Restaurant Review: Okdongsik serves two things, and both are excellent

I don’t think I ever understood how a meat broth can be the foundation of a restaurant’s reputation until I ate the dweji gomtang in Okdongsik.

Located on the southeastern edge of Manhattan’s Koreatown, Okdongsik is almost a replica of a restaurant in Seoul with the same name, a variation of the name of their chef and founder, Ok Dongsik. Both Okdongsiks are small spaces where everyone is served at one counter. (The New York location has 13 seats, three more than the South Korean original.) Standing cards feature the gloriously simple two-item menu, though there’s not much need for that. Everyone gets the dweji gomtang.

Every time an order comes in, a cook behind the counter places steamed white rice in the bottom of a polished bronze bowl. Pork broth is poured over the rice and then a few slices of cooked pork are placed over the surface along with chopped scallions. On the side is a small bowl of cabbage kimchi and a rust-colored dab of gochuji chili paste. This may sound like a pretty spartan soup, but every part of it is excellent, and best of all is the pork stock. I can’t remember the last time I tasted a more delicious liquid that didn’t contain at least some alcohol.

It is said that Okdongsik’s soup is made from only aromatic vegetables and muscles, with no bones, offal or trimmings that can thicken and cloud the broth. There are no fat globules on the surface and the light golden color is reminiscent of wheat beer or the iced barley tea that Okdongsik pours out for everyone sitting at the counter. There’s no blunt, heavy, animalistic smell and taste of the kind that pork stock can give off, especially in the first hour or so on the stove. The broth tastes like beef, chicken, mushrooms or tomatoes – none of which are necessary to make it.

The Manhattan version of Okdongsik arrived in November as a pop-up in collaboration with Hand Hospitality, the group on track to own or command half of New York’s Korean restaurants. After the initial run ended in April, the restaurant transitioned from pop-up to long-term status.

mr. Ok opened his original restaurant in western Seoul in 2016. At the time, he cooked enough soup for 100 bowls every day. When everything was sold, lunch was over and the restaurant closed for the day.

Many Korean restaurants excel at one or two dishes, but their menus still offer dozens; loyal customers know exactly which ones to order. Few have menus as radically slimmed down as Okdongsik’s. mr. Ok is a super specialist of the kind the United States rarely produces.

The soup he makes is a combination of two Korean dishes: the clear meat soup known as gomtang and soup prepared with boiled rice, called gukbap. Beef gomtang is a staple of both home cooking and restaurants. Dweji gomtang, made with pork, is much less common. But apart from that, Mr. Ok’s gomtang draws attention to each element, making a bowl of soup seem more than a bowl of soup. The rice, cooked al dente, is not starchy or lumpy and has a subtle and slightly floury flavor of its own. The pork, a thick-veined shoulder of a Berkshire hybrid, is sliced ​​almost as thinly as prosciutto from a salumeria in Parma.

After simmering for hours, the pork is more tender than flavorful. This is where the gochuji comes into play; smeared on a slice of meat, it’s both savory and smoldering. The menus on the counter do not recommend adding gochuji to the broth. Do what you will, but keep in mind that the precisely balanced broth is why people in Seoul line up and people in New York reserve to sit at this counter.

If you want more spice, you might find it in the kimchi. Barely fermented, the cabbage is sweet and crunchy and juicy; with no competition from salt and acid, the little pink specks of crushed chiles can go straight to work and start little fires on your tongue.

If you want more meat, you can double the pork portion for an extra $8. (The standard size is $18.)

And if you want to eat more, there’s that other item on the menu: mandoo. They are almost as delicate as the soup, their filling of pork, tofu and glass noodles half visible under translucent thin and satiny wrappers.

Whatever you order, it’s almost impossible to make a meal at Okdongsik last more than an hour. If it’s evening, you have the option to walk through the door at the end of the counter. I did this one evening and discovered that all along there had been a small, unmarked cocktail bar with no windows – scrolled woodwork, vintage glassware, shelves of gin – behind the door.

Another time I went the other way, out the front door. On the sidewalk, I discovered I was experiencing something like the exact opposite of indigestion. The Korean word for this sensation is siwonhan mat, a feeling of pleasant well-being from having eaten a light, carefully balanced meal. I learned this later. At that moment, all I knew was that I felt great.

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