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Hanjip banchan

Stephane Bombet is on a roll. First, he opened Terrine. Then, he opened Viviane. Just a week later, he opened Hanjip restaurant, an elevated Korean barbecue experience in Culver City.

Bombet and Chef Chris Oh of Seoul Sausage fame are offering top-notch meat, seafood, sides and banchan right in the heart of downtown Culver City, giving the Westside a new KBBQ option. But Hanjip restaurant is definitely not your run-of-the-mill Korean barbecue joint.

In addition to the marinated and non-marinated beef and pork, there’s also beef tongue (which I didn’t think I’d like but ended up loving), lamb, baby octopus, hamachi collar and gigantic Carabineros prawns. Oh, the prawns. Huge, sweet, tender. And expensive at $88 for a plate of three, but hey, it’s the holidays!

Carabineros prawns

Also in the pricey column is the Tomahawk chop topped with foie gras butter. At $120, you’re definitely splurging. But what a splurge it is. So much meat, so much umami.

Tomahawk chop

Hanjip also offers some great side dishes, from the traditional seafood pancake and kimchi fried rice served in a tin box (shake it up to get that eggy goodness all over) to the fancy uni steamed egg and bone marrow cheesy corn. The banchan offerings aren’t as extensive as other KBBQ joints, but the selection here is well-edited and includes the addictive pepper-and-garlic-sauce-lathered dried squid dish ojingeochae-muchim. I could eat that all day.

Kimchi fried rice

Uni steamed egg

Bone marrow corn cheese

As a Westside restaurant that caters to a more mixed clientele, Hanjip’s interior is a bit flashy and a bit funky, perfectly reflecting Bombet’s and Oh’s personalities. The only thing about this place that weirded me out was how the server cooked all the meat for us, which meant there was someone leaning over our table for the better part of our meal. Maybe Hanjip restaurant feels this is necessary for the guests who aren’t used to this kind of dining experience, or maybe this is meant to be part of the elevated offerings, but I could do with less of this babysitting. Let me at the meat!

Note: This meal was hosted.

The new kid on the block in Culver City, MoKo, quietly slipped in to town in late April when it took over the former Gyenari space. The switch happened in a matter of about two weeks, when a truly modern Korean (get it?) restaurant replaced one that tried to be forward-thinking but ended up being stagnant. That’s why Gyenari owner William Shin made the change, along with partner Chris Heyman (Table 8, 8 Oz. Burger Bar) and Chef Gary Robins (formerly of The Biltmore, The Russian Tea Room and Aja in New York), who created a menu that’s contemporary without being overwrought.

We were recently invited to check out the new menu, which features updated versions of Korean ban chan, ssam, jeon and many other traditional Korean favorites. Don’t worry — the grills from Gyenari are still in place, so you can get your barbecue fix, too. And the cocktail list includes some nicely crafted drinks, too.

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I was skeptical of CHAM at first. Whenever there’s a contemporary take on Asian food, I wince a little. Not because I’m against the idea, per se, but because such a feat is usually poorly executed. Not so at CHAM, which offers a mix of traditional Korean dishes, such as bulgogi and japchae, and Korean-inspired dishes, including a persimmon salad and fried calamari tacos. OK, so the execution is decidedly for American palates, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. Actually, CHAM’s food would be a great introduction to Korean food for those not familiar with it.

My favorite dish of the night was actually a non-traditional one. The watermelon salad with arugula, watermelon, feta cheese, figs, mint and a mint vinaigrette was refreshing and all kinds of delicious. My only complaint was the large watermelon cubes, which made it a bit hard to eat, but the combination of the juicy fruit with the other juicy fruit of figs, along with the saltiness of the feta and spiciness of the arugula, made me overlook that. This is a must-order salad.

Watermelon salad

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