You have a cold, a virus, you're tired out and dragging. Don't worry. There's a quick cure--in Koreatown. It's the bean sprout soup (above) at Chunju Han-Il Kwan, a small restaurant tucked into the corner of a mall on 6th Street.
Your cure comes in a black stone bowl that right off sends steam into your stuffy nostrils. It's crammed with soy bean sprouts (the kind with the big yellow bulb on one end), rice, bits of beef, an egg that cooks in the soup, green onions and spicy red pepper flakes to clear your head. And there's a healthy pile of crisp seaweed strands on top.
You also get a little dish of super salty shrimp sauce. Of all things, it's lavender--since when did shrimp turn purple? Next to it are containers of sesame seeds and tiny red pepper grains. With these, you can flavor the soup any way you like.
A Korean friend swears this bowl of goodies cures her colds. Above, you can see how popular it is--almost the whole table has ordered it.
And you get still more--at least eight banchan (six are in the photo above), which are as comforting and homey as the soup. The mix might include steamed eggs (mild and nourishing), slippery japchae (stir-fried transparent noodles), marinated vegetables and soft squares of acorn jelly that taste really good despite their murky color. There's kimchi too, of course, and my favorite--spicy marinated fish cake.
That same Korean friend who comes here to cure her colds says the banchan are home style, like her grandmother would make. But don't wait until you're sick to try the food. It's good for you any time.
Chunju Han-Il Kwan, 3450 W 6th St, No. 106, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Tel: (213) 480-1799.
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