Restaurant Ki

pomodoro · January 26, 2025, 7:52pm

Yes, i’m not knocking Ki. Given Jungsik’s alumni, it seems like good vibes in how things branched off to different restaurants. Jua’s signature caviar gimbap is maybe their own take on Jungsik’s gimbap, perhaps like how the cod milt one at Ki is.

I had a friend (just a home chef) make the Jungsik octopus for a dinner party, and we were talking about the head and tarragon, which is why this came to mind.

I think Eater could’ve clarified that the octopus dish may be an homage instead of making it sound like it’s his signature.

Homages by alumni are common - think dishes made famous by Pierre Koffmann, Eckart Witzigmann, Keiji Nakazawa, Michel Bras, etc. by chefs who trained under those luminaries. Eunji Lee’s excellent trompe l’oeil banana at Jungsik from her time with Cedric Grolet is a very cool evolution that’s distinctly Korean tasting, personal, and an all star dessert in its own now. In the Korean modern food world, Jungsik Yim is quite a leader. It’s very different when people take dishes from places they never worked at.

shirakoslurper · January 26, 2025, 8:11pm

Yeah, I think homage would have been a better way to put it - though I guess kinn’s marketing it as a signature back then certainly didn’t help since we can only assume so much about relationships. Love seeing alumni cement legacies and entirely agree with about non-alums taking dishes.

On another note, how’d it turn out at the dinner party? Worth trying?

justanotherimmigrant · January 27, 2025, 5:06am

so…what about someone like hwoo lee? does staging count?

Bazinga · January 27, 2025, 9:13am

Disclaimer: i am a former cook that still knows a lot of people in the kitchen scene.

Staging is absolutely not the same as working in a place. Maybe in many places in Europe where stages are often just unpaid short term employment, but lots of cooks present stages as experience. That is shady.

Hwoo Lee and that ilk have kind of built a reputation/living off of executing restaurant/bar recipes and turning them into content. Unfortunately in the world we live in there is a much better life to be had being a very handsome person with video editing skills and just enough know how than there is to being an actual cook living the life and doing the work.

I think another interesting question is about how food media/PR sell chefs to us. It’s kind of a game. Ki staged at benu and barely worked at Atomix, but those restaurants are often used as evidence of his experience, despite the fact that the restaurant he actually put in real time at was Jungsik…but now that Jungsik has 3 stars that’ll probably change!

Clayfu · January 27, 2025, 8:48pm

I can’t speak for other food content creators, but H Woo is a really good cook and has done a few pop ups where he’s putting our actual restaurant meals. Not many other food content creators have the ability or courage to do that.

caveat: he is a friend

boourns · January 28, 2025, 12:25am

+1 I went to his popup at Budonoki and the food was legitimately good.

Bazinga · January 28, 2025, 11:56am

Honestly i think these kinds of comments illustrate the gulf between appreciating good food and understanding what a restaurant does day to day.

Not doubting h woo can cook a bit. Just saying I know the average high end restaurant cook could put on a delicious one off events like once a year with the backing of several corporate sponsors, collaboration with two actual lifelong cooks/chefs with years of michelin star experience and successful restaurants, the ready made infrastructure of a kitchen staff and operational kitchen, etc, etc. I do know for a fact that people who have had to work h woo and other influencer pop ups have reported them being absolute nightmares to be a part of.

pomodoro · January 28, 2025, 11:34pm

yes the Jungsik recipe on HMart is totally decent for home cooking. the braise and fry creates a pretty good texture. good enough for a dinner party, at least.
gojuchang aioli can be used for a lot of things the next day.

i’m not really familiar with hwoo lee. staging is a different thing than being a sous/cdp of course, but given the culture and demands of fine dining, it seems mutually beneficial. staging seems to be a quick but important look into the beginning journey of understanding how a kitchen works.

i think it partially comes down to the media / promotion in how the experience is portrayed. regardless of past experience, what matters at the end of the day is how the food is. you can have someone with little notable experience creating something great, or someone oversell and ride another’s coattails and create something unremarkable. i’m not at all in the F&B industry or have any connections, so i’m just speaking from a diner’s pov.

anyway, i think that maybe the focus should a bit be more on how the meal delivered. it seems positive so far from the reviews above.

the

sounds like a very nice follow up to the lamb, morel, and smoked tomato. nice flow to the menu. i think the smoked tomato and then porcini makes a lot of sense, and the porcini with cacao and tea leaf complement with some nice savory and bitter elements to transition to the end.

and finishing with omija, good call. a little sour, not too sweet. i really liked omija tea to end a meal when i visited Seoul for the first time.

Clayfu · January 29, 2025, 3:40am

I think you need to reread your original comment before moving the goalposts.

Bazinga · January 29, 2025, 10:26pm

Lol ok

AmaroNeverDies · January 30, 2025, 2:23am

imo comparing “taking” a dish from a restaurant one’s staged at and putting it on a restaurant menu is at least an entire gulf (of Mexico) away from making a video cooking that dish at home or in a commercial kitchen or whatever.

PorkyBelly · January 31, 2025, 11:36pm

PorkyBelly · March 10, 2025, 4:35pm

formersushichef · June 19, 2025, 3:06pm

Some new dishes at Ki, fantastic dinner! FWIW, no music this time until the end of the meal (or maybe it was just being played at a really low volume).

Bang at Torigoya was perfect!

happycat · June 19, 2025, 4:50pm

That looks great!

So what’s the P.M. vibe in Little Tokyo right now? I’ve noticed a number of “seats available” IG postings for Bar Sawa and Kaneyoshi in recent days, and figured the ICE protests might be keeping people away. Was Ki fully booked? Any problems getting from there to Torigoya (and that place is so popular; what were crowds like there?). I’m just trying to get a feel for the situation and deciding if I want to have a Little Tokyo dinner sometime soon. Any observations you can share would be wolcome, thanks.

formersushichef · June 19, 2025, 5:03pm

Ki was completely booked. A lot of places are still closed and boarded up with plywood, but had zero issues going from one to the other. No protestor or cops in sight. Torigoya was still completely full when I got there but by last call around 9:30, it was basically empty. That whole plaza was much emptier than usual. It looked like Takeda was closed as well.

theplankt · June 20, 2025, 6:23am

It’s a lot quieter, but totally fine. Plywood up but not much happening. They actually canceled a community clean up for this weekend because there wasnt much left to clean! I’ve only been to Ootoro since to show some support, it was very empty. I think it’s a good time to enjoy without any lines anywhere … neighborhood could use some more traffic.

in any case there is so much happening now outside in LA, and ICE knows downtown will get swarmed if they try to pull anything there; much of the heat has moved off the city hall area anyway.

PorkyBelly · June 26, 2025, 3:49am

congratulations to ki for being so young and chef-like.

Probangbanger · June 26, 2025, 3:59am

Prophet mode

PorkyBelly · July 14, 2025, 2:54am

fantastic dinner at ki. as good as my first meal was, this was even better. so much flavor in every bite and component.

highlights

keizo’s noodles - bite of the night. crispy grilled eel, dungeness crab meat and brains. keizo of ramen shack fame also happened to be in the house
perilla leaf ice cream salad - so unique and creative.
sablefish - perfectly cooked with crispy skin. sauce was so good i asked for some rice to sop it up.

review forthcoming @SithLord @Sgee @Spicyshlomi @butteredwaffles @Jpwyche?

tuna, bugak, mustard