Do Hwa (Korean on Carmine Street)

[Fat Guy]

We had an impressive dinner experience tonight at Do Hwa, the Korean restaurant on Carmine street owned by Jenny Kwak and her mother, Myung Ja Kwak. Jenny and her mother had an earlier venture, called Dok Suni, which they recently sold after almost a 15-year run. Dok Suni was, in my opinion, instrumental in bringing Korean cuisine into the New York mainstream. At a time when the Little Korea restaurants were not user-friendly and catered primarily to Korean customers, Dok Suni opened in the East Village and tried to bring the Korean home cooking to a mostly non-Asian clientele. Jenny, who was only 19 when she and her mother opened Dok Suni (she dropped out of the Parsons School of Design, where she was studying painting, in order to open the restaurant) is also the author of the 1998 book “Dok Suni: Recipes from My Mother’s Korean Kitchen.” Dok Suni was a terrific restaurant for its time, and one of its regular customers, the director Quentin Tarantino, became an investor in Do Hwa, which opened in 2000.

Do Hwa is a much more elegant restaurant than Dok Suni, with better facilities and a more ambitious menu. There’s some of overlap with the dishes you’ll see at the 32nd Street 24-hour Korean mega food factories, but it’s a different species of restaurant. The scale at Do Hwa is much smaller, the cooking much homier, service is not rushed, and ingredients are of high quality. I spent the day at the restaurant, including time in the kitchen, in the course of researching my book, “Turning the Tables on Asian Restaurants.” (In that connection, we were well-taken-care-of guests for dinner, however we ate only the regular menu items as they’re prepared normally.) While in the prep area, I noted that the fish came from The Lobster Place, and the ice cream from Ciao Bella – you’re just not going to see that on 32nd Street. There’s also a legitimate cocktail program – I recommend the soju (Korean sweet-potato vodka) martini, garnished with cucumber slices.

Perhaps most interesting, all the cooks and servers at Do Hwa are women. There are some male dishwashers and bussers, but it’s a female shop. It’s the calmest restaurant kitchen I’ve ever been in – calmer even than a Ducasse kitchen. Nobody yells, clanks or panics. And there is overall a feminine, serene feel to the place. Christina Park, one of Jenny’s long-time friends, oversees the dining room along with Jenny and is as gracious a hostess as you’ll find in town. (I made the connection with Jenny because Brian Bistrong, the chef at the Harrison, who I’ve known for ages now, is married to another member of Jenny’s tightly knit group of friends.)

We started with Korea’s answer to potato latkes: gamja buchim. These are crispy shredded-potato pancakes but instead of apple sauce and sour cream they’re garnished with sesame kimchi. Why didn’t I ever think of that? We also had japchae, “sesame glass noodles,” with mixed vegetables and just a touch of chili heat. Dukboki, tubular glutinous rice cakes sautéed with sweet-hot chili sauce and garnished with sliced hard-boiled egg was the best-made version of this dish I’ve had (better than Momofuku’s version). The best appetizer, however, was a simple watercress salad with a sweet-spicy garlic dressing – very refreshing.

There are gas grills in some of the tables, with downdraft ventilation. They have extremely powerful flames and can cook the meat to a well-browned exterior in about a minute on each side. The quality of the meat is excellent, as are the marinades. We tried bulgogi (thinly sliced beef ribeye) and kalbi (thin slices of short rib). All the little accompaniments were, in my opinion, a cut above the 32nd Street scene: the seven banchan selections were all made with care and there were no cost-cutters in the group (no potato salad), the basket of lettuce comes with nice whole perilla leaves, the miso is hard core.

Also tried the ojingo bokum at, a squid dish with a sauce similar to the one that comes on the dukboki (rice cakes).

I haven’t done a careful comparison but I get the sense that prices are a couple of dollars more than 32nd Street, but that it’s not a significant uptick. You can check out the menu at dohwanyc.com.

Good chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream for dessert, and excellent green tea served in an infuser.

Do Hwa

55 Carmine Street (between Bedford Street and Seventh Avenue)

212.414.1224

dohwanyc.com

[Chris Amirault]

Thanks, Steven, interesting review. I'd be interested to know why they've gone with gas instead of charcoal. Did you miss the wood smoke that you'd find at, say, most LA Korean BBQ places?

[Fat Guy]

The trend here has been away from charcoal. The place I used to go where they used charcoal switched to gas. I don't know what the charcoal situation is right now in New York City -- whether there are any places still using it or what. Presumably the fire codes make it very expensive to do charcoal, because most every restaurant in Manhattan is on the ground floor of a multi-story building with offices or apartments above the restaurant. In the LA sprawl scenario, by contrast, you can have a standalone structure and not have to worry about that sort of thing. Although, it's by no means cheap to do gas in New York either. Do Hwa only has five grill-equipped tables, because they're so expensive to buy and install in tandem with the ANSUL system.

As a sentimental matter I prefer coals. As a matter of flavor, I don't know. I mean, you grill Korean barbecue for about two minutes. It's hard to believe that a noticeable amount of charcoal smoke penetrates the meat in that amount of time. I think the flavor of Korean-restaurant tabletop barbecue comes from the marinades and the maillard reaction, not from the cooking fuel. What I have noticed at some places, however, is that the gas grills don't get as hot as the charcoal ones. But the ones at Do Hwa get incredibly hot.

[Jesikka]

The trend here has been away from charcoal. The place I used to go where they used charcoal switched to gas. I don't know what the charcoal situation is right now in New York City -- whether there are any places still using it or what. Presumably the fire codes make it very expensive to do charcoal, because most every restaurant in Manhattan is on the ground floor of a multi-story building with offices or apartments above the restaurant.

