In the run-up to the Asian Feastival, World’s Fare will be profiling the participants. The Feastival’s mission is to showcase the diversity of delicious Asian cuisines in New York City’s most delicious and diverse borough. Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Filipino, Nepalese, Indonesian, and regional Chinese are just some of the cuisines that will be represented under one roof.  Today we take a look at Hahm Ji Bach, home of Korean delicacies from land and sea.

Hahm Ji Bach is located in a section of Murray Hill known among Koreans as m’uk-ja G’ol-mok or Eater’s Alley. My first foray into this neighborhood hard by the LIRR station was for the article “Feasting on Flushing, wherein I took Chef Eric Ripert and his buddy Anthony Bourdain to eat live octopus and various and sundry other sea creatures at Su San Seafood. Sadly Su San has been closed for several months, but Hahm Ji Bach, one of the area’s original restaurants remains open. My buddy Jim Kim is no stranger to Eater’s Alley and has been going to Hahm Ji Bach since it opened about 10 years ago. He was kind enough to show me the ropes ; it was so good I returned for more within a week.

Minari (bottom left), or Korean watercress, has a bright lemony taste.

A meal here begins with a dozen types of banchan, complimentary side dishes of various kimchis, dried fish, and other delicacies. On my first visit to Hahm Ji Bach these delicacies included minari, or Korean watercress. The leafy stalks had a wonderful bright, lemony flavor, and were tossed with hot pepper.

A bowl of hoe naengymun, refreshing and fortifying on a hot summer day.

I’m obsessed with naengmyun. It’s a noodle soup that I like to refer as edible air conditioning. I’d never seen a seafood version and thus insisted on ordering hoe naengmyun ($12.99), cold buckwheat noodles with spicy skate. It comes with a pair of scissors and a sidecar of cold beef broth. One’s for cutting the slippery, chewy noodles. The other can be enjoyed by itself or poured into the big silver bowl. Either way the combination of spicy fish, crunchy sweet Korean pear, nutty tasting noodles, and veggies is incredibly refreshing.

Soondae kook, pork blood sausage shot through
with clear noodles in an offal-rich broth.

Soondae kook ($7.99) is a rich stew whose primary component is soondae, a rustic Korean black pudding. The sausage is made with pig blood and shot through with bits of dangmyeon, or glass noodles. The beefy broth tastes like it’s been cooked for half a day and is riddled with fragrant perilla seeds. It’s also chock full of pig parts, including creamy bits of tongue and slivers of ear stewed into a semigelatinous state. The soondae kook was great eaten on its own, but even better spooned over heukmi chapssal, a purplish glutinous rice with a wonderfully nutty flavor.

Mookeunji mero chorim, a kimchi seabass stew,
comes to the table bubbling in a stone pot.

When asked to recommend a house specialty our waitress pointed us toward mookeunji mero chorim ($17.99), a stew of sea bass and sour, long-fermented kimchi (mookeunji) that Kim referred to as “third-stage.” Pressed for details on the soft sheets of cabbage, which were indeed quite sour on their own Kim said, “Oh, you’d have to ask my grandmother about that.”  The beef-based broth must have been boiled and reduced for for a really long time. It tasted like some sort of Korean ragu, with a spicy sour kick thanks to the mookeunji. The fatty flesh underneath the skin was a dead ringer for the veal marrow bones that were cooked in the Italian-American gravy of my youth.

Ojingeo bokeum, squid and noodles in a fiery red sauce.

My second visit to Hahm Ji Bach began with ojingeo bokeum ($15.99), squid with broad ropy noodles and vegetables, cooked with plenty of sweet, smoky chili sauce.

Hyomit, thinly sliced beef tongue, waits to hit the grill,
as slabs of pork belly lurk in the shadows.

 I sought to atone for this sin of barbecue omission the second time around by ordering hyomit gui ($20.99), thinly sliced beef tongue cooked on a stone slab.

Wrap it up: A morsel of tongue sits atop a disk
of daikon with garlic and toasted soybean powder.

Korean barbecue is typically folded up into a lettuce leaf. Hahm Ji Bach provides disks of crunchy slightly pickled daikon for use with its grilled tongue. Place a slice of tongue atop the radish and sprinkle on some of the accompanying konggaru, a nutty, sweet tasting toasted soy bean powder. Then top it with some sauce, a slice of garlic, and some green onion. The interplay of the crunchy, slightly funky radish with the tender grilled  tongue is sensational. Dol samgyupsal ($18.99), thick slabs of pork belly with broad stripes of fat was also excellent. Hit a porcine chunk or two with a little salted sesame oil and top them with green onions before wrapping in a lettuce leaf and popping the lot into your mouth.

Like much of Korean cuisine Hahm Ji Bach’s menu remains a vast and delicious mystery whose depths I look forward to delving into on future visits. I am particularly intrigued by moksal gui, “thick sliced pork neck in our special sauce barbecued” and bok bulgogi, or barbecued blowfish.

Hahm Ji Bach will be serving up Korean cuisine at the Asian Feastival on September 6 from 12-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here. Be sure to check back for more posts about participating restaurants and shops.

Hahm Ji Bach 41-08 149th Place, Murray Hill, 718-460-9289

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