I only find it fitting to do a review on my favorite Korean restaurant in Chicago as my first blog post since everyone loves Korean BBQ!

If you have not set foot in Cho Sun Ok Korean Restaurant, you have been missing out big, and I mean BIG.

For a Friday night, this place was quite busy but we got a table right away and our waiter came by with our drinks as soon as we sat down. I loved that since in the Korean culture, it is all about hospitality. Then, our waiter brought out many banchans. They are small dishes of food served along with cooked rice in the Korean cuisine. The great thing about Korean restaurants are that banchans are always FREE! Yes, free! Banchans are mostly consisted of:

• bap (cooked rice)

• guk (soup)

• gochujang (spicy red chili paste)

• jjigae

• kimchi (Kimchi is fermented vegetables, usually baechu (Napa cabbage), seasoned with chili peppers and salt. This is the essential banchan of a standard Korean meal. Some Koreans do not consider a meal complete without kimchi)

Other banchan that were served were the following:

• kongnamul (which are old boiled bean sprouts with sesame oil)

• sigeumchi namul (lightly parboiled spinach dressed with sesame oil, garlic, and soy sauce)

• miyeok muchim (a seaweed with sweet vinegar and salt)

• musaengchae (long julienned white radish in a sweet vinegar sauce, sometimes with ground dried chili peppers)

• gosari namul (prepared fern shoots that have been stir-fried)

• gogumasun namul (boiled/seasoned sweet potato shoots)

• gaji namul (boiled eggplant)

• and lastly, doraji namul (which are boiled bellflower roots)

And yes, I repeat, these are all free! Then we ordered the chicken and beef galbi for our main entrees. To be honest, I am very picky with galbi and in case you do not know what galbi is, let me school you. It is made with marinated beef (or pork) short ribs in a ganjang-based sauce (Korean soy sauce). In the Korean language, galbi literally means “rib” and can often indicate uncooked ribs. In this case, our galbi was perfectly marinated and tasted exactly how my grandmother and mom makes back in the motherland.

If you want a taste of authentic Korean food in Chicago, go to Cho Sun Ok located at 4200 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60618.

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