the first to arrive are mostly middle class college educated hoping to make a lateral move into american society but unless you had a medical or engineering degree that turned out to be tough they found work as merchants
Speaker A
store owners open liquor stores groceries massage studios dry cleaners they did that in an area that was as it's called underserved where major chains feared to tread where others prefer to abandon koreans moved in so 1992 [Music] four la police officers are on trial for
Speaker A
what sure as hell looked to me like a wildly excessive and prolonged beating of an unarmed rodney king in april of that year they were acquitted for me it was a holy [ __ ] i never saw that coming moment
Speaker A
for african americans it was a somewhat ruder surprise to say people were angry would be an understatement they don't represent the people no more south central's that way so you could almost feel it like a tidal wave coming
Speaker A
the lapd were completely unprepared for what happened next everything you see right here all this was being looted chairs and rocks and everything being thrown through walls if you go straight down western on venice the whole plaza burned on fire
Speaker A
we were calling 9-1-1 and there was no response did the cops come at all i was here all three days i didn't see any cops well where did they set up their front line rodeo drive where did the forces of law order set up
Speaker A
their perimeter not here koreatown was left to its own devices the official borders are third street on the north end olympic boulevard to the south vermont avenue in the east and western avenue to the west that's three square miles left pretty
Speaker A
much to burn or fend for itself this rooftop quickly became the command post for rapidly improvised korean defense forces they armed themselves set up crude but effective command and control communication and patrols we weren't going around just slugging and capping people
Speaker A
all that was happening was just don't break down my store making sure our parents our uncles our families these stores this town stays alive [Music] 58 people were killed only a quarter of korean-owned businesses survived either destroyed outright during the
Speaker A
riots or abandoned afterwards by owners who felt the entire underpinning of their contract with america had shifted yet today koreatown is bigger and better and forever changed by what happened in 1992.
Speaker A
[Music] dong zhang however is as unwaveringly old school as you get roy and i sit down with roy kim whose grandfather opened the place in 1978 like most korean restaurants of the time you didn't mess with the original
Speaker A
ever and like most korean father-son relationships you obeyed dad's wishes no matter what my father put all this you know redwood in and all this cherry and all this booth to this day i can't touch certain things here i can see he doesn't let you change
Speaker A
the uniforms either no yeah but he still controls the restaurant you just do the work i just do the work that's a korean we start with bonchon all those delicious little freebie plates of pickles preserves kimchi a spicy squid snack or two no
Speaker A
bonchon no meal you know what this restaurant has a lot of restaurants are going away from is the um there's the chairless rooms the feet under knees forward feet under the tee ceremonies the seating is okay that was punishment for koreans that's a
Speaker A
punishment and with the book over your head for hours what would a crime be what catch you in that uh position i mean it could be as as minimal as a 94 on the test korean parents well let's just say they veer towards
Speaker A
the script moms and dads were not shall we say conflicted about corporal punishment i love that you both immediately recognize this this is the roast weed this is what we're known as thinly sliced rare by marble oh it's beautiful rose gooey thin sliced
Speaker A
and bulgogi thinly sliced fat marbled beef barbecued tableside for us koreans is kind of funny that barbecue has become the gateway to our food though it could be worse i mean it'd be right at least it's delicious this is
Speaker A
delicious and we're like okay this is the this is the portal and we're cool with that in this kimchi bulgogi bokkeumbap basically kimchi fried rice but it fries into the pan like paella or so many great rice dishes with that
Speaker A
outer layer of crispy stuff is just the best the table side cooking i think people overlook that a lot you know this is like crepe suzette it's filleting a dover soul oh man this is ridiculously delicious will you be doing
Speaker A
this in 20 years it wouldn't change if we did change tonight i would get a complaint and you'd have to talk to your dad oh yeah that's a problem [Music] what do you do if you're a locavor in la
Speaker A
you look around what's local and delicious artisanal and authentic and as iconically la as it gets if you're roy choi you see tacos and with kogi truck roy choi brought one of the first great mutation mashups of korean and mexican to the people what
Speaker A
started as one truck became four trucks and three brick and mortar restaurants to go with them for me kogi was always one truck in my mind but then the lines got big you know then it evolved hola okay roy trained at the culinary
Speaker A
