The highest purpose of bar food, in all its cheesy, starchy, pinguid, deep-fried trashiness, is to sponge up as many bad decisions as possible before you wake up with a katzenjammer. This utilitarian function has become a lesser priority in this day of cheffy haute drinking food. The smoked hummus at the Fountainhead is delightful, but how is that going to help you after six pours of Macallan? The meat and cheese plate at Scofflaw is as well curated as a museum collection, but Bacchus help you after you start chasing your swizzles with Malort.
In both Chicago and the suburbs they’re immobile and usually housed in strip malls behind dark glass with maybe only an inscrutable neon acronym to hint at what’s inside. And often what’s inside, in addition to more traditional anju, is a variety of surprisingly good mashups of Korean and Western foods.
The third K-bar within the city limits is a bit of an oddball, since it’s debatable whether you can call it a K-Bar anymore. But it may be Chicago’s only M-bar. A few years ago the current owner purchased the spacious Western Avenue noraebang (karaoke bar) Waba and renamed it Buba Cafe (5100 N. Western, 773-728-3222), installing a full Mongolian menu alongside a handful of Korean dishes like chap chae, bulgogi, and kalbi. But where else are you going to chirp along with Mongolian girl group Kiwi’s smash hit “Superstitious” (or songs in ten other languages) while slurping down banshtai tsai? A restorative milk tea in which taut beef dumplings bob like apples, it’s soothed hangovers across the steppes for ages. There are also juicy, supersize steamed beef dumplings called buuz and hand-pulled noodles called tsuivan, very much like the ones at nearby Jibek Jolu. The signature drinks here are fearsome 150-proof shots like the Brain Eraser and Gorilla Shot.
