Long before Sonic arrived in town to epic lines of cars waiting for Limeade and a burger, Kim’s Korean Restaurant had staked out space for a small dining room on the Division side of the same block north of the Spokane River. If you’ve driven by Kim’s several hundred times and missed it, don’t feel bad. Their tiny storefront is set back from the street just south of a Zip’s location and the particle board sign with black lettering doesn’t scream ‘come and get it.’
Korean food, like Vietnamese food, remains a far less popular export from Asia’s great culinary traditions than either Chinese or Thai. But this relative lack of popularity has the interesting side effect of allowing Americans a better glimpse of authenic Korean food rather than just Americanized versions of Asian dishes as is so often the case with Chinese food. Korean eateries in this country might tone down the heat level, but the food at Kim’s offers flavors that are intriguing in part because they aren’t typical tastes for most meat-and-potato Americans.
They also seem intent on pickling almost every vegetable known to humanity. The results for my untrained Korean palate are mixed. Some of the pickled side dishes that show up with every entree are great; others, I suspect, need to grow on you. But even those in the second category can be fun in small amounts: reminding you the world of food (like the actual planet) is wonderfully large and surprising.
I suggest you stop into Kim’s for lunch sometime soon. L-11 on the menu is a lunch combo that gives you both Mandoo and Bulgogi. The first is a dumpling much like a Chinese potsticker. the second is thinly sliced beef marinated and cooked in a soy sauce that has been sweetened. Both selections in the combo with six… count them six… side dishes and soup will only set you back $7.25.
And be sure to take note of the seat covers on each chair. Apparently grandmothers in Korea pass the time much the same way my grandmother did… or else the owners at Kim’s have a black market pipeline to Grandma Finch’s retirement community.
