K-Town Food Marathon Part 1: Honey Pig

I'll begin the first leg of the Koreatown Food Marathon with bloggers Food Marathon (Neil, who coined the term and has a blog dedicated to these endeavors), FoodGPS (my buddy and co-culinary adventurer Josh Lurie, Matt Mitchell from Diglounge (founder, creator, upkeeper of Diglounge.net), and Christine C. (my girl master). We gorged all evening but started out at the well-regarded Honey Pig, or Cuul Dweji in Korean.


This first shot shows the genius of this place. Circle the large round pan with kimchi. Cooking the kimchi tames its extremely garlicky flavor and mellows into a rich, almost tender texture. The meat which will soon hit the hot pan will exude lovely fat which drips down to the kimchi and seasons with sweet pork flavor. Absolute genius.


We ordered the "ddong dweji" or literally "shit pig" which delighted the boys (especially Matt and Neil). Rightfully it was the most expensive pork belly offering on the menu. The name comes from the best tasting pigs found in Korea, the ones kept at the bottom of outhouses. As disgusting as this sounds, the name stuck (I'm pretty sure the pork belly we had didn't come from such illustrous pedigree). It's obvious the quality of this meat is superb and definitely over the standard fare at all-you-can-eat joints or the prefrozen, presliced stuff you get at supermarkets.


The pan also contains some spicy pickled bean sprouts which also pick up nice charred flavor and extraneous (dare I say) pork fat. When you start eating, pile on some fresh green salad on your small plate, top with grilled meat, add a bit of ssam-jjang, which is a spicy bean curd sauce seen on the bottom left, and perhaps a sliver of garlic. Wrap with dduk-bo-ssam, the square of fresh, thick rice paper, and consume.


You get some free sides on the massive grillpan, including nak-jee or octopus. We also had a thick korean pancake which was summarily chopped into bite-sized pieces.




Next we had two orders of the spicy pork belly which was loaded with nice Korean spices and retained much of the delicious qualities of the previous pork belly. The first portion was good for tasting the essence of these supreme cut of beast, but this one screamed big Korean flavor, exactly how I like it.


After we destroyed the meat. They then proceeded to make a bokeumbap, mixing in rice and greens to make a wonderful 'grilled' rice. The best part is when the bottom gets brown and almost crispy (called the noo-rrung-jee).


After three large Hites, the meal came out to only $20 a person, including tip. What a deal! I was about 65% full when we headed to leg two at Western Soondae, which was featured on Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods episode in LA. (I still haven't seen the episode in full. I'm boycotting it because they cut out the Scoops segment).

Honey Pig
3400 W 8th St
Los Angeles, CA, 90005
(213) 380-0256