WASHINGTON — One of Jay Park’s more vivid memories of growing up in Korea was his daily stops at a pojangmacha, or food cart, after school for a rice, fish and scallion cake, called Dukbokki.
“It was like a routine. Before I got home, after getting off of school, I ate [it] every day,” Park says. “I believe most Koreans, they have this kind of a memory.”
When Park moved to the U.S. eight years ago, he searched for something similar to the Korean street food he grew up on, but never really found it.
At the height of D.C.’s ramen boom in 2012, Park and business partner Jonathan Cho opened the ramen restaurant Sakuramen in Adams Morgan. And while Park says ramen is, to some extent, a Korean street and comfort food, he still wanted to give Washingtonians a taste of the foods and flavors that came off the pojangmachas.
Last week, Park got his wish when he and Cho opened BUL, a Korean street food-inspired restaurant, also in Adams Morgan.
“With this restaurant we can show people … real Korean street food,” says Park, who adds that the only difference between BUL and a pojangmacha is that the food at BUL is prepared with high-quality ingredients.
While D.C. is home to a handful of Korean restaurants, Park says BUL is the city’s first one focused exclusively on street food. It serves items such as fire-grilled skewers of prawns, chicken meatballs and sausages. Park’s favorite Dukbokki is available, as is Cho’s preferred Busan Odeng Tang (which is called “hangover soup” on the menu).
The kimchi on chef MyungEun Cho’s signature fried rice dish is made weekly by Park’s mother, using his grandmother’s recipe.
“Sometimes my mom wants to get some rest, so Jonathan’s mom will get down here from Philadelphia and she’s making kimchi,” Park says.
BUL’s non-alcoholic beverage menu includes three different flavors of D.C.-based Craft Kombucha, and its alcoholic beverage menu (expected soon) will feature cocktails, sake, soju and magkeolli.
And while diners can score sides and skewers for street food prices, the restaurant’s entrees — which include Korean-style barbecue beef short ribs; chicken thighs served on cast iron with vegetables, red pepper sauce and sticky rice; and a three-mushroom bibim bap — are more on par with typical entrée price points, but the portions are sizable.
BUL is open Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.
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