Gahm Mi Oak (Korean, Midtown, Manhattan, New York)

32nd Street in central Midtown, Manhattan (between Penn Station and the Empire State Building) is the borough's "Koreatown." A microcosm of a street scene in Seoul perhaps - crowded with restaurants, food courts, karaoke bars, billards and booze halls, some stacked right on top of each other in the street's pre-war high rises. Quite the urban landscape.

The restaurants seem to service Korean tourists as much as they do locals. At least two affordable and well-mannered hotels exist on that block - the La Quinta (fabulous rooftop bar) the Stanford, and possibly a Marriot?

Gahm Mi Oak provides relative calm from the clamerous surroundings outside. The place specializes in sol lung tang(one of many transliterations of this dish), a milky-white soup made by boiling ox-bones for hours, finished with stewed brisket (and flank?), rice, and noodles. The relatively bland, but fortifying and calcium-laden soup is livened with sea salt and chopped scallions available at each table. Once the accoutrements are added, the soup exposes its wonderful, bovine depth, and with each slurp, one feels more and more invigorated and powerful. I could swear I felt my bones regenerating a la Wolverine from the bony-white broth after a weekend of hard running.

Complimentary kim chee, radish and napa cabbage, is chopped fresh for each table. This is some of the best kim chee I've had anywhere. Sour and garlicky, the veggies nevertheless retain sublime crispness and freshness. The whole thing has a wonderful cooling effect with the soup.

I love Gahm Mi Oak. I eat there almost once a week when it starts getting cold outside. Give it a try.

Gahm Mi Oak
43 W 32nd St
(between 5th Ave & Broadway)
New York, NY 10001

I second the praise for Gahm Mi Oak, which is my go-to place for Korean in Manhattan.

For times when I feel frisky enough to venture to the outer boroughs, my favorite place in Flushing is Hahm Ji Bach, which serves excellent Korean-BBQ-style pork belly in addition to amazing chigae and the typical BBQ fare (kalbi, etc.).

Hahm Ji Bach
41-08 149th Pl
Flushing, NY 11355

For Korean-Chinese, I also highly recommend Hyodonggak on 35th Street in Midtown. The mandu there is incredibly delicious, second only to some of those that I've had in Koreatown in Los Angeles.

Hyodonggak
51 W 35th St
(between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
New York, NY 10001