Honolulu Weekly

Choi’s Garden / Korean dining for many of us often means kalbi and point-and-pick sides on a plate lunch, smoky yakiniku or refueling after a night out with a wee hours serving of spicy tofu soup at a 24-hour emporium. Choi’s Garden on Rycroft Street (just ‘ewa of Wal-Mart) provides a third option for slightly more refined and less chaotic yakiniku dining.

Choi’s bears superficial similarities to its yakiniku counterparts: It’s open around the clock, and the entrance bears pictures of raw meat and a scrolling LED display. But step through the doorway, and you arrive in an uncommonly pleasant and clean dining room for the genre. Instead of Korean calendars on the walls (painted a calming spring green) there are landscape paintings, and a museum-like vitrine of decorative Korean relics stands at the center of the room and gives it an artful look. If the smoke smell deters you from DIY grilling, Choi’s is your place; special industrial-looking ventilation tubes snake down above each grill to provide localized relief from smoke.

Yakiniku is the focus here, but if you’re dining in a large group and want a starter, popular appetizers include oyster fritters and seafood pancake. The parade of daily side dishes known as ban chan arrive swiftly and are placed in a tidy circle around the grill.

In addition to familiar offerings of kimchi, an excellent cucumber kimchi and soybean sprouts, daily offerings might include shiso kimchi, fishcake, blocks of jello-like radish cake, squares of tofu coated in spicy chili paste, a mayo and vegetable salad, ribbons of daikon tinted pale orchid or a delicious seaweed that tasted like bits of dark, moistened nori.

Yakiniku orders also include a choice of soup, and we chose spicy tofu, which was good but not among the best versions I’ve had. When the meat arrives, it’s easy to feel like you’ve had a meal already, but your appetite will surge with the first sizzle on the grill. The yakiniku combination special ($39.95 for two) is a good choice if you like variety and comes with an assortment of tongue, brisket and seasoned short ribs, although if you don’t like one of the components, you can substitute more of another. The brisket is cut paper-thin and is quite fatty, lending it great versatility on the grill. If you cook it for just a minute or two on each side, it’s a tender and melting meat, but leave it on while you sample other dishes or get caught up in conversation (a leisure communal yakiniku cooking normally doesn’t grant diners), and the fat and meat crisp into a savory and beefy bacon of sorts (my preference). Take a bite with a piece of kimchi or wrap it up in red leaf lettuce with rice, a piece of garlic and dabs of brick colored fermented soy-chili paste. You can also choose from an extensive yakiniku menu of short ribs, seasoned or plain, various cuts of beef and a seafood combination. The bulgogi I sampled was tender, but the marinade was a bit on the sweet side, and I preferred the more simply seasoned meats.

Your belly may be bursting, but you can’t leave without trying the spicy steamed butterfish. On my visits to Choi’s, nearly every table in the dining room ordered the dish, and once sampled, its popularity is quickly confirmed. Thick bone-in cross sections of butterfish are laid atop discs of daikon, covered in a spicy, peppery, red chili paste and scattered with onions and sliced chilis. A slightly spice-weary dining companion got a little anxious at the arrival of the dish, which is siren-red but whose vivid color is more looks than heat. The richness of the fish ably carries its assertive seasoning while the flavors of other, milder fish would collapse beneath its boldness. Don’t ignore the daikon beneath the fish, which gets infused to a silky tenderness with all the flavors of the dish and achieves a complexity you’d never expect from a mere radish that’s usually confined to condiment status.

Petite cups of a light, cinnamo-lavored drink, sometimes with a single pine nut afloat, make a refreshing and apt end to a meal that surpasses the usual kimchi-kalbi expectations.

Choi’s Garden Korean Restaurant
1303 Rycroft St. (596-7555)
Hours: Daily 24 hours
Price Range: Yakiniku ($20.95-$39.95)
Payment: AmEx, MC, V
Recommended: Brisket, short ribs, yakiniku combination, spicy steamed butterfish