When I lived in Paris, some of the best food I ate was Korean home cooking. Not the wood-fired côte de boeuf with a famous friend. Nor the staff meal macarons at luxury hotels.
The comfort food that haunts me most remains the kimchi-bokkeum-bap and haemul pajeon cooked by my roommate, a Korean banking heiress. We’d met at Le Cordon Bleu, something of an international finishing school and a halfway house for rich kids sent away for self-discovery in those days. She’d hoped I could help her master the foreign French techniques.
She never cooked at home in Seoul, but knew how to eat. Her fierce longing resulted in soulful tteokbokki. I think she could eventually make a velouté, but I honestly can’t remember.
At Korean Spoon, a small mom-and-pop shop in northwest suburban Glenview, I’m reminded of those meals that saved me. I’ve said before briefly, in our exhaustive guide to Chicago’s Koreatown, I’d eat there every day if I could. My pangs of pandemic-induced anxiety have only intensified that sentiment, prompting a careful examination of their food in a mid-pandemic world.
Chef-owner Kim Mi-ok’s cooking may have even gotten better since I’d last visited. She co-owns the business with her husband, Kim Sung-kyu. It’s really just the two of them.
A classic bibimbap ($11.99) comes with a palette of bulgogi, assorted banchan and a soft-yolked fried egg arranged around perfect pearlescent rice.
Before you get to mixing, her miyeok-guk will distract you. The silky seaweed so-called birthday soup stars on K-dramas as a restorative elixir. They’re not wrong, if you have a bowl as deeply steeped with umami as Kim’s. Tender chunks of brisket seem almost superfluous among the tangled greens until you realize they’re there for a reason. The delicate, delicious balance between land and sea will astound you.
Did I mention this magical soup is complimentary?
It also accompanies the three-part feast ($13.99) of tteokbokki, my beloved simmered rice cakes; gimbap (also Romanized as kimbap), nori rice rolls featuring julienned slivers of crisp vegetables; and sundae (sometimes spelled soondae), the blood sausage that’s definitely not ice cream.
Their squid game is strong. A fried squid ($13.99) meal set warns that it’s spicy on the menu, but the saucy ojingeo bokkeum packs complex flavors more than heat.
The kitchen’s open only four weekdays for lunch. When she’s done, Mrs. Kim peels out of the tiny strip mall parking lot to pick up their two children from school.
Before then you can order one of the dozen or so meal sets from the index-card-size menu.
After, Mr. Kim stays to mind the shop with its curated grab-and-go gallery.
Salted squid ($4.99) beckons among the myriad banchan. The wonderfully funky ojingeo-jeot is made by salting and fermenting thinly sliced strips.
Kimchi features so many kinds I’ve yet to catalog, much less taste them all — from fiery red napa cabbage ($6.99) to seasonal summer radish green yeolmu-kimchi to white water winter dongchimi with Asian pear.
A steady stream of solo Asian women arrive in the afternoons by compact SUVs. They sport fleece mom jackets and discreet thousand dollar designer tote bags by Goyard. They leave bearing plastic bags more precious than their 2-carat diamond earrings.
They’re takeout only for now. I miss dining in, but completely understand. The serene space awaits with minimalist red chairs turned atop round silver tables and The Korea Times in print. Potted plants in front, another secret sign of a true Asian family restaurant, include a huge fiddle-leaf fig.
“It’s 7 years old,’’ said Mr. Kim. “We planted it when we first opened.”
The couple is originally from Jeolla-do, the province in southwestern Korea best known as the country’s premier food-producing region. They immigrated to Chicago in 2005.
Before they opened the restaurant he was “just a salaryman,” he said. She was a wholesale worker.
“My husband requested that we should start a restaurant,” said Mrs. Kim. “To spread Korean culture in cuisine.”
It’s their first and only food business, and they’re self-taught.
“I just saw my mom cook,” she said.
That helps explain her bulgogi ($12.99). Typically in restaurants around town, it’s thinly sliced, marinated grilled beef. In home cooking and regional variations, it’s often sauteed. This is their house style. Lovely pan juice makes up for what you may miss in crispy bits.
If it’s a crunchy crust you crave, try the fried pork cutlet ($13.99), a bestseller I’ve yet to have.
Next time, which will be soon.
Have I mentioned I’d eat there every day if I could?
Korean Spoon
214 Greenwood Road, Glenview
847-637-7573
(no website)
Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (kitchen open Tuesday to Friday, to 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.)
Prices: meal sets (including soup, rice, banchan and entree) $9.99 to $13.99
Noise: conversation-friendly
Accessibility: wheelchair accessible with restroom on single level
Tribune rating: Three stars, excellent
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
Review: Korean Spoon, where a food critic would eat every day if she could - Chicago Tribune
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