Counter: It's sizzling, from Mapo Galbi to Costa Mesa

Counter: It’s sizzling, from Mapo Galbi to Costa Mesa

Cabbage and hot sauce are srirred into the Chicken Galbi dish.

July 18, 2015 12:05 AM PT

Salutations,

Koreatown is home to scores of restaurants that specialize in one dish. Mapo Galbi's specialty is dak galbi, a spicy stir-fried chicken, a sweet-hot mountain of meat that is served with cabbage and rice noodles.

In my column this week, I visit Mapo Galbi, where the waitresses dump big bowls of marinated chicken on smoking hot pans on the table as part of the lengthy cooking ritual. Should you stir it yourself as it cooks? It couldn't hurt.

Elsewhere in the feed, Jenn Harris checks out a place in Costa Mesa where teenagers are working a pop-up, S. Irene Virbila contemplates the wine list at David LeFevre's newish steakhouse and we offer up a round-up of restaurants that offer their own versions of soft-serve.

And be on the lookout for Wednesday's In the Kitchen newsletter, with cooking tips and news, including new recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.

—Jonathan Gold

Spicy chicken in Koreatown

This week Jonathan checks out Mapo Galbi in Koreatown, an old-school Korean barbecue joint where you don't have to worry about the menu — just order the chicken, sit back, watch the Dodgers on television and wait for some pretty amazing food. Lots of vegetables and hot sauce and, after your initial feast, your server will dump rice into the grill pan and make you fried rice for your second feast. Lucky you.

Vegetables that will go into the grilling pan along side some cold Barley Tea at Mapo Galbi.

Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times

High schoolers in the kitchen

Jenn visits the Waffleholic restaurant in Costa Mesa, where teenage chefs are cooking sous-vide salmon with tarragon and lemon compound butter over cauliflower rice as part of a pop-up called Class Kitchen — because some 17-year-olds not only cook better than you do, they also cook better than many veteran chefs.

The Class Kitchen pop-up restaurant in Costa Mesa.

Aimee Rueda / For the Los Angeles Times

What to drink in Manhattan Beach

S. Irene Virbila considers the wine list at the Arthur J, chef David LeFevre's newish steakhouse in Manhattan Beach. There are more than 200 wines, many of which pair very well with red meat, which you'd expect. But there are also some finds. All of which is made even more fun by the fact that the wines are organized according to old movie stars, including Jayne Mansfield: Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.

Steak and red wine at the Arthur J in Manhattan Beach

Marie Buck Photography

Nyesha Arrington opens a restaurant

If you've been following chef Nyesha Arrington's career — Melisse, "Top Chef," Wilshire, "Knife Fight" — you've probably been wondering when she'd finally open a restaurant of her own. Arrington is about to do exactly that, opening Leona in Venice at the end of the month.

Leona

The emperors of soft-serve ice cream

Soft-serve has been around for a long time, probably since the founder of Carvel started selling melting ice cream after a flat tire in the '30s. But these days it's showing up at more than soda fountains. Some pretty terrific L.A. restaurants and dessert shops are making their versions. We check out eight of them.

A cone of Honeymee's milk ice cream and honeycomb.

Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times

What we're reading

Hypoallergenic peanuts? How new research into allergies means that some people could be able to finally eat peanuts, from Modern Farmer.

Chairman Mao and mangoes. Or, fruit as propaganda, from Lucky Peach.

Check out the thousands of recipes in our Recipe Database.

Feedback?

We’d love hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com

Food

Jonathan Gold

Jonathan Gold was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2007 and was a finalist again in 2011. A Los Angeles native, he began writing the Counter Intelligence column for the L.A. Weekly in 1986, wrote about death metal and gangsta rap for Rolling Stone and Spin among other places, and was delighted that he managed to forge a career out of the professional eating of tacos. Gold died July 21, 2018.