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Seoul Music
Night and day in Korean Chicago

Emil Hyde

Venture past Western on Lawrence Avenue, or north of Foster on Lincoln, and you'll notice the neon in storefront windows assuming some rather curious shapes. From the Arabic cursive on Egyptian coffeehouses and Syrian clothiers to the heavily modified Latin letters advertising Bosnian and Vietnamese delicatessens, Albany Park is Chicago's closest equivalent to Babel. (A teacher at the neighborhood school told me the students speak about fifty different languages at home.) Words like "clearance" and "pre-paid phone cards" get repeated in duplicate and triplicate on the signs--once in English, again in Spanish, and once or twice more in God-knows-what (Thai, Greek, Turkish... you name it). But, of the many systems of scribbling clamoring for you to buy stuff, none shouts louder than the clean, bold Hangul lettering that marks the area's many Korean businesses.

To call this area the Korean equivalent of Devon Avenue or La Villita would give the wrong impression--it's too spread out, too diverse, and not even the demographic center of Chicago's Korean-American population (80 percent of the metro area's 50,000 Korean-Americans live out in the `burbs). However, it is one of the few places in the U.S. outside California where you'll find this many Korean restaurants, bars, and shops crammed into a few city blocks. Like the European Jews who occupied these buildings a century ago (until they moved to the `burbs), Albany Park's Korean residents have set up their own economy-within-an-economy. Korean establishments hawk everything from floor tiles to fishing tackle, auto parts to grand pianos, screen printing to pest control.

Which isn't to say the Korean neighborhood has nothing to offer for tourists. In fact, there's quite a bit to see, do, buy, and swallow around the Korean part of town, if you know where to look. It also helps if you have a bicycle or car--this won't be a particularly CTA-friendly itinerary.

Though its fine selection of books and magazines may be of little use to those who don't read the language, the Korean Books at 5773 North Lincoln also stocks a great assortment of cool Korean pop, house, R&B, and hip-hop CDs. yeah, I know what you're thinking--but don't laugh until you've heard Jo PD rock the mic. The staff are friendly and will humor/help you as best they're able, though somehow I doubt the owner listens to much rap music, Korean or otherwise. While you're there, you can also pick up some really cute stationery with floral prints on it.

Cinephiles might get a kick out of browsing the shelves at Lincoln Korean Video (5731 N. Lincoln), though ultimately you'll have better luck finding subtitled versions of Korean hits in the foreign-film section of your regular video store or on the Internet. Either way, make sure to see "Attack The Gas Station," if you haven't already. Anyone fuzzy on the difference between gingko biloba and echinacea will really be lost amidst the jars and bottles of dried plants and animal oils available at the many herbalist shops scattered throughout the area, where you can get raw ginseng for your sex drive and powdered lizard for asthma. Manga/anime geeks will definitely want to make the long trek west to another Korean Books (4336 W. Lawrence), a small shop packed floor-to-ceiling with thousands of graphic novels trading on all the classic manga tropes: bloody swordfighting epics, lone-cop-versus-the-mob thrillers, and fluffy teenage romances.

For the fashionista, Albany Park doesn't offer much besides a Village Thrift and a few shops selling cheap knockoffs of typical American designs. However, those with an interest in Korean women's fashions should head over to Sessy Fox in Lakeview (1648 W. Belmont). The owner's sister is a designer in Korea with several outlets there and in Japan, this being her sole U.S. retailer. Colorful and unconventional, the clothes at Sessy Fox will especially appeal to petites frustrated with a lack of items in their size at most American boutiques since clothing sizes in Asia run much smaller, on average, than in America.

If you need something to tide you over until dinner, Arirang Supermarket (4017 W. Lawrence) has a cooler full of sugar-covered, chocolate-filled bean cakes and Japanese-style ice cream balls ("Mochi"), plus a variety of snack chips in flavors that Frito-Lay never imagined, such as shrimp, wasabi and seaweed. And if you really need to stock up, just drive over to Chicago Food Corp at 3333 N. Kimball. Catering primarily to restaurants, but also open to the general public, Chicago Food Corp is the best place in the city to buy frozen squid by the pound, rice wine by the liter, and crate-loads of heat-and-serve Bi Bim Bop (vegetables with rice).

Like everywhere else in Chicago, the principal entertainment options in the Korean neighborhood are dining and drinking (plus Karaoke--more on that later). There are dozens upon dozens of Korean eateries along Lincoln and Lawrence, most serving variations on the same basic assortment of dishes. Newcomers to Korean cooking might be too overwhelmed by the wide range of unfamiliar spices and preparations to discriminate between good versus great (or mediocre) Korean restaurants, so it's probably wise to start with a good, affordable place, then graduate to nicer ones once you're developed the palate to appreciate them.

An excellent, reasonably priced place to encounter Korean food for the first time is the 24-hour Korean Restaurant at 2659 W. Lawrence. Beyond the building's dark green paint and always-closed blinds, you'll find spotless tables, neatly arranged on a carpet that's cleaner than the plates at a typical American all-night diner. The waitresses--there are no waiters that I've met--wear matching red vests, and speak more than enough English to take your order (though perhaps not enough to answer stupid questions about whether or not the Dak Jook chicken is Atkins-kosher).

All the standard Korean favorites are available at the 24-hour Korean restaurant, plus a few house specialties that I haven't seen at other places. If you're super-hungry, the multi-course "Korean Restaurant Dinner," which includes a huge bowl of soup and half a cow's worth of barbecued beef, annihilates the cliché that, with Asian restaurants, you'll be hungry again two hours later. For an interesting date, check out the "cook on table" menu. Intended for at least two people, you'll be provided with a heaping pile of stir-fry ingredients and sauces, and a massive hot plate upon which to cook them yourself. It's fun, provided you can agree on what to order.

