Korean food in Portland?

Come, I will show you

By Joan Lang

FUJI, 28 Exchange St., Portland, (207) 773-2900. Hours: Mon. through Thurs. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and on Sun. 12 to 10 p.m. All credit cards. Full bar.

ONE POT: the hands-down favorite, bibim bap, is pure comfort food in a bowl.

You know there’s a restaurant in Portland serving Korean food, right? Fuji, on Exchange Street, page three of the menu. If you do, then you already

know that Korean food is fascinating stuff, one of the great, under-appreciated cuisines of the world. It’s all about freshness and texture — crunchy vegetables, cool, slippery noodles — and robust, earthy flavors that swoop from toasty sesame oil to incendiary chilies and powerful garlic. It’s hard to think of a cuisine that’s more reflective of the place it was born — lush but mountainous, sur-rounded by the sea, a land of frigid winters and scorching hot summers.

It’s not so odd to see Korean food in a Japanese restaurant, either. Hard left across the Sea of Japan, Korea shares thousands of years of cultural history with its more powerful neighbor. In the United States, where the Korean population is growing rapidly, many Korean restaurants sport the more familiar sushi bars and tempura. But at Fuji, the Korean menu originates mainly from the fact that owner Hwa Sun Bae is Korean, and so are several of her cooks.

When Hwa first opened Fuji about 10 years ago, she offered a few Korean dishes because that’s what she was more familiar with. “Then more customers were getting interested in it,” she says. “There were lots of people craving for something spicy.” So, when the restaurant moved from its original location in South Portland, she took the opportunity to add more of her native specialties.

All Korean meals begin with panchan, or little dishes of kim chee (pickled vegetables), and so it is at Fuji. What you get depends entirely on the season — intensely crunchy mung bean sprouts, meltingly soft chunks of gently spiced yam, chewy dried squid, spinach in sesame oil, bits of grilled pork — but there is always some sort of cabbage, fermented with tre-mendous amounts of garlic and chili. Some of Fuji’s waitresses still can’t get over any American’s interest in this stuff, so if you don’t get your kim chee, ask.

Hidden away on the appetizer menu is a wonderful Korean specialty called Pa Jun, a delicate, omelet-like pancake of mung-bean flour, briny oysters, and a tangle of smoky grilled scallions, which you dip into a soy-based sauce sharpened with vinegar. Definitely order this for the table. Or share one of the entrees from the Korean menu, called Yaki Man Doo — handmade, crisply fried dumplings filled with meat, crunchy vegetables, and transparent noodles — delicious, but a bit much for one person as a main course.

If there’s a Korean national dish it’s bulgoki or Korean “barbecue,” thinly sliced beef marinated in a sweet, slightly spicy sauce and grilled. At Fuji, two or more diners can have this dish prepared at the table on a portable burner; order it alone and it will be cooked in the kitchen — fine, but not nearly as fun. There is also bulkalbi, or beef short ribs, similarly prepared.

These are not the best Korean dishes at Fuji, however. My favorite, hands down, is Bibim Bap, and not just for the pleasure of reciting its melodic name. This traditional “one-pot” consists of a hefty black stoneware bowl layered with rice, grilled beef, spinach, bean sprouts, and other vegetables, topped off with a sizzling fried egg. You mix it up with chopsticks, adding spicy bean sauce to taste — pure comfort food in a bowl.

First day on a diet, I’d probably order Hwe Dup Bap, or Korean-style “scattered” sushi, a fabulously low-fat assemblage of rice, sliced raw fish, and vegetables (again, bean sauce to taste). Chop chae are wonderfully slithery bean-thread vermicelli, sautéed with julienned beef and vegetables.

Like all people in places where the winters get cold, Koreans are great lovers of whole-meal soups and casseroles, and at Fuji there are several good ones to choose from. Those man doo dumplings show up again floating in a gently flavored broth adrift with bits of egg white and vegetables. In summer, if you’re lucky, they’ll have prepared Naeng Myun — cold buckwheat noodles in beef broth with vegetables and a hard-boiled egg, which is much better than it must sound to the uninitiated. Hotheads will want to try O Jing oh Bokum (pan-fried squid in garlicky chili paste), Kim Chee Chige (pork and kim chee stew) or Seng Sun Chige (a kind of casserole with chunks of fish on the bone, vegetables, and hot bean paste). Find Bosut Bokum (a mushroom-based version of the squid dish) hidden away in the vegetarian section. Danger, Will Robinson: these are hot.

As far as Korean desserts go, there’s no such thing. You’ll have to settle for ice cream down the street.

Joan Lang can be reached at joanmlang@aol.com.