Although we're lucky to live in a restaurant-dense city with more than 38,000 eateries just a Metrocard swipe away, there are cuisines that have yet to achieve benchmark status in the five boroughs. And though there's nothing wrong with ordering from your favorite Chinese takeout or corner pizzeria every night, expanding your palate can lead to some surprising discoveries. For example: North Korean cuisine.
The United States doesn't have a diplomatic presence in North Korea, but you can sample the rich, rustic cuisines of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea right here in multicultural Queens. You might be asking yourself, "How on earth can North Koreans have a cuisine of their own when they are barely able to feed themselves—or leave the country?" or "I'm not paying $100 to fund the next plutonium enrichment plant." But let the truth be told: this may be the closest you can get to North Korea without hiding in Dennis Rodman's suitcase.
Inside Yang Ji Chon restaurant (36-14 Farrington Street—note that the restaurant awning is labeled Ming Xing BBQ) located just north of downtown Flushing, customers can sample the hearty tastes of Yanbian, the Korean Autonomous region located right across the border, where many of the ethnic Chinese have descendants from North Korea. While Yang Ji Chon serves Chinese food, many of its dishes are North Korean-influenced, as many Joseonjok or Chaoxianzu (Chinese Koreans) settled in Northeastern China during the early 20th century to escape Japanese oppression.
The restaurant has a rustic-modern feel to it, with long sofa booths containing built-in charcoal grills at their centers. The moment you walk inside, you'll smell the rich cumin from the BBQ lamb skewers permeating the room.
After you sit down, you are offered barley tea, a Korean staple, though other alcoholic beverages like OB beer from Korea and Soju are readily available should you require them.
Opt for the lamb BBQ skewers, beef BBQ cartilage skewers, bean paste stew and the Korean cold noodles. If you're lucky, the restaurant will also have a supply of sheep's heart on hand, so be sure to ask. The side dishes are average compared to the ones you'd typically get at a Korean restaurant. Pickled cabbage is marinated in a very light, subtle, slightly sweet and tangy soy sauce, very different than the spicy dishes you may encounter in K-Town.
The mild but flavorful bean paste stew or (Doenjang jjigae in Korean) is less pungent than its Southern counterpart but the tofu and aromatic vegetables accompanying the stew give it balance and heft.
"North Korean cuisine is similar to South Korean cuisine but there are some distinctive differences," explains Julien Borer, a 22-year-old Swiss man who lived in North Korea and acted as a tour guide there. "North Korea geographically has always been historically less fertile than South Korea and factoring in the harsher winter than the South, there is more emphasis on peas and water vegetable dishes like sprouts and a less emphasis on spicier dishes."
When asked about North Korea's famous dish, Julien adamantly replied, "While Naengmyeon is popular during the summer in the South, cold noodles actually originated in the North and there is even a song about eating Pyongyang Naengmyeon noodles symbolizing longevity."
There are no portable BBQ stoves here, nor anything distinctively Korean BBQ-related (think Bulgolgi or Kalbi). Servers bring the marinated skewers, which the diner places on top of the charcoal grill. Instantly, flames will start shooting up from the fat spilling over onto the flame—so watch your clothes! The beef cartilage, although chewy, brings a unique taste and texture compared to our usual conceptions of tenderized Bulgolgi. Once cooked, you can dip the skewers into a slightly spicy cumin powder offered by the waitress. Though they're utilizing wood, there's actually very little smoke.
The Korean cold noodles, a light way to finish off a meal, are also uniquely different than the typical Korean restaurant in that they're tangier and sweeter. The noodles are decent, but it's the broth that will have you raving, even though it's "less mustardy" compared to the ones in Pyongyang, according to Borer.
For another taste of North Korean, try Sol Hyang Gee (136-73 41st Avenue), one of the older Yanbian-influenced restaurants in the city, having served the Korean community for many years.
The restaurant is small and lined with wooden booths against white and exposed brick walls; it looks much more Korean than a Chinese restaurant. Like Yang Ji Chon, the restaurant has a built-in metal box in the middle of the table where they put the hot wood charcoal used to grill the skewers.
The staff at Sol Hyang Gee can speak fluent Mandarin and Korean and can converse in English; the menu is also fully translated into English. The waitstaff seemed pretty accommodating with the Swiss guy and Cantonese guy during our visit and it's pretty awesome to watch them conversing in multiple languages.
The crowd here is obstreperous and diverse. Drunken Chinese committing debauchery over BBQ skewers, couples canoodling on a date and a blue-collar family mingling over their newfound hole-in-the-wall spot.
Try the marinated raw beef in cilantro (think Korean beef tartare), beef tripe salad, and fried potato dumplings. The marinated raw beef was totally different to the Koreatown staple, featuring lots of cilantro and beef marinated in a spicy radish sauce that's both tingly spicy and numb spicy at the same time. The beef tripe salad, although a bit Chinese, isn't chewy like some tripe and also has a spicy kick to it. The fried potato dumplings—which are really hunks of bread dipped in condensed milk and fried—are a good, hearty way to end a meal.
Randy Fung is a Millennial and dying breed of native New Yorker who loves to eat nothing but Spicy Cumin Lamb Noodles from X'ian Famous Foods and Sugar Rice Donuts from Peter Pan Bakery. His recent travels to North Korea piqued his interest in the fascinating and delicious food culture he found there.
