Hamjipark

Hamjipark is a family-owned Korean restaurant with a branch for each generation.

The parents, Hwa Shin Kim and Young Sun Kim, opened the original Hamjipark 10 years ago on a bleak stretch of Pico Boulevard. Although dark and rather faded, it still attracts plenty of customers with its good home-style food, including some of the best Korean-style barbecue pork short ribs in town.

Now there's a new Hamjipark on West 6th Street, run by the Kims' daughters, Mimi Cho and Eunji Kim. Their mother, Hwa Shin, shuttles between the two locations. The menus are almost identical -- including those fabulous short ribs.

People like the new restaurant because it's lively and has very good, decently priced food. As a result, there's often a wait for tables.

Spotting the new branch is tricky if you don't read Korean. Look for a bright little coffee and boba place called Ice Kiss. Hamjipark is the restaurant right next door to it.

The decor at the new restaurant is smart and contemporary, with an open ceiling painted soft vermilion, ducts and all, and boxy stainless steel vents over each table, because each is graced with a barbecue grill.

Its front room is open to the street, but I prefer the glassed-in back room, where you can hear orders shouted from the counter to the kitchen. It's cheerful fun, like a sushi bar.

At either branch, almost everybody orders the barbecued pork short ribs. Appetizingly browned (in the kitchen, not at the table), they're slightly sweet and spicy and so succulent that you want to gnaw every scrap from the bones.

At the original Hamjipark on Pico, the waitress actually brings you a pair scissors to cut the meat off the bones. That's too refined for me: I enjoy chewing the bones.

A friend ordered "pork BBQ," expecting the hotly seasoned sliced meat you get at most Korean restaurants. He did get pork -- but it turned out to be thick pieces of raw, uncured bacon to grill at the table. It cooks up plain but appealing, if you like meat with fat.

Pork is the restaurant specialty, but the most costly dish is marinated sirloin. It doesn't have the sort of sweet Korean-style soy sauce marinade that you can buy bottled at the supermarket, but rather a subtle one of oyster sauce, sesame oil and garlic. Most of the dish's flavor comes from grilled onions and a well-salted sesame oil dip. Try some kimchi with the sirloin -- the kimchi spices stay in the mouth and spice up your next bite of beef. Then move on to the cool lettuce salad that comes with this and other meat dishes, and you'll have an interesting flavor package.

Among the other dishes, I liked a spicy stew of kimchi and pork surrounded by thick wedges of tofu to tame the intense flavor. Another spicy dish is gamja tang: pork neck meat and potatoes in a pot of hot red sauce. Pungency isn't the only appeal of this dish; the meat is so tender it practically dissolves.

A raw egg tops kimchi sotbol (kimchi, rice and beef in a heavy stone bowl). The egg cooks as you stir it into the mixture -- the stone bowl keeps the food from cooling off. Koreans eat spicy, sturdy dishes like these even in hot weather.

Six side dishes, including three kinds of kimchi, accompany meals at Hamjipark. I'm addicted to Hwa Shin Kim's cabbage kimchi and usually take some home, but the shredded radish kimchi is wonderful too, both sweet and hot. A chunky radish kimchi, less sweet than the shredded version, really fires up your mouth. The other side dishes vary from day to day. I've seen broccoli salad, chile-marinated green beans, a sort of coleslaw with ham, slivered shiitake mushrooms that were rich and meaty, and a slightly sweet, garlicky dish of sliced green squash. Marinated soy bean sprouts are almost always there.

Hamjipark doesn't do dessert, not even the simple orange wedges often served at other Asian restaurants.

The main beverage is roasted wheat tea, as fragrant as a sunbaked field of grain. Served iced in summer, it's better with food than the fanciest bottled water, in my opinion. Other drinks include bek se ju, a traditional wine made from glutinous rice and medicinal herbs including ginseng. The slightly bitter herbal taste cuts pleasantly through this intense food.

The new Hamjipark is a casual place where you can drop in alone for a quick bite, take kids or meet friends after work. The open air main dining room is nice for summer. And at either place, the ribs are worth a stop any time.
Hamjipark
Best dishes: Pork short rib BBQ, pork neck and potato soup, kimchi sotbol, marinated kimchi with tofu.
Prices: Main dishes, $7 to $17.
Details: Park in the garage around the corner on Catalina Street. Beer, soju and Korean wine.

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