Some years ago some friends used a credit card to pay the check after an epic feast at San Soo Gab San, the 26-year-old late-night north-side granddaddy of live-coal Korean barbecue. As they made their way to the door toward the perpetually packed parking lot beyond, they were chased down by their server, one of the stoic ajummas who haul around the banchan and scissor the sizzling galbi for endless hordes of soju-soaked carousers.
Thereafter, each time my friends returned to San Soo Gab San they were treated like long-lost children, doted over and fed with motherly affection. First-generation Korean-American immigrants, my own in-laws among them, can switch from fierce to gracious on a dime. They will take no shit, but they will love you with food.
The rest of the menu is a pared-down selection of SSGB’s regular offerings, straightforward Korean classics with little hint of the culinary cross-pollination most kids go for these days. “My mom hates fusion,” says Kim. She “actually comes in and checks up on me. She makes sure I’m not messing up.”
San Soo Korean BBQ is solid overall, but there’s one dish that rises above the rest. Kim told me that the kimchi jigae is no different from his mom’s, and the stew is indeed colored a wicked chile red, set off by pure white slabs of tofu. But its bacon-mined depths produce a rich, mouth-glazing porky goodness normally associated with a good bowl of tonkotsu ramen.
401 N. Milwaukee 312-243-3344 sansookbbq.com
