Korean Restaurants: Barbecue and Beyond

Korean restaurants in the Washington area often share the same general steakhouse architecture: lots of wood, gas grills built into the center of some tables and ventilation hoods overhead, complete with sprinkler nozzles. When the hoods are working, the noise can be distracting.

Although barbecue is often the specialty of the house, it's more a reflection of Korean restaurant cuisine than home cooking. Meat in Korea is expensive -- two or three times U.S. prices -- so dining at a Korean barbecue restaurant is analogous to dining at a premier U.S. steakhouse.

Other Korean dishes aren't always appealing to Americans, so many Korean restaurants offer Japanese dishes to attract more customers. Many of the best Korean restaurants in this area have extensive sushi and sashimi offerings, as well as cooked Japanese dishes such as teriyaki, tempura and katsu (breaded, fried cutlets).

Many Korean restaurants also offer some Chinese dishes. A few specialize in Chinese-Korean cuisine: Korean versions of Chinese dishes that originated with Koreans who worked in China. Those dishes often bear little resemblance to well-known Chinese or Korean dishes.

Servers at the Korean restaurants I visited were almost all women. Language is often an impediment to communication. Service is frequently perfunctory. That said, the servers seemed thrilled when I enjoyed their cuisine, and they became more helpful on subsequent visits. Few restaurants have Web sites, and many don't accept reservations. Paper napkins are the norm, even at upscale places.

There isn't a concentration of Korean restaurants in the Maryland suburbs similar to Koreatown in Annandale. Howard County, which has a large number of Korean residents, has only two restaurants that feature mainly Korean cuisine. There is a small cluster of Korean restaurants in Glen Burnie. There are several Korean restaurants in the Rockville and Wheaton areas, mostly in Korean-owned strip malls.

HOWARD COUNTY

· Ellicott City

Han Sung Restaurant bills itself as having Korean and Japanese cuisine, though the Japanese offerings predominate.

Han Sung looks more like a coffee shop or carryout than a sit-down restaurant. There are no grill tables or ventilation hoods, just a lot of red-and-black kitchen-style chairs and laminate tables.

Most of the favorite Korean dishes are available, including pan-fried dumplings, seafood pancake, jap chae ( called chab chae here), a few Korean soups and a couple of barbecue dishes. The panchan don't compare with Shin Chon Garden's. 3570 St. John's Lane, 410 -750-3836 .

Shin Chon Garden, in Ellicott City's Lotte Plaza, is the only Korean restaurant in Howard County that offers barbecue cooked at the table. Korean newspapers and fliers are strewn in the foyer, but the interior is stylish in an Asian steakhouse way. It's all dark wood and rice paper screens. The sushi bar is across the back; the private dining spaces are to the side.

A single order of bul go gi was cooked in the kitchen and carried to the table on a sizzling platter, similar to the way fajitas are presented. The dumplings were tasty, and the seafood pancake was plump with shellfish and nearly greaseless.