**Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown | Los Angeles | S01 E02 | All Documentary — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown-los-angeles/

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

1. 00:00 Korean-American Identity and Expectations
2. 02:31 Koreatown History and the 1992 Riots
3. 05:13 Roy Kim's Family Restaurant and Korean Dining Traditions
4. 07:11 Roy Choi and the Kogi Food Truck Story
5. 10:10 Venice, Breaking Tradition, and Second-Generation Identity
6. 15:00 Koreatown's Multicultural Food Scene
7. 26:00 Dave Chang and Family Life in Los Feliz
8. 38:00 Closing Reflections on Koreatown

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why were Korean business owners especially affected by the 1992 Los Angeles riots?

Many Korean immigrants ran small businesses such as liquor stores and groceries in underserved areas of Los Angeles. When rioting broke out after the Rodney King verdict, police response was limited in Koreatown, and many stores were looted or destroyed, leaving owners to defend their property themselves.

What is Kogi and why is it significant?

Kogi is a food truck founded by Roy Choi that combined Korean and Mexican flavors, such as kimchi tacos. It grew into a multi-truck business with brick-and-mortar restaurants and helped popularize fusion food and social-media-based restaurant marketing.

How does the episode portray Korean-American family life?

The episode shows traditional expectations, such as deference to parents and career pressure, alongside warmth and care. It also presents younger Korean Americans who push against those expectations while still maintaining family ties.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:02

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

00:14

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

00:25

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

01:16

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

01:27

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

01:43

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

01:57

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

02:14

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

02:28

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

02:51

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

03:04

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

03:17

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

03:32

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

03:46

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

04:03

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

04:23

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

04:42

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.

04:57

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

05:13

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

05:29

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

05:47

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

06:02

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

06:16

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

06:34

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

06:47

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

07:00

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

07:15

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

07:31

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

07:50

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

08:10

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

08:26

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

08:40

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

09:06

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

09:22

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

09:41

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

09:59

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

10:11

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

10:29

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

10:48

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

11:06

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

11:23

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

11:41

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

11:53

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

12:05

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

12:18

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

12:48

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

13:02

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

13:15

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

13:46

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

14:04

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

14:27

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

14:41

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

15:00

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

15:25

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

15:49

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

16:05

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

16:24

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]

16:42

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

16:53

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

17:04

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

17:26

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

17:37

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

17:50

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

18:06

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

18:17

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

18:30

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

18:40

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

18:53

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

19:23

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

19:44

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

20:17

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

20:32

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

20:52

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

21:05

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

21:23

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

21:40

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

21:57

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

22:14

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

22:38

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

22:53

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

23:05

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

23:26

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

23:43

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

23:55

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

24:11

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

24:27

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

24:44

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

24:59

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

25:15

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

25:30

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

25:59

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

26:21

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

26:36

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

26:59

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

27:15

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

27:28

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

27:42

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

27:58

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

28:11

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

28:29

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

28:46

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

29:05

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

29:21

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

29:36

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

29:58

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

30:16

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

30:27

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

30:40

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

30:57

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

31:18

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

31:30

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

31:42

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

31:57

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

32:15

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

32:29

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

32:58

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

33:11

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

33:29

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

33:48

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

34:07

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

34:34

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

34:52

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

35:05

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

35:20

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

35:36

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

35:48

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

36:02

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

36:14

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

36:46

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

37:00

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

37:11

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

37:28

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

37:43

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

37:59

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

38:15

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

38:31

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

38:43

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

38:56

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

39:12

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

39:24

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

39:38

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

39:52

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

40:04

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]

40:36

Speaker A

you

Topics: Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown Koreatown Los Angeles Korean American Roy Choi Kogi 1992 LA riots food documentary Korean food

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