Searching for Koreatown
Michelle Zauner, Korean-American author of the memoir Crying in H Mart and lead singer and songwriter of the Indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, recently described Korean Food on a podcast (Good Food with Evan Kleiman) as a cuisine of extremes. “The seafood is freshly caught and often still moving, soup is served scalding hot and still bubbling in cauldrons, cold food is served in bowls of ice, it’s really red, it’s really spicy, it’s super flavorful,” and there is no shortage of garlic.
I suppose its extremeness is why I’m so attracted to it. It can be like a hardcore, yet loving, face-punch of flavor, and while I consider myself a highly-sensitive introvert, I also conversely crave “more feelings”. Kind of how I often feel lonely but hate being around a bunch of people. (Sorry, people, I just do.)
I mean no offense to the cooking I grew up with. We were well-fed and it was my mother’s willingness to allow me to cook with her that birthed my love of sustaining people with food, but the dishes I ate as a child was somewhat non-adventurous. My mother, raised on a farm in the Midwest, learned to cook from scratch at an early age but she did not see that as a gift. There were no short cuts, high-end appliances, or conveniences that made cooking easier. They were poor, and to her, cooking from scratch felt like she was announcing to the world that they did not live a life of convenience. As a young housewife in the ‘70s, she embraced canned vegetables, the microwave oven, and was well-known in our church as the casserole queen. Just know that for various reasons, I grew up longing for a deeper connection with flavor.
I’m jealous that Michelle had that connection growing up. I’m also jealous when my Korean-American cousin, Jodi, shares a post on Facebook featuring dishes her surrogate Korean Ummas have taught her to make, though she’s taken the trouble to travel all the way to Korea, so I really shouldn’t give her too hard a time. She’s earned it.
Lakewood’s Cheong Guk Jang restaurant is famous for their budae jigae, but I settled on a boiling hot bowl of soft tofu soup.
As far as happy childhood food memories go, I have not been neglected. I have them in abundance, they just center around things like fried potatoes and cabbage, green bean and hot dog casseroles, and biscuits and gravy. My mother made a mean gravy and mine will never be as good as hers. What I do share with Michelle is the fact we both lost our mothers too early to cancer, and that our memories of them are intrinsically connected to the food we cooked and ate with them. I’m reminded of my mother with every meal I make. I think she would probably turn down most of the fiery explosions of Korean flavor I’m currently enjoying, but not without first trying it at least once.
It is mid-July in the Pacific Northwest but our little corner of western Washington, on the southernmost point of the South Puget Sound, it’s still chilly in the mornings and evenings, which means I still haven’t packed away my sweaters and sweatshirts, and I’m still on the hunt for really good soup. Lucky for me there is a lot of Korean soup slurping opportunities super close to my little apartment in Lacey, WA.
Since I moved to the PNW, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between the two food meccas of Portland and Seattle. There is no end to the culinary goodness these cities provide. And just when you think you’ve narrowed down your favorites, new culinary creatives burst onto the scene with innovative techniques and ingredients. It makes keeping up with your ever-increasing list of “restaurants I must try before I die” laughable. That doesn’t keep me from trying. But when I want really good Korean food, I don’t have to travel that far. Perhaps surprisingly, the best K-Town outside of L.A. (in my humble opinion) is in Lakewood, WA - a suburb of Tacoma.
From the mid ‘60s to the early ‘70s, immigration restrictions on Asian countries eased and tens of thousands of Koreans flooded into the country, leaving behind a war-torn country and joining friends and family in L.A. before expanding to the PNW. Many Koreans who moved north settled in the Tacoma area, and a small coalition of Korean women in the Lakewood area started a social club called the Korean Women’s Association. Moving to the states was a huge adjustment and the Association created a safe place to provide fellowship and inclusion. It also created opportunities for restaurants and markets to begin springing up.
Seafood pajeon, banchan, spicy beef stew, and rice-cake dumpling soup at Lacey’s Seoul Garden restaurant - one of my favorite local spots.
My Korean Food Google Map is made up of mostly soup and stew spots that dot a four-mile stretch of Lakewood’s South Tacoma Way, but don’t worry - a lot of spots also have the charred and grilled meats we all lust after and that Korean BBQ is famous for. A smaller Koreatown has more recently cropped up as well as Tacoma’s Federal Way, so you’ll see some spots I like up there as well. The restaurants are small and cozy and specialize in soondubu (soft tofu soup), sullungtang (ox bone soup), and budae jigae (army stew) that chases away even the cloudiest day here in the PNW.
If I don’t feel like driving north 20 minutes (I always feel like driving, even with these gas prices), I’m lucky in that I can enjoy super solid Korean food right here in Olympia as well. You can view that list here.
Eating out at amazing restaurants always inspires me to cook at home. Me forcing my family to enjoy some banchan (lotus root, fennel, bean sprouts, potato salad) and barbecue.