If not everybody in your party is in the mood to try something new, many great restaurants in the area offer a dual Korean/Japanese menu and sushi. If the thought of getting sushi at a Korean restaurant seems at all odd to you, it shouldn't: most of the sushi joints throughout Chicago are Korean-owned. While I can't recommend my old favorite Korean/Japanese sushi place anymore, since it changed management, I've eaten at Do Won Restaurant at 5695 N. Lincoln on a few occasions, and liked it. Just be advised that their sushi chefs will always go nuts with the spicy chili powder, unless you specifically tell them not to.

If you've had Korean food enough times that the prospect of eating shredded raw beef and egg yolk over rice doesn't faze you, then maybe you're ready to try Jang Mo Nim (6320 N. Lincoln). Located waaaaay up north on Lincoln Avenue, this family-oriented restaurant (don't get annoyed if there's a bunch of noisy tots in the next booth over watching Nickelodeon on the ceiling-mounted TV) has some slightly more outré items on its menu, like a stew made with Korean blood sausage (an infinitely spicier version of good old Irish black pudding), some interesting potato-based dishes, and grilled octopus. Another excellent eatery, specializing in grill-it-yourself barbecued meat dishes, is Chicago Kalbi Korean Restaurant, located at 3752 W. Lawrence.

After you've had your fill of Korean cooking, you'd probably be better off piling into the car and heading elsewhere to do your drinking, as around nine or ten most nights the main Lincoln and Lawrence drags of the Korean neighborhood turn into a ghost town. You can walk for blocks before finding a place that's open--it's just one dead travel agency or hair salon after another--and, four times out of five, when you do find something open it's a sushi bar where the employees are standing around waiting for the clock to reach ten or ten-thirty or whatever closing time is, so they can lock up and leave.

One island of nocturnal activity amidst the fleabag motels of Lincoln Avenue is Café Orange (5639 N. Lincoln). With its backlit orange awning, minimalist sign, and ambiguous name, it seems like it belongs in Wicker Park or River West. It's ironic how, from the outside, there's no telling an Asian place attempting to affect American yuppie chic from an American yuppie place attempting to affect Asian chic. But, once inside, there can be no mistaking which neighborhood you're in.

Let me give the following disclaimer to non-Korean readers before continuing: bars that cater primarily to immigrants deserve the same respect and protections as foreign embassies. The regulars --understandably weary of putting up with our loud, obnoxious, English-speaking asses all day--want to have a place where they can chat with friends, flirt with hotties, and sing some karaoke, all in their native language. If you decide to crash the party, no one's going to object (to your face), but for God's sake don't get all blotto and start asking the bartenders how to say "I wanna get freaky with you" in Korean, or what kind of liquor they drink in Korea, or if people have sex in Korea. If that's your plan, then I recommend you steer clear of Lincoln Avenue entirely and perhaps try Soju at 1745 W. North in Bucktown or Hama Matsu at 5143 N. Clark in Andersonville, where you can enjoy Korean food and booze in a yangnom-safe environment.

Getting back to Café Orange, the interior is swank minimalism of the sort you encounter more often in California than Chicago--low, white couches and glass tables on new-looking black linoleum, cool blue lightbulbs casting gradients on the bare walls. In the wood-paneled corner that normally serves as the designated Karaoke zone, a DJ spins Korean R&B, dance-pop, and hip-hop as closed-captioned FOX and CNN plays on the sing-along monitors. Twentysomethings in Calvin Klein, Eck, and Hilfiger chat quietly--laughing, harassing the staff, yammering on cell phones--all the usual neighborhood-bar background noise, only overdubbed.

There's a refrigerator full of Korean beer in the corner, but everyone just drinks Budweiser from the tap. Having sampled Korean beer on a few occasions, I can't blame them for a lack of national brew-pride. Hite, the most popular Korean domestic, tastes like Miller watered down with Perrier: over-carbonated and weak. While the discounted Jager-bombs tempted my inner cheapskate, I eschewed the frat-boy cocktails for a simple Vodka martini. The bartender brought it back along with some roasted peanuts and fried shrimp crackers (kind of a garlicky Cheeto with a slight seafood aftertaste) on a porcelain plate.

Café Orange's closest competition would seem to come from down the street, at a strip mall bistro/bar identified --by tall yellow letters painted on its windows--as Polaris (5351 N. Lincoln). Inside, Polaris strives for the same hip décor as Café Orange, except here it comes across more Battlestar Galactica than Southern California, with three rows of precisely aligned tables surrounded by high-backed chairs designed with alien spaceship captains in mind. The place was nearly deserted both nights that I dropped in, save for a handful of people sitting on couches in the back, eating noodles and drinking beer. There was a very impressive karaoke shrine going unused in the corner, with a three-by-three bank of televisions flanked by half a dozen giant, floor-to-ceiling banners printed with full-color images of pop stars and fashion models. I would have stepped up and belted out a tune myself, except for the fact that I didn't know any of the tunes, and couldn't hope to decipher the lyrics zipping by on the monitors in yellow and white Hangul script.

Fortunately, English speakers looking to get their Karaoke on need only to walk across Lincoln Avenue from Polaris to reach the infamous Hidden Cove karaoke bar (5336 N. Lincoln). Sharing a row of storefronts with a Lincoln Korean Video and a Christian bookstore, the Cove provides patrons the opportunity to embarrass themselves to the tune of outdated American hits by Mellencamp and TLC. Though it's skuzzy and tacky, whereas the Korean karaoke places are clean and cool, the Cove is probably a better after-dinner destination for outsiders looking to "do" the Korean neighborhood. After a few hours immersed in Korean culture, English-speaking visitors may find themselves wanting to go somewhere where they can chat with friends, flirt with hotties, and sing some karaoke, all in their native language.