When I told some friends that I was going to go to
Chez Bong's on Saturday evening they stared at me quizzically trying to pinpoint my secondary life as a drug abuser behind the façade of a hard-working intern. I waved my hands around,
no no no.
Bong's.
The joy of moving to Paris was the undoubted capacity to find ethnic and cultural cuisine a few steps from my apartment. While living in Lyon I was constantly disappointed- there was a fine selection of
bouchons hanging around my little street on
La Rue des Marronniers but nothing quite like the gastronomic warphole surrounding my time living in Portland.
 |
| The front of Bong |
The story of Bong started last Saturday. Bri and I decided to walk around our backstreets in an attempt to hustle up a new restaurant
par hasard. IT was turning the corner on
Rue Blomet in the 15ème that a sudden fierce and meaty odor overcame our senses and we began to blindly walk towards a small decrepit restaurant with simple lettering: Bong.
Bong, as we came to discover, was a Korean eatery, specialising in a Korean meal known as Korean Barbeque. Basically a sort of table top barbeque of a pungent marinated meat grilled by the customer and then eaten with a variety of sauces and fermented vegetables (namely the Kimchi).
We wanted in. Except,
désolé, pas de place ce soir, proved that this place was a place you had to reserve in advance.
The next Saturday, 8:30 pm, we wandered in to a bright, smiling host, almost hugging us to enter into the establishment and feed us an incredibly decadent meal.
As the owner explained,
Eat bite is a journey for your mouth, you take a little rice, a little meat, a little sauce. If you like spicy, a sliced green hot pepper. Wrap in the rice, eat, and continue. We always have soup and a bowl of rice... but you do the work. Please enjoy.
Bri grilled, as the "korean tradition" called for, I simply stuffed myself. The meat has a sort of 'melt-in-your-mouth' quality... as if the marinade had literally allowed the meat to become so tender eating it required no chewing. The marinade itself was pungent, sweet and yet carried that evervescent undertone of a slightly salty and nutty flavor.
Each condiment had it's own variety of flavors, that fermented bitter and spicy taste of a well-made Kimchi, large slices of green jalapeno peppers that burned the lips on contact, but was insatiable when eaten. A spicy red sauce that although was hot on contact has this neverending flavor that only enhanced the flavor of the meat. Even Bri, a Frenchman, sucked down each morsel rolled into a
batvia leaf staring adoringly at the meat, proclaiming, "
Where has this been all my life?"
If you've never tried Korean food, or if you are simply dying to
find a good Korean place... I highly recommend Bong. From the honest smile an owner can give (
no extra charges for our second plate of Batvia) to the simply said, succulent marinated meat grilled in front of your very eyes- it's simply a culinary experience.
I don't think you will be able to turn around once you get within 1/2 mile of the restaurant... the smell will simply pull you in and for a few hours, somehow, you will no longer be in Paris but in a small crowded restaurant in Busan or Seoul.
