BG Korean Restaurant

The congee, the soup, the kimchi and other bangan (side dishes), can be brought to you in a small semiprivate room with light wooden tables and chairs. Many of the dishes are brought unordered, as a matter of course. Next come four small white bowls of bangan: orange kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage), dark green seaweed, ivory bean sprouts, and another orange vegetable. These are eaten with good-looking stainless steel jeotgarak (chopsticks) that seem much more sensible and distinctive than throwaway wooden or bamboo ones (much less plastic). The next course, appetizers (these you have to pay for), includes wonderful fried dumplings, their insides tasty if a bit gray and indiscriminate, their outsides just slightly crispy — melt in your mouth. We ordered an $8 seafood-scallion pancake, and after two people had picked at it a bit, it still provided leftovers for days. This is a hearty, lightly fried, mostly soft but somewhat crisp comfort food. Their bi bim bap is a heap of rice in a stone pot surrounded by a tangle of carrots, zucchini and spicy ground beef. Or try the less intimidating jab chae, a mammoth serving of dark potato noodles with beef, red and green peppers, carrots, a few sesame seeds and a musky flavor. BG is closed Wednesdays, but open till 2:30 a.m. six days a week.