Searching for a salad in Koreatown returns very little, and the conclusion people draw from that — that this is a neighbourhood of grilled meat and nothing else — is wrong. Koreatown eats an enormous quantity of vegetables. They simply do not arrive in a bowl with dressing on them. They arrive as banchan: a grid of small dishes brought to the table before the food you ordered, refilled without being asked for, and included in the price.
The vegetable-heavy tables here are specific restaurants rather than a menu section, and the best of them is a set meal rather than an à la carte order. Tell Karpo what you are trying to avoid eating and it will point you at the right room.
The room built entirely around it
Borit Gogae at 3464 West 8th Street is the clearest example in the neighbourhood, sometimes described as a probiotic paradise, with calming music and an elaborate banchan service. The order is the barley rice set, around thirty-five dollars per person, which brings a creamy pumpkin soup, several soups and an extensive spread of banchan alongside the rice.
A set like this is functionally a vegetable tasting menu. You are not choosing between a salad and a main course; you are being brought fifteen small vegetable preparations, several of them fermented, and a bowl of grain to eat them with. It is the single best answer in Koreatown to the question the word salad is usually standing in for.
The one with the vegan option hiding in the lunch menu
Kobawoo House at 698 South Vermont Avenue has been open since 1983, and its weekday lunch special menu — 11am to 3pm — includes a jangban guksoo, acorn noodles with vegetables, which is vegan-friendly and one of the better value plates in the neighbourhood.
This is worth knowing because Kobawoo is famous for bossam, its boiled pork belly, and nobody arrives expecting the vegetable dish to be the interesting one. Acorn noodles are chewy, faintly bitter and served cold, and they are a genuinely different eating experience from anything in a Western salad tradition.
The cold noodle route
Lee Ga at 698 South Vermont Avenue, unit 106, makes fresh handmade buckwheat noodles and does chilled naengmyeon in several forms, with combinations that include mandu and marinated beef ribs. A bowl of cold buckwheat noodles in broth, topped with cucumber and pear, is the Korean summer dish, and it occupies the same slot in a hot afternoon that a salad does — cold, sharp, light, and finished quickly.
Lasung House at 3134 West Olympic Boulevard does a chilled spicy jjolmyeon alongside its donkatsu, which is the same idea with heat rather than ice. MDK Noodles at 3630 Wilshire Boulevard runs a spicy cold noodle dish in a large room that does not develop the queue smaller places do.
How to order for vegetables specifically
Three things that help. Ask for a set or a jeongsik rather than a single dish, because the set is where the vegetable spread lives. Look at the lunch menu even if you are not there for a bargain, since the vegetable-forward options are frequently lunch-only. And accept that fermentation is doing most of the work here — kimchi, pickled radish, seasoned greens — which means the flavours are sour and salty rather than fresh and leafy. If what you actually want is raw leaves and vinaigrette, this neighbourhood will not give you that and it is not trying to.
Choosing
The full vegetable experience, sitting down properly: Borit Gogae's barley rice set. Cheap, weekday, and you want the vegan option: Kobawoo's jangban guksoo before 3pm. A hot day and you want something cold: Lee Ga for naengmyeon. Cold and spicy instead: Lasung House. A group where one person wants noodles and everyone else wants dumplings: MDK Noodles.
Practical notes
Addresses: Borit Gogae 3464 W 8th St; Kobawoo House 698 S Vermont Ave; Lee Ga 698 S Vermont Ave #106; Lasung House 3134 W Olympic Blvd; MDK Noodles 3630 Wilshire Blvd. Borit Gogae's barley rice set runs around thirty-five dollars per person. Kobawoo's lunch special runs 11am to 3pm on weekdays. Banchan is included rather than charged separately and is refilled on request. Most of these addresses have dedicated or validated parking behind the building, and the Metro B and D lines run beneath Wilshire with stops at Vermont, Normandie and Western.
Tags: #SaladNearMe #Koreatown #LosAngeles #Banchan #BoritGogae #KobawooHouse #Naengmyeon #KoreanFood #Vegetarian #KtownEats #FreeThingsToDo #LAEats #WilshireBlvd #KoreatownLA
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Ask Karpo first
The vegetable-heavy options in Koreatown are set menus and lunch-only dishes rather than anything labelled salad, which is why searching for one turns up nothing. Ask Karpo which rooms near you do a proper banchan spread, what is vegan on the menu, and whether the lunch pricing is still running.
