The Corner Place, aka “Gil Mok” in Korean, has been on a K-town side street since 1982, in a strip mall that most people have never seen, myself included. Thankfully, Matthew “Mattatouille” Kang has been eating here since he was a kid, so he knew to come here. The décor is simple: lime green walls, marble tabletops with built-in grills and brown booths. There’s a second Corner Place in Cerritos that is apparently fancier. Still, the crowd at this location was fairly fashionable, and the unadulterated barbecued beef was simple but high quality, clearly some of the best in town.
The menu offers only 19 dishes. The only question was which cuts of beef to order.
“Gook Soo” means noodles in Korean. The thin white noodles were similar to vermicelli, floating with scallions, julienned cucumber, sliced tomato and jalapeño. The recipe is a closely guarded secret. Matt said an old woman arrives at The Corner Place early in the morning to make the broth. Adherents speculate about what goes into the soup. The only ingredient that’s pretty much confirmed is 7 Up. The other certainty is that the broth was habit-forming, which is especially impressive given the lack of meat.
Plenty of local diners now consider Park’s the gold standard for Korean barbecue in Los Angeles. That nearby rival may offer Prime cuts of beef and twice as many banchan, but The Corner Place is still very good, and more reasonably priced.
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