←

Kom Tang Soot Bull House on the south side of 32nd St still does coals. The food is quite good. They have some sort of delicious raw crab dish that they bring to the table that is heavenly.

[raji]

Good to know there is sill a place that does charcoal. In my experience it does in fact impart a fair amount of flavor on top of the benefits of intense heat cooking. It is more noticeable on those premium meats like tongue and the highest grade kalbi that are not completely sopping in marinade - then the charcoal mix gets right in the mix of the beef and fat that is being rendered down

I think Gyukaku uses charcoal too, doesn't it?

I haven't been to Do Hwa in a few years but I do have very positive memories of it, especially in it's use of good to great ingredients. That is ultimately the big letdown of 32d street. I'd rather get a smaller quantity of higher grade beef than the platters of marinated stuff server on 32nd. The other extreme of that is Gyukaku, which can be a bit of a ripoff, especially as the quality isn't all that great either. Beware of their happy hour too - if you snezee you might launch their harami across the room....

[Fat Guy]

I'm not willing to take a hard line on the issue without doing some sort of controlled side-by-side tasting, but I do think some of the general knowledge from the world of American backyard grilling is applicable here. Basically, when you're talking about quick-grilled items, most of what people identify as smoky flavor from charcoal is actually caused by something entirely different. It's caused by liquefied fat and other juices dripping down from the meat onto the coals, burning and then rising back up at the meat as smoke and vapor. This effect can be reproduced by gas grills that have, for example, metal "Flavorizer" (that's what Weber calls them) bars that vaporize the drippings. For quick grilling, charcoal grills are not in my experience better on account of the smoke from the charcoal. They're better because they get hotter than gas grills. The grills at Do Hwa have that "Flavorizer" type effect where the stuff drips down and vaporizes on the surface below then comes back up through the holes in the grill. And they get mother hot. The flame is so high, when set on the high setting, that it almost seems like they removed a safety interlock to get it that way -- however they're such law-abiding citizens that my guess is they just bought the most expensive grills and had them calibrated really hot.

[Pan]

Interesting report, Fat Guy. I haven't been to Do Hwa, but I have to disagree that Dok Suni was ever a great restaurant. I've gone there occasionally for many years and never thought any dish there was better than merely good, except for the Hot and Spicy Broiled Squid. To me, the better restaurants in Koreatown (including the inexpensive Han Bat) are way more flavorful and a much better value, though Dok Suni has always been dependable and welcome in the neighborhood. I wasn't aware Dok Suni had been sold, though. When was it sold?

Edited August 21, 2007 by Pan (log)

[Fat Guy]

They sold it earlier this year. I don't believe I said it was a great restaurant (though we can check my post -- who knows what I'll remember on any given day). What I think I said was that it was "instrumental in bringing Korean cuisine into the New York mainstream." I also think at least one excellent dish, besides the spicy squid, was the pork ribs. In the very-good/almost-excellent category, I'd have placed almost anything from the "soups and stews" portion of the Dok Suni menu. I agree the central portion of the menu had a lot of holes in it, though.

[Pan]

You wrote "Dok Suni was a terrific restaurant for its time." That's what I was disagreeing with.

I'm not sure I tried the pork ribs, so I'll give you that one. I didn't find the "soups and stews" very impressive, from what I remember. None of them were flavorful or spicy enough for me, by clear contrast with places in the West 30s, which didn't tone anything down for non-Koreans.

[raji]

OK, but when the smoke and vapor come back up, surely they must possess some characteristics of the charcoal, no?

I think intense heat and charring is most of what I'm looking for, which is what sucks about a lot of Korean BBQs, besides the poor quality of meat and over marinating, is the cooking surface, gas-heated, just don't get that kind of heat...

I'm not willing to take a hard line on the issue without doing some sort of controlled side-by-side tasting, but I do think some of the general knowledge from the world of American backyard grilling is applicable here. Basically, when you're talking about quick-grilled items, most of what people identify as smoky flavor from charcoal is actually caused by something entirely different. It's caused by liquefied fat and other juices dripping down from the meat onto the coals, burning and then rising back up at the meat as smoke and vapor. This effect can be reproduced by gas grills that have, for

[Luckylies]

I find do hwa a bit pricey and a bit loud, but otherwise quite good. Not all tables have grills though, which is a bummer to wait for.

To answer Raji. No, gyu-kaku does not have coals.

[Fat Guy]

Gael Greene went to Do Hwa last week and had this to say:

http://www.insatiable-critic.com/Article.a...t/Easy%20Korean

Marvelous slightly crisp pancakes of seafood, scallion and chili peppers, and a second round with vegetables make a disarming prelude, though I don’t care much for the sesame glass noodles.. But I do love the slightly rubbery rice cakes slipped on skewers alongside ribbons of beef rib meat, carrot and pine mushroom. The same rice cake batons are even better in a spicy chili pepper sauce with vegetables and chunks of hard-cooked egg (DukBoki).  Kalbi Jjim are braised short ribs barbed with chili-heat and a hint of ginger served with chunks of carrot.  There is also a big bowl of what Shaw describes as a Korean version of Japanese chirashi: rice and vegetables studded with chunks of raw tuna and salmon to be stirred up with chili sauce. Pan-grilled black cod has been simmered in soy and garlic to be served with a ruffle of salad.  Mom’s sea kelp soup with beef arrives in the next wave.

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"Deep Into Korean Eats with the eGullet King" (Hey, I didn't write the headline . . .)