Luxury: A Korean Restaurant Review

Seppo and I went to Luxury, a funnily-named Korean bun shik jeom in Oakland, across the street from Koryo Village. It's the kind of place younger kids stop for a snack between meals or adult drop by at for shots of soju or glasses of beer with some bar-type foods.

East Bay Express wrote up a pretty detailed review here.

I had a dduk bokki (fat rice noodles the size and shape of your pinky in a spicy red pepper paste sauce with fish cake and scallions) which came topped with grated cheese, to my huge surprise. But strangely, it worked really well. How odd. The rice noodles (dduk) were perfect! Too damn spicy (I will ask for it to be milder next time) but they were cooked to perfection: hot, tender, with a satisfying amount of chew. Seppo had yang yeom chicken (deep fried breaded chicken pieces coated in a sweet, spicy, and garlicky sauce), and we shared a hae mul pa jun (seafood & scallion pancake). It was nice and crispy. I couldn't really taste Seppo's dish because mine was so spicy and my tongue was on fire. But she had asked me if I wanted it spicy and I stupidly agreed. Heh. Now I know better.

The proprietor (she apparently owns at least two other restaurants!) was friendly and jokey without wanting to stand around having an entire conversation. We sat next to a non-Korean table and further down the room from another non-Korean table, and she was equally friendly to everyone, joking about how huge her dishes were, so I feel pretty confident that she'll be nice to you even if you aren't Korean, for those of you who have worried about dining experiences like that.

She also mentioned as we were leaving that they were going to expand the menu, so I told her we'd return. :D

I liked the place because it's yet another specialty restaurant that carried dishes that I wouldn't see in most other general Korean restaurants in the East Bay, and because it was tasty. You won't get a bajillion ban chan (side dishes) because it's not that kind of place, and you won't be able to order bbq, but I'll be going back to try their kal gook soo (literally "knife noodle" but means hand-made noodles made from flat sheets of dough that are cut with a knife, rather than pulled through fingers, in a meaty soup with potatoes) and soo jae bi (prob the same soup as the other one with hand-pulled non-filled dumplings dropped into the soup while it is bubbling).

Yum.