Koreatown in Buenos Aires

The spicy Korean stew kimchi jjigae is as simple as it is wonderful.  My Korean friend Sejung can whip it up in seconds, using cabbage kimchi, pork, onion, garlic, tofu and  rice cakes.

Aside from hers, the best kimchi jjigae that I have eaten recently was at a restaurant, not  in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where there are scores of eating places, but in Buenos Aires.

No tourist would ever find Kil Chong.  It is hidden away in Flores, a section of the city where the first Korean immigrants settled in the 1960s.  There is no sign that says restaurant, no indication of cooking, no dining room that can be seen from the outside, just the name in the Korean script Hangul on a small lantern high above the doorway.

I found it thanks to two friends, Korea-born Monica Lee and Carolina Mera, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires who lectures and writes about Korean migration.

Driving around the barrio with them, I saw Korean-owned textile businesses, a Korean school, churches, a Buddhist temple, a panaderia (bakery) with a sign in Hangul, small markets and other enterprises.

The Korean population of Argentina once numbered 45,000, Carolina said. Now it is down to 20,000, almost all of them in Buenos Aires.

Long ago, Flores was a wealthy area and a separate town. The rich moved elsewhere and Flores was amalgamated into the city. During Argentina’s economic crisis from 1991 to 2002, many of its Korean inhabitants left the country, and the barrio became impoverished. On Saturday, when businesses close in the afternoon, it was especially quiet.

Fortunately, Kil Chong was open. We entered through a bare hallway, then climbed upstairs to a plain room with formica-topped tables and ceiling fans.

The restaurant caters to Koreans, not outsiders, and so the menu is in Hangul, with no Spanish translation and, certainly, no English.

There are just 16 dishes, including bulgogi (grilled beef), galbi  tang (short rib soup), mandu (dumpling) soup, bibim bap (a rice bowl with meat, vegetables and egg), sun dubu (soft tofu), naengmyeon (cold noodles with or without broth), and kimchi jjigae.

Our lunch was impressive. We feasted on 10 side dishes (banchan) in addition to the dishes we ordered, a far more generous display than that offered at a couple of ambitious new Korean restaurants in Los Angeles.

Along with sweet and sour radish, cucumber strips, soy bean sprouts and other vegetables, the little dishes held dried radish leaves, squares of Korean pancake, dried fish with potato, tiny spicy dried fish and fatty pork slices with hot red sauce.

Fiery red, richly flavored kimchi jjigae came in a black stone bowl. The marinade for bulgogi (grilled beef, cooked in the kitchen), was topnotch. Carolina asked for yukgae jang, a spicy meat soup, and Monica wanted naengmyon drenched with sweet and spicy red sauce.

Kil Chong makes its own kochujang, the red pepper paste that is used in many Korean dishes, and this indicates the effort that goes into the food.

Tourists are more likely to go to Bi Won, which is closer to the heart of town and well publicized.

Although owned by Koreans, Bi Won cooks for Argentinian tastes, and the food lacks true Korean flavor. The night I was there, the restaurant had no kimchi, which would never happen in a genuine Korean restaurant.   

Bi Won offers the sort of Asian decor that tourists like, and the service is good. But for food, Kil Chong is worth the long ride to Flores, a barrio way off tourist routes.

Ordering from a menu in Hangul needn’t be a problem. Just point to numbers 5, 7, 8 and 11, and you will have a delicious, inexpensive meal of dumpling soup, grilled beef, bibim bap, kimchi jjigae, beef broth, rice and all the banchan you can eat.

Kil Chong, Campana 714, Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: 4674-5900.

Bi Won, Junin 548, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: 4372-1146.