BCD
It's 2 AM in downtown L.A., and you just got out of the club or bar, happily buzzing. Tacos? Nah. Dirty dogs? No thanks. What I want is some soup damnit, and I want it now. Some hot soup to fill that alcohol filled stomach of yours as well as to give yourself some time to sober up for the drive home. Where to go?
Welcome to BCD, a worldwide Korean soondubu chain, and many are open 24/7. Booya. It's not my favorite place, but I've found it to be pretty consistent and good.
This visit however was not one of those aforementioned nights. My cousin took some of us other cousins out for dinner here a few months back.
As with a lot of tofu joints, you're served a small yellow corvina and some salad as an appetizer. Forgot to take the picture until after I ate most of it.
Cousin A ordered the combo which included spicy raw crab (geh jang). Not the greatest picture, I know sorry. You gotta work alittle bit to get that gelatiny goo out of the shell. My cousin didn't like it too much, and I thought the same. They used too much gochoo jang (red pepper paste). It's not that it was too spicy, but that the paste kinda overwhelmed the rest of the flavors.
I ordered the usual, kimchi tofu soup, spiciness level: hot. If you've never had soondubu before, they give you a raw egg, which you plop in the small boiling cauldron of soup right when you get it and allow it to cook. I found this visit to be pretty good. I always can go for some tofu soup and rarely find one I don't like.
No pics of the banchan, but there were just a few of two kinds of kimchi and perhaps some bean sprouts. I forget. You get about 5 different things here.
The rice comes out in the small stone pots they were cooked in, and some warm tea is poured inside after your rice is scooped out, giving a satisfying sizzle. The result after a few minutes is a sort of rice crust soup. Yea, it's pretty much just rice and water lol. But if you asked me what I consider to be one of my top comfort foods, I'd say it would be this. I learned it from my grandma and ma. In fact, I just had that for lunch the other day w/ some kimchi and potatoes. My dad thinks it's horrible haha.
BCD
3575 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010
or visit the site to find the closest one near you
Now if you'll excuse me. I got some home made shikhye to attend to. Post to come. Holla!
2 rah rah rahs:
I love gochoo jang but even that's a bit much for me on the crab. The kimchi tofu soup looks like the perfect thing to sober one up after a long night of clubbing. Whom and I kidding. It's been so long since I went "clubbing." Do they even use that term these days? Hell, I'll just go soak my dentures now...lol!
Ooh, I saw one of these in the Diamond Jamboree plaza and have been wanting to try it out next time I go to Irvine.
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