Moo Bong Ri Soondae Guk

Sausage Los Angeles

A cartoon pig near the entrance was cannibalistic, and after eating the herbed blood sausage and soondae guk made from his brethren at Moo Bong Ri, it was understandable. Moo Bong Ri has been around since 1997, and it’s become one of Korea’s most frequently franchised restaurants.

In L.A.’s Koreatown, their combination platter was clearly more impressive looking, with concentric rings of sausage on a hot stone plate and a heap of boiled pig parts in the middle. However, it was Soondae Guk ($7.99) that packed more punch. The steaming bowl of cloudy broth arrived unseasoned, loaded with slices of two different blood sausages (a firmer, darker, milder version and loosely-packed, herbaceous links), plus a panoply of pork offal, including stomach and tongue. They provide English instructions for “non-spicy” or “spicy hot” versions. Either way, add Korean sea salt, ground pepper, green onion and ground perilla seeds. They alluded to spoonfuls of salted shrimp, but we didn’t see any. To enliven the bowl, we added dadegi (hot chile paste) and two types of crunchy, pungent, scissor cut kimchee: cabbage and kaktugi (aged daikon radish). We skipped the Serrano peppers, satisfied with our level of spice and pungency. The bowl, which didn’t look like much once it arrived (as you can see) became alive with color and layered flavors, kind of like a supercharged sul lung tang.

Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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