- This Korean chain of over 200 locations
has opened their first spot here in North America.
And what they do is they take these
gorgeous baby back pork ribs,
they slather them with gochujang,
and then they cover each individual rib
with melty mozzarella cheese.
Looks kind of crazy and insane,
and I can't wait to try them.
I'm gonna be joined by Chef Sang Kim, who knows his way
around the Korean food scene here in Toronto.
I'm excited to talk to him and jump into these ribs.
(smooth lounge music)
- I love Korean food because it's just right in your face,
look at it cooking and let's just dig in.
Right?
That's the beauty. - [Matthew] No waiting.
- [Sang] That's right. Just go.
- Even in the Korean home, the cooking happens on the table.
It's part, that's how we interact with it,
whether it's Korean barbecue or budae jjigae,
every Korean family has this really rickety
butane burner, right?
And that's because...
I think that's just how we,
we wanna see the food right in front of us being finished,
so that we can eat right off of it.
- [Sang] Right.
And it also, it's,
we're a classic sharing
food community, right, our culture.
So you want those kind of things
where it's just in the middle of the table
and your chopsticks can go into my dish,
my spoon can go into your jjigae, and all of that stuff.
That's really important,
and I think,
the idea that somehow everything has to be compartmentalized
and brought into courses,
as we know, is a very Western kind of thing about it.
- [Matthew] See, this is a little more advanced
than other Korean cheese presentations
because this is like mozzarella,
it's actually become stringy.
- This ain't no Chuck E. Cheese of ribs and corn,
that's for sure.
- [Matthew] This is so mesmerizing to watch.
What are you, what's going on right now?
- [Server] Oh, I just mix all the cheese and,
big roll with cheese meal,
and I will call it cheese sauce and wrap the rice.
- Wow this is cool.
I like how we get to, get a little cutting show here.
Oh my gosh!
(Sang chuckles)
- [Sang] It's so much theater in it eh?
- [Matthew] Yes.
I think that it makes sense that James Cheese Back Ribs,
a Korean chain, brings this
to Canada for me.
(Sang sputters and laughs)
No?
- [Sang] As opposed to L.A.?
- [Matthew] Yeah.
Like, you know--
- [Sang] Like guinea pigs?
- You guys already have really good pork here.
You have good meat,
and like, you guys love cheese.
It makes sense to me.
- [Sang] Yeah.
I mean, and it's a lot of food.
We like eating a lot of food
because we have long, cold seasons.
- Yeah.
- You need to pork up.
- In the winter, I would bundle myself up with this cheese.
(Sang laughs) It would keep me quite warm.
(dish sizzling)
- Mmm.
(crowd chatters)
- This is so disgustingly good.
How do you pile on--
- This is so wrong.
The meat's really tender.
You know, it's got a gentle slathering of
gochujang and Korean seasonings.
It's good, it's really tender.
It's not, there's no smoke to it
which I, like.
These are actually really scrumptious.
- [Sang] It's good.
- [Matthew] I kinda wanna keep eating it.
- [Sang] I mean how can you go wrong with
ribