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Welcome to the Warung Cafe

Warung is the Indonesian word for a small shop or food stall. I’ve eaten at such stalls in Bali and Java--simple places, open air, often a bit rickety, nothing like the Warung Café in downtown Los Angeles.

Dark, with a spare Japanese look, bamboo pole dividers inside and leafy bamboo outside, Warung Café is a smart new addition to the blossoming restaurant scene in downtown Los Angeles.

What it doesn’t have is Indonesian food. The name Warung was inherited from a previous place so inconspicuous that I never saw it, even though I worked nearby.

What it does have is small plates of Asian fusion food, wine, sake and soju drinks, including an espresso martini so powerfully flavored that the restaurant is likely to be mobbed by java addicts. It’s new, not on the printed menu yet.

The mojito, which is on the menu, isn’t bad either. It’s made with soju, a lemon-flavored  aloe vera drink from Korea, and fresh mint.

Warung’s food borrows from Thai, Indian, Japanese and Chinese cuisines. There’s a wonderful plate of crispy tofu bites, made with tofu imported from Japan.  Airy and dry rather than soft and moist, these addictive little nibbles are embedded with shichimi (a Japanese spice blend) and sesame seeds. They come with peanut sauce for dipping and sweet and sour cucumbers.

A pretty salad combines shredded baked tofu, green and orange papaya, red  bell pepper and cucumber with a spicy lime dressing.

Sometimes fusion food seems like a weak relative of the cuisines from which it borrows. Not so Warung’s Indian chicken salad.  It’s a fresh concept, hardly Indian at all, although it includes a hint of Madras curry powder and basmati rice along with greens, vegetables, crisp wonton pieces and a sesame dressing.

Warung could have resorted to the usual miso-glazed black cod  but opted instead for cod with curry sauce and Chinese five spice on a bed of coconut basmati rice. Tuna tartare with wasabi mayonnaise and avocado is delicious. And there’s a good tuna tataki salad.

Even premium meat comes in small plates. Warung’s grilled filet mignon is as good as it gets, a tender, thick cut of steak with a green apple teriyaki sauce. Instead of mashed potatoes, it is paired with fluffy mashed taro root, rich with cream and butter. 

Baby lamb chops are notable too. The three tiny chops are marinated with an Asian pesto (ginger, basil, mint, jalapeno). served with baby arugula and drizzled with yogurt-cumin sauce.

Can’t decide what to order? Three set combinations make it easy. But individual dishes are so reasonably priced, from $3 (baby vegetable crudités)  to $10 (the steak), that creating your own combination is affordable.

Then you’ll want to have dessert, perhaps a wonton-wrapped banana eggroll with vanilla ice cream and caramel walnuts or a luscious crème brulee that incorporates coconut strands so that it can pass as Asian fusion food.

Warung Café, 118 West 4th Street (between Spring and Main Streets), Los Angeles, CA 90013. Tel: (213)  626-0662. Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 5 p.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Feasting on Kalbi Chim

Getting invited to a home-cooked Korean dinner is a rare honor any time. But this night, the main dish was to be one of my favorites--kalbi chim, a succulent, slightly sweet and irresistibly good dish of braised beef ribs.

My friend Sejung Kim had offered to cook. Knowing how much I like kalbi chim, she had consulted with Seong Yeon, a friend in Seattle who is expert at this dish.

The ribs, rice and a salad would have been enough, considering that it takes three days to make kalbi chim properly. But no. Sejung cooked everything else she could think of to make an extraordinary Korean meal.

The food was beautiful, like art work. Just one example—kamja bokkeum, strands of potato and bell peppers woven into an artful design.

We started with a soup. toenjang jjigae, based on a delicate broth made from anchovies and kelp. Into this, Sejung had put cubes of beef and potato, tofu, zucchini, shiitake mushrooms and onions. And of course toenjang, which  is fermented soy bean sauce--Korean miso.

Most Korean restaurants serve marinated bean sprouts, sukju namul, and Sejung had made them too, seasoning the blanched sprouts with rice vinegar, sugar and sesame seeds.

We also ate dried young fern shoots (kosari) in an appetizing blend of soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds and green onions—basic seasonings for much Korean food.

There were sliced Persian cucumbers marinated with spicy red pepper paste (kochujang), garlic and sugar. And white kimchi, mild and delicate rather than spicy with red pepper.

Plain rice would have been fine, but Sejung had made an ornate dish of short grained white rice combined with both sweet and regular brown rices and black beans.  This is called kongbap, kong meaning beans and bap cooked rice.

The vegetable dishes may sound simple, but some of them required hours of preparation. The kosari for example, had to be soaked, rinsed, boiled, soaked again, then sautéed.

The highlight, of course, was the kalbi chim (sometimes the dish is spelled kalbi jim,  kalbi tchim or galbi jjim), ornamented with Asian red dates and chestnuts, and sprinkled with  pine nuts and hairlike strands of dried red chile, called silgochu. 

In Korean restaurants, I usually drink Korean beer, but Sejung likes Sangiovese or Shiraz with Korean food, and by chance I had brought along a Mosby Sangiovese 2004.

We finished with fruit, a pretty dish of white nectarines in syrup flavored with white Zinfandel.

The following weekend, with the taste of kalbi chim still fresh in my mind, I went to a Korean market, bought the ingredients and started the three days of preparation.

The results were sumptuous. The procedure isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Much of the time is devoted to marinating the meat to concentrate the rich flavor. 

I’m not the only one who thinks that kalbi chim  is a wonderful dish.  In his column The Minimalist in the New York Times Dining In section (February 13, 2008), Mark Bittman  ranked  French style braised short ribs and “the standard Korean kalbi jim”  as “stunning classics.”

The kalbi chim that Sejung makes is far from “standard” though.  Its intricate flavors and painstaking preparation place it on a level that, as far as I’m concerned, is in the stratosphere.

SEJUNG’S KALBI CHIM

4 pounds kalbi  (beef ribs, labeled big beef ribs in the Korean market where I shopped), cut in short lengths
½ cup grated Asian pear
¼ cup sake
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup soy sauce
½ medium onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons minced green onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
½ cup water
1 inch ginger root, peeled and cut in thin slices
15 jujubes (Asian dried red dates)
15 fresh or dried chestnuts, optional,
1 tablespoon pine nuts
Fine dried red chile strands (ask for silgochu in a Korean market), optional 

Start the preparation 2 days before serving. On the first day, place the ribs in a large bowl or dishpan and cover with cold water. Let stand 2 hours.

Drain the ribs, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. Place them in a container with a lid. Grind the pear in a food processor or blender. Combine the pear, sake and sugar with the meat and mix well. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator 1 hour.

Combine the soy sauce, onion, green onion, garlic, sesame oil and sesame seeds in a food processor or blender and process until pureed. Add to the meat. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, place the meat in a Dutch oven. Add ½ cup water, cover and bring to a boil. Add the ginger root slices. Reduce the heat, cover and cook over medium low heat 3 hours.

Meanwhile, soak the dates until softened enough to slit them and pry out the seeds. After 2 hours, add the seeded dates and the dried chestnuts, if using, and cook 1 hour longer.

Let the meat cool. If any bones have separated from the meat, remove them and discard. Return the meat and cooking juices to the washed storage container. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove as much of the congealed fat from the meat as possible. Turn into a Dutch oven and reheat to serving temperature.  Transfer the meat and juices to a large heated serving container. Sprinkle with pine nuts, and with dried red chile strands if you are bold.

Makes 4 to 5 servings.