institute of america and interned at la bernado in new york city he runs his trucks like you'd expect of someone with that background within our food media landscape we've romanticized certain compositions of what a great chef in a great kitchen are supposed to
Speaker A
look and smell and feel like but just because those are beautiful doesn't mean that this is not beautiful for me i don't see mustard plants and sheep grazing i see barbed wire in telephone poles i see puddles and you know all of that
Speaker A
stuff contribute to the flavor of the food so it's truly what i call a terroir you know a regional food and they're off [Music] every lunch shift and every evening the truck's locations are sent out over twitter the locations change every day and
Speaker A
people flock quickly to find them as the lines can get long very long i took a run with roy as he made his nightly rounds so how often do you make the full circuit between all of your various enterprises twice a day every
Speaker A
day unless i'm doing something crazy like this it's kind of like i have a huge las vegas hotel but the hallways are the streets first stop chago a rice bowl place in the palms neighborhood these are my guys right here hola
Speaker A
kimchi spam classic yeah this is the menu right here a big bowl of rice with meat vegetables and lots of flavor for less than 10 bucks good deal i just wanted to see you so sentimental about the business of feeding people
Speaker A
it's a trippy state of romanticism like i'm very hard ass too like you pack your own [ __ ] you get what you get if you complain i take the food out of your hands i give you your money back
Speaker A
but within those rules there's a lot of love there's a lot of care across town in venice is a-frame roy's first brick and mortar this used to be uh ihop oh yeah yeah everything's really now heads the uh
Speaker A
the shape it's heavily influenced by local takes on hawaiian cooking not that you'd necessarily notice every dish designed to be eaten with the hands what's good the baby back ribs are air dried braised then breaded and fried ling cod tacos treated like shawarma
Speaker A
beer can crackling chicken its brine rotisserie then air dried like pick and duck then fried meanwhile not too far away on sautel a kogi truck pulls up stops reverses back to the corner before the awning is even up there's already a line
Speaker A
hungry people have been waiting in cars around the corner ever since the twitter announcement 30 minutes ago i feel guilty i'm jumping the line right wow what's the longest line you ever had 600 600 people for one truck
Speaker A
the kogi taco double caramelized korean bbq short rib on fresh corn tortilla with salsa roja cilantro onion lime relish and a napa cabbage romaine slaw in a chili soy vinaigrette [Music] oh yeah the the rep for kogi is that we
Speaker A
go everywhere we go to every single corner of the county and the city we're not just going to the hip areas what about fantastically what about bel air can you pull up like a corner in a residential area in bel
Speaker A
air what happens then do you get rousted or what no no they come out in the versace robe and uh i gotta think yeah yeah through beverly hills beverly hills at lunch is crazy why should you be excited about food
Speaker A
trucks because they allow creative chefs like roy without a lot of money to start creating and selling their stuff introducing themselves to the world without having to gather up a million dollars or credulous partners and they're affordable they're
Speaker A
democratic and they are faster better and infinitely preferable to fast food like the king and the clown and the colonel [Music] stereotyping coming look how do i put this good korean kids grow up to be doctors lawyers or engineers goes the story
Speaker A
there are expectations but what if you're a bad korean what if you were korean-american and you just didn't give up what if you looked around asked yourself who am i who am i supposed to be where do i fit in society and were
Speaker A
unsatisfied with the answers you were getting what if you were an insanely talented artist and a small startup company called facebook asked you to do some murals in their offices and they paid you with stock and you became ridiculously wealthy and
Speaker A
you still didn't give a well then you might be david shelton hi i'm dave joe you like me [Music] is that an ak pinata that is an ak-47 pinata wow so i mean this place is in downtown la
Speaker A
so i try to have as many weapons like hidden throughout i got ninja swords and ninja stars and you need a puppy man i do need a puppy i'm gonna paint you today is that cool yeah sure all right so just sit sit right there
Speaker A
and sorry don't usually paint this early in the morning okay [Music] i'm gonna go more expressionistic so you don't mind [Music] i want to know if you were on record you said you know young people are looking to follow your road to
Speaker A
success your advice is whatever you do don't date a korean girl oh okay i try to be open-minded about things right but well i'm racist you know for me i've given it a shot and then i end up in this situation where i feel
Speaker A
like i'm dating my mom so what characteristics in common were overbearing overbearing uh jealous unreasonable like unrealistic about life demanding like it's i mean i could go on and on but also the men too like if you're a woman i would never
Speaker A
