Dong Baek

This Korean place in the Tenderloin doesn't get much attention, but in all honesty it's not too bad. The best time to go is lunch, when you can get your choice of meat and an array of panchan (sides) for under $10. Dinner will be closer to $15, but it's a lot of food.

Panchan, the reason most people go to Korean restaurants. Dong Baek had a nice variety: marinated bean sprouts, napa kimchi, two kinds of daikon kimchi, baby anchovies, fish cakes. The notable things missing were sesame spinach, mung bean noodles, and the batter fried fish a lot of Korean restaurants serve. But you can't really expect every restaurant to have all those things.

There was also romaine lettuce and doen jiang (stinky bean sauce) to go with one of our entrees.

Kimchi soon tubu: kimchi tofu stew. It came with a few oysters and bulgogi in it. Not spicy enough for me, and not enough of either fish or beef flavor. Don't get me wrong, it was plenty good: the tofu was very soft and tender, the portion was generous, and it was nice for them to have both meat and seafood in it even though it was listed as just kimchi soon tubu. It just wasn't magical. And where was my raw egg? They usually give you a raw egg to crack into the clay pot while the stew's still boiling.

Bulgogi: a bit salty, and a tad on the dry side. Tasty, huge portion, but again not magical. What was surprisingly good was the rice. Perfectly cooked, good quality short grain Japanese rice. This was the one thing in the whole meal that made me say wow. I love a good bowl of rice. This was better prepared than a lot of sushi rice I see these days.

Dong Baek makes fine food. The hot food's hot and the cold food's cold, which counts for a lot in my book. However, it all lacks sparkle. It's food that a busy Korean mom would throw together on a weeknight, and that her family would eat to get full on. The family wouldn't complain about it, but the family wouldn't compliment the mom either. And for $15 after tax and tip, I'm not able to complain or compliment either.