Mount Malindang Pork Ribs & Riblets are named for a volcano on the southern Filipino island of Mindanao. St. Louis pork ribs and rib tips are both juicy, with high gnawability factor, and deliver peppery kick. Dress your ribs with two different sauces, a tomato based sauce sweetened with pineapple and coconut oil, and a vinegar based sauce with garlic, soy, and spices. People perpetually fill red chairs in the airy waiting area of Kevin Bludso’s BBQ emporium.
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Chef Logan Sandoval makes whatever the heck he wants, every week, from smash burgers to beef ribs and curry noodles to smoked housemate Spam musubi — and the fans can’t get enough. Expect fast sellouts, long lines, and lots of banana pudding for dessert. A higher-end Korean barbecue restaurant when so many places seem to change hands or vary in quality, Chosun Galbee is a family favorite for the Korean community when they want solid service, a nicer ambience, and excellent beef. When people ask what the best Korean barbecue is in Los Angeles, most people will mention Park’s BBQ first. It’s hard to argue against over 20 years of excellence, with an energetic vibe inside and fantastic meat quality from start to finish. Chef and owner Jenee Kim does an amazing job with the non-meat dishes as well, like the delicious spicy braised black cod or the gochujang jjigae.
Moo’s Craft Barbecue
On weekends, he sells big Angus beef ribs, which often sell out by lunch. You’ll no doubt be tempted to eat the ribs in your car, but be ready with a splatter guard, because sauce is bound to fly. South L.A. County has become a treasure trove for BBQ fans, and Mississippi native Kenneth "Hambone" Hamilton has created one of the best ‘cue destinations. On a cool day, the shaded back patio is pleasant, and a dining room with green walls shields diners from the heat. Glossy baby back ribs arrive in a shallow pool of spicy barbecue sauce that builds in flavor with every bite. Customers supplement with collard greens, six-cheese mac, and sweet Swamp Water.
Dining
Yangmani might be the best place if you want to take down bottles of beer and soju, and just have a good time with friends or coworkers. Part sports bar, part late night patio hangout, part barbecue restaurant of Inglewood’s dreams. It’s hard to pin down the Wood Urban Kitchen on Market Street, simply because the restaurant can do it all so well. Catch this roving barbecue setup all over greater Los Angeles, with routine stops at breweries in Monrovia and Eagle Rock in particular. The barbecue itself is a straightforward Texas affair — including some of LA’s best brisket — but don’t sleep on the smoked beef burgers and other specials, too.
Karen Hatfield and husband Quinn named Odys + Penelope, their fashionable Mid-City restaurant, for key characters in “The Odyssey.” Wood-smoke is vital for the their industrial chic concept, which features exposed wood rafters and brick walls. Geometric shelving frames an open kitchen and holds four different woods, which each fuel a different grill or smoker. Still, their short rib is the showstopper, smoked with apple wood for eight hours, allowing the rich meat to form a beautiful outer smoke ring before getting served with Western sweet barbecue sauce. The Hernandez family has been smoking meat for three generations, dating back to their days in Seguin, Texas, a tiny town that resides between San Antonio and BBQ Mecca Lockhart. Since 2011, Manny has smoked meat at Meme’s BBQ Smoke House in East L.A., naming the restaurant for his grandfather, who appears in a photo on the wall.
The beef ribs are a show unto themselves at this East Long Beach pop-up, but the real flavor comes from the family that runs Axiom Kitchen. As one of the area’s hottest new food vendors, Axiom is tasked with feeding crowds that come early and stay late, looking for said beef ribs as well as brisket and candied pork belly cubes. The center of My Father’s Barbeque has always been chef and pitmaster Shalamar Lane, who presides over a hulking bespoke smoker to make some of the city’s best ribs, hot links, smoked chicken, and more. Big, sticky takeaway platters of pork ribs and slices of brisket are the main attraction at Woody’s, a staple Southern spot that’s been cooking in South LA for a generation. Far from the delicate, salt-and-pepper-only Texas style of barbecue, this is a saucy place to get those hands reliably messy. While LA’s barbecue scene feels like a recent thing, its history goes back decades and is deeper than just the backyard Texas-style stuff in play now.
Yerim Korean BBQ
Hambone’s method seems to be working, as he's since expanded to Huntington Beach. Chef-owner Aaron Robins presides over Boneyard Bistro, a versatile Sherman Oaks restaurant and bar with some of the San Fernando Valley’s best barbecue, comfort food, and craft beer. He slow-smokes baby back ribs and St. Louis-style pork ribs over hickory, resulting in smoky pink-edged specimens that go down easy.
The Memphis Grill
The results are pink at the edge, with winning caramelization from sauce. An originator of grilled duck barbecue in Los Angeles, this now-classic restaurant on the western edge of Koreatown still has some of the most delicious and remarkable Korean barbecue that doesn’t feature beef, pork, or chicken. Everything about the meal, from the banchan to the finishing fried rice on the tabletop grill, is engineered for maximum flavor. All-you-can-eat Korean barbecue is a staple of the genre, but few execute the concept as well as Yerim, which offers very good sub-$40 menus with a wide array of high-quality meats like marinated short rib, beef tongue, and intestines.
At the moment, there might not be a more impressive place for Korean barbecue, from the sleek ambience to the helpful service. With a spartan interior and bustling dining room, Mapo Galbi is a spicy chicken specialist, grilling tender chicken thighs cut into smaller pieces along with cabbage, rice cakes, carrots, and plenty of gochujang sauce. The whole pan simmers and reduces over time, with servers finishing meals with a fried rice loaded up with perilla leaves and seaweed laver. This very intentional Korean barbecue spot from Seoul serves just American-certified Angus prime beef, and only ribeye steaks at that. Seared on specialized cast iron skillets, diners will try ribeyes sliced into three distinct cuts and served with kkakgudi and other banchan that are fermented in Korea and shipped to the U.S.
Meaty lamb ribs with high fat content are smoked for five hours, blessed with fermented black bean BBQ sauce and served with parsley and chives. Bone-in beef short ribs are smoked for nine hours, brushed with red wine chipotle BBQ sauce and finished on the grill, resulting in beautiful caramelization. The well-marbled beef is sliced thin, draped on the oversized bone, and available with smoked paprika mustard chimichurri, red wine chipotle sauce, J-1 steak sauce, and Basque vinegar. Two generations of Robert Earls contribute to the success of Robert Earl’s BBQ in north Long Beach, which debuted in 2013. That’s where pork ribs smoke for four to five hours over either pecan or hickory, depending on which wood’s available.
After a few drinks, tax, and tip, expect to pay around $60 a person, which is a solid deal these days. Look for a brick and mortar restaurant to open in Garden Grove down the line. Maple Block has earned plenty of praise over the years, including from the vaunted Texas Monthly magazine. These days the restaurant continues to turn out barky brisket and tender ribs, while also moving into one-off holiday and weekend menus that use smoked meats as a baseline for so much more. This sprawling, dimly lit, upscale Korean barbecue restaurant has a little bit of everything. Jeong Yuk Jeom’s best offering is dry-aged beef, something of a rarity in Koreatown these days.
For this list Eater is looking only at the restaurant side of LA’s local barbecue ecosystem; there’s a separate maps for out-of-town barbecue places, too. Josiah Citrin’s corner restaurant in Venice features almost every plate touched by charcoal’s kiss. Past glass bar shelves, you’ll see a kitchen with a Big Green Egg and grill. The smoke comes from 100% natural lump charcoal, which is made of oak and hickory.
The butcher’s pride sets take a page from New York City’s award-winning Cote, with prime and dry-aged cuts at three different prices. Jeong Yuk Jeom is a good high-end KBBQ alternative for those who are tired of Park’s, Daedo, or AB Steak and want to try something new. It makes sense that the former Honey Pig space would become another Korean barbecue restaurant dedicated to pork. Using a similar wide cast iron grill that allows the juices and fat to slowly season and flavor spicy bean sprouts, onions, and kimchi to the sides, the show's star here is thick-cut Korean samgyupsal, or pork belly. The combinations here are very reasonable, about $100 for the combination beef and pork tasting that easily feeds four people.
The 15 Best Korean Barbecue Restaurants In Los Angeles - Los Angeles - The Infatuation
The 15 Best Korean Barbecue Restaurants In Los Angeles - Los Angeles.
Posted: Mon, 08 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Baby backs spend about three and a half hours in the gas-free J&R Manufacturing smoker from Texas, and St. Louis-style ribs enjoy an extra minutes. Before cooking, Robins removes membranes from each rib, maximizing tenderness. He applies a proprietary spice rub that’s sugar-based, versus salt and pepper. Robins also credits “high quality natural pork from the Midwest” for rib success. Barbecue aficionado Ray Ramirez grew up in Huntington Park, but studied ‘cue in Texas from Pecan Lodge in Dallas to Franklin Barbecue in Austin, with many stops in between. He previously worked as a banker and as an AT&T Wireless (Cingular) district manager in St. Louis and Kansas City before selling smoked meat from his home.
Owner Alan Cruz loves to keep his menu and his perspective hyper-local with A’s BBQ, the deeply East Los Angeles barbecue specialist. The food is far from traditional and tastier than ever as a result, with rotating items that might include brisket quesatacos, smoked beef cheek, birria sausages, and more. One of the older, more established premium Korean barbecue spots, this focused restaurant has fantastic lunch specials and versatile dinner combinations that won’t break the bank. The mostly Korean crowd considers this one of the most reliable restaurants in town. Classic Korean barbecue Soowon might get a little overshadowed by its neighbor Park’s BBQ down the street, but the longtime restaurant still excels with high-quality beef and attentive service. It’s no surprise that long lines snake out of Los Angeles barbecue icon Phillips Bar-B-Que, especially on weekends.