recommend dating a korean guy for the very few women out there that are into asian guys if you are gonna go that route definitely go chinese [Music] yeah come check it out oh yeah whoa awesome [Music] wow i don't know what do you think dude
Speaker A
i'm honored i've never had my portrait done before thank you hey man and this [ __ ] gonna be worth some money on ebay for sure [Music] now i'm definitely ready for sizzler nice [Music] standing tall and prominent amongst the
Speaker A
many asian and central american restaurants in the community one place holds an unexpectedly cherished position in the collective memories of many second generation korean americans i am personally unfamiliar with the sizzler brand though i know it by name
Speaker A
but never have i managed to actually cross its doors wow how are you doing today i'm doing fantastic i have my sizzler outfit on so here's the thing you can get like a steak and then add the salad bar
Speaker A
with it you get the best bang for your buck or you can just get the salad bar i gotta have a little bit of steak all right i'm gonna go traditional and just get just the salad bar [Music]
Speaker A
excellent oh yeah four for your elders oh now you're getting all korean yeah super embarrassed right now because we're in korea town and i'm taking you to eat at sizzler which for a lot of koreans is the best food in
Speaker A
korea town if you eat non-korean this was it we never ate out ever and if we did it was mcdonald's and if it was a birthday and a special celebration you want to kick it up a notch and go a little bit more special
Speaker A
than it was sizzler [Music] this is a judgment-free zone where there are no mistakes a world to explore in congress combinations without shame or guilt free of criticism from snarkologists because there are no snarkologists at sizzler obviously here's all the accoutrements
Speaker A
for making a nice nacho taco salad and here's all the stuff for like pasta pasta spaghetti whatever the move is you get a hard taco shell and you put meatballs in it this is italian mexican dining and you
Speaker A
make a meatball taco and there's nowhere else in the world where you can have this you put three meatballs in the taco some guacamole and then you put all this nacho cheese all this other stuff all right i know what i'm doing i'm
Speaker A
going for the full south of the water experience here all right oh there you go i don't know i'm looking around here oh yeah now we're talking my friend it's a little bit nicer than i remember there it is
Speaker A
that's the best bread that you can get so you tell me if you like that oh no wait a minute are you saying that the cheese toast is complimentary it's complimentary and once we found that out we would order stacks of it so it was
Speaker A
our favorite part of scissor and we're like we need to figure out how to manufacture this at home so were you good sizzler customers your family do you think they were happy to see you when you come in i mean
Speaker A
i love this dish man when i go back i might have to have a meatball taco i mean so we did we like gooched the system a little bit but not like completely abused it there would be the
Speaker A
guilt associated with we never eat out but now we're going out to eat so you better eat you got to put down at least three plates so what do you think of the bread it's delicious yeah totally get why this would be a
Speaker A
wonderland everything's really good for you sizzler a happy place still lots of memories it's satisfying we need more this cheese bread [Music] something dave cho and roy choi have in common is that they may be korean-american but they are also very much creatures of
Speaker A
la and what is la la is mexican central american filipino vietnamese thai samoan bangladeshi everybody has left their mark continues to shape the town determine its character k-town exists right outside its latino neighbors and i guess it's natural that both cho
Speaker A
and choi identify very much with mexican street culture [Music] few things embody that particularly southern california and latino street culture more than low riding estevan oriole is a photographer chronicler of everything iconic at the crossroads of hip-hop design tattooing fashion and low riding
Speaker A
the old-timers that used to cut the coils or put bricks or sandbags in their trunk to make them lower and then around the 70s is when it got popular why these particular models of cars it's pretty much always been late 50s all the way through
Speaker A
the 60s and into the 70s and then the 80s came up they started bringing in the cadillacs and the regals the most classic well-known car for low riding is probably the 64 impala how many korean low riders are there
Speaker A
there's a few asian ones sprinkled in other clubs more asians more more koreans than 15 years ago we're seeing a crossover with the food right for the most part things are starting to get a lot more open if you're asking i think there's
Speaker A
going to be a lot more asian hispanic mixed babies coming up in the future i'm mad at that ideal low riding is about getting appreciated by the people who best appreciate the traditions and techniques the getting it right for that you head
Speaker A
to east la [Music] the most famous notorious street in la is uh whittier boulevard because of the history of it and then finish off boulevard in south central so that's going to be your most critical audience and about adam sage i'm most
Speaker A
appreciative yeah the ones that you want to see your car it's a slow-moving piece of art and you treat the car like a piece of art acutely aware of the dangers cops for whom you are a target potholes other cars in east l.a you see
Speaker A
people ooh and ah you see expressions change from is that a nice rock sounds like a full-fledged gang member you know giving us like props giving us respect you know first you build a car for yourself but at the same time you're building it for
Speaker A
the streets you know you're building for the people you want them to appreciate [Music] within the borders of koreatown it's not just koreans there are new arrivals every day there is in fact an official little bangladesh right in
Speaker A
the middle of k-town oh man this is also it's so good uh yeah this is gonna work so you're not short of options around here you can get tacos across the street korean bibimbap right next door and then get goats too you can pray to
Speaker A
muhammad or buddha a tiny mosque next door where services are held five times a day i was talking to a guy in the parking lot i said this is the first little bangladesh in america yeah and that just happened like two
Speaker A
years ago like we went to sleep we woke up in a little bangladesh [Music] here at sawada step right in for some curry goat samosas tandoori chicken oh yeah and this lowry fish curry with no small amount of chilies it's such fragrant aromatic
Speaker A
delicious food what good food are you likely to find within the confines of koreatown we have el salvador and guatemalan all around korean is all throughout pakistani in bangladesh food uh oaxaca takes over all of eighth street why
Speaker A
oaxaca just fits the way it works out you know how it goes probably one guy showed up yeah filipino fast food just behind us and then a bunch of riff wraps in between filipinos i'm very proud of their food
Speaker A
underrepresented i think they're going through kind of what we went through where the glass hasn't been broken yet to translate it but still keep the core and soul of it but it tastes delicious a few blocks over the iconic filipino fast food chain
Speaker A
jollibees laugh all you want but ask any filipino they love this drive-through mutation for specialties like this fried spam sandwich thing but it's the desserts where it gets really crazy decisions decisions yeah here we go uh we'll take one aloha
Speaker A
burger and then one spam little big bite let's do a halo halo that's it okay all right [Music] oh look at that what is what what is this uh hollow oh yeah hollow hollow dig deep and you hit delicious stratas of red
Speaker A
beans white beans and chickpeas cubes of red and green jell-o young white coconut shaved ice and is that flan it makes no goddamn sense at all i love it part of every pinoy filipino's life halahala nazi man i got to take a
Speaker A
picture of that it's oddly beautiful all right all right you know i'm getting a bite of that little sweating what is it it's a little big bite little big bike favorite thing in the world no don't say that
Speaker A
that's actually i like that it's good right aloha i mean it just sounds magical is it like pineapple in there or something yes hence the aloha that's a very tasty burger nice char asian pastry it's fast food but
Speaker A
it's made by like it was just a single family owned restaurant what family made this yeah maybe maybe not your family i like it it's actually very tasty every single thing you like here wow there's so much i don't know
Speaker A
[Music] it's true dad we all look the same i love it he may be a korean gone bad but dave cho still tries best he can to be a good son he bought them this house in los feliz
Speaker A
and visits for family meals often in fact when we first met sensing it had been a long time without a true home-cooked meal he invited me to dinner with him so guests are not unusual jane cho is an amazing cook it's going
Speaker A
to be very delicious mom dad look who's here hello can you smell something oh yeah good stuff yeah all the good stuff honey maybe somebody gonna hire me later okay which ones are you the obvious i'm the middle i'm the
Speaker A
suicidal pirate no already signs of trouble my older brother's the hip-hop santa and my he was the oldest right he'd beat me up i beat him up and then he would just cry i'll show you my dad's painting hey dad
Speaker A
yeah hey come over here for a second would you paint this dad 30 years ago uh 73 1973. every christmas he unrolls it um and just like scotch tapes it to the wall my mom's the artist in the family
Speaker A
now so this is a family of artists the chose are devout christians which is not unusual in the korean community but they are unusual in that they're both artists of a sort jane treats the house like an ongoing art project drawing
Speaker A
sunglasses on family pictures stapling angels to dave's paintings that have hung in the white house getting crazy with the glue gun adorning wreaths with happy meal toys sticker bombing the kitchen with birds cows spaceships piloted by her three boys she
Speaker A
is relentlessly energetically and inarguably creative she brainwashed me from the time we were kids she she was like you're the best artist in the world you're the best artist in the world you are oh thanks but now she's telling me she's
Speaker A
going to be the best artist in the world so she's very competitive she says she's going to destroy me awesome [Laughter] food is ready so you want to explain what everything is mom the food i prepared tonight is a very
Speaker A
common korean food kalbi tim which is a beef ribs the stew the kimchi is looking fresh yeah kimchi is fresh today is chestnut rice no one has this kind of rice special rice that's your rice for tony no
Speaker A
and then stuffed peppers oh that's david's favorite chung po mook seaweed and jelly mung bean japchae vermicelli noodles with shiitake mushrooms and vegetables avocado egg rolls fried squid and shrimps potato pancake often at the show house there's a few mexican dishes sprinkled
Speaker A
in as well it is always a great meal i can tell you that thanks mom this is delicious this is awesome it is indeed thank you i love it during the riots of 92 jim and jane cho worked as real estate agents and
Speaker A
property managers so the destruction in koreatown had a direct impact on their lives the chose watched from home as the chaos unfolded on tv after the riots jim wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the la
Speaker A
times i'm extremely angry with the lapd for their outrageous action while the cops let looters run live and rape our city they somehow had time to bother korean shop owners guarding their stores how can the owner of business
Speaker A
just sit back and watch his life be burned to the ground david would have a very different reaction my brother stole a car and we went into like all the neighborhoods and then quickly realized it wasn't like about race it was just about people
Speaker A
stealing stuff and but we were out looting we were causing chaos and you know i don't think we got anything good i think i got a tv stand was it life-changing for you it's like you grow up and you things are
Speaker A
explained to you like here's police they're not doing anything they're supposed to do you're just like normal men and women of society like just acting like animals and i was like oh everything i've like been taught and learned my whole life is
Speaker A
just disintegrating before my eyes but in the end we're you know from great disasters come great things right i mean korea town burned down but it's like we own la now it's like half of l.a now it's korean culture k-pop and psy
Speaker A
all over the world in france you know the filmmakers call it all the top korean filmmakers oh yeah um what about me yeah artists right yeah accepting you sorry david it's incredible today i went into all the ways different
Speaker A
ways you guys used to beat us when we're kids the stress positions like you know yeah but all the korean punishments what's remarkable to me is that every kid right i mean all korean kids yeah all korean kids the same position
Speaker A
holy you either hold a book oh yeah that's the way we learn from the generation to generation we don't know why to take a peek into the dark heart of the korean psyche maybe it helps to get familiar with han
Speaker A
it's a concept that for non-koreans can be difficult to fully grasp all right you want it here we go han denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds it connotes aspects of lament and uneven
Speaker A
injustice wow in some occasions anthropologists have recognized hannah's cultural specific medical condition someone who dies of hanus is said to have died of papillon it's a heartburn it's hard wow i mean it's been described to be in a way that
Speaker A
made it sound benign that this is a burning uh sense of injustice besiegement and and desire for revenge the han is the reason why like we are who we are but it's also the same reason why i won't marry a korean woman
Speaker A
you never know no i know he's cute main drag of k-town another mini mall among many karaoke no this is the best dumpling spot in town my mom would just order all these dumplings and just like leave them on my door because she's not
Speaker A
allowed in my house and then i just said where are you getting these you know my mom likes to withhold information so i finally got it out of her dumplings where they serve a mix between korean and chinese
Speaker A
each plate handmade to order my friends opened in 2007 on olympic boulevard it's run by yujin a korean by way of shenyang province in china been coming here for about two years now there's no one ever in here
Speaker A
every time i've ever come i don't understand how they're open they're the best dumplings i've ever had maybe people just get them to go right they all look like buttholes actually but kind of yeah pre-prolapse wong mandu king dumpling thick dough
Speaker A
stuffed to the gills with pork kimchi and vegetables precisely made weighed and crimped steamed until soft eat wow that's nearly the size of your head yeah you know it's like pizza i'll eat them cold too right save two and have them for dinner
Speaker A
and mandu smaller with thinner dumpling skins served with red chili paste what's the dessert one that's got red in it wow oh these are delicious these are just like so huge before so would this be classically post-drinking food or pre-drinking food
Speaker A
laid out a base of absorbent material yeah i mean there's a lot of bread here i don't really drink i'm just falling under peer pressure right now i'll be one of the cool guys so [Music] i like this place already good signage
Speaker A
it's important yeah the sign's awesome if that sign does not sing to you then we cannot be friends mari hi hi david how are you this is my uncle tony this is mari hey guys this is uh harry
Speaker A
kim aka guam cruise there's more koreans right here some friends of cho seem to favor this place they are a thirsty and diverse bunch i'm asking everybody stress position as a child did you have to do the uh you know they
Speaker A
went right in right into it yeah stress positions you did that there's this too the speed with which they assume the position wow what if your arms get tired they make you do it again another one 45 minutes
Speaker A
the whole thing is doing it again look i'm not korean i'm not asian i'm a white boy from the suburb but i noticed something over time in my k-town adventure similar anecdotes you might say you know they've done this quite a bit so they
Speaker A
came up with a new one i was very aware that all my korean friends no matter how creative or successful seemed strangely haunted by something but i never knew this how do you do it oh the tongue it goes it goes up the ass like this
Speaker A
it's like opening up an umbrella inside someone you do this to your friends or colleagues or colleagues do you think it's hilarious and adults do that to each other what the hell that's about i can only guess cheers by the way
Speaker A
korean's gone bad you're korean now officially [Music] pretty much any korean you meet anywhere you can take it for granted they like food that they're passionate about food particularly their food which of all the immigrant cuisines has probably been
Speaker A
messed with the least unlike many other new arrivals koreans seem to have been the most unwilling to accommodate western tastes maybe that's why it took us so much time to love this stuff beverly tofu house like so many of
Speaker A
k-town's finer establishments is tucked away in the corner of a strip mall this is one of my favorite spots where i've been coming for almost 20 years this is a soup that's just like this kind of korean but it's really more
Speaker A
l.a so this is not a direct transplant from korea it became what we're about to have here in l.a university they're different because of the ingredients we couldn't find but never thinking about pleasing the american palette just to make ourselves happy
Speaker A
is the thing to get a fiery tongue-searing ass-burning tofu soup that'll make you forget every bad thing you ever thought about tofu a spicy spicy red broth and tofu are the base we're we're talking soft tofu here with the texture of like
Speaker A
burrata and from there you got a handful of variations but the most common is with kimchi and a bit of everything beef oysters mussels clams oh and tableside they crack an egg in there right in there cool that looks
Speaker A
completely awesome well we better wait for this to cool i'm guessing yeah so how do we eat this what do you spoon it over yes put it over rice just mix it in that's good yeah full tofu should be spicy by my way
Speaker A
of figuring so good yeah koreans can well remember when nobody was interested in their food now it's confusingly okurong must be strange for the owners who just been doing what they've been doing for years like for example like us
Speaker A
sitting here like this the questions a lot of people are asking me in korean like i'm telling them we're filming you know we're trying to show a piece of koreatown the number one question is they're not mad or vindictive is why
Speaker A
it's still why it's like why why would we be interested why would you be interested why would you waste your time there's other things to do it's extraordinarily beautiful and delicious but see that's the thing is the beauty is just already a given it's
Speaker A
already part of the fabric so it's like why i congratulate you you know there's no reason to congratulate you because this is like what we do it sounds awful honestly it's interesting totally chilly totally joyless yeah what did your parents want you to
Speaker A
be when you grew up for me uh doctor lawyer right obviously not a doctoral lawyer did you finish college i finished college and i went to one year law school and i walked out right so you're a bad career i love that
Speaker A
if i was a mediocre accountant it would be better than being a top chef according to who according to korean culture according to korean uncles and aunts and it's just it doesn't register that that is a profession you know i wouldn't have to explain
Speaker A
myself if i just said i was a cpa right never you know that's that's that's weird you've still got some explaining to do still to just get it across that i that i cook and that there was this
Speaker A
phenomenon that happened on the streets of la that changed and opened up korean culture to to the world what does it mean to be korean-american does one create one's own world i don't know that i'm any smarter about
Speaker A
that now than when i first came to k-town in the middle of the night and discovered a strange and fabulous and delicious slice of america i'd never known was there but i'm trying to figure it out [Music] [Music]
Speaker A
you
Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownKoreatownLos AngelesKorean AmericanRoy ChoiKogi1992 LA riotsfood documentaryKorean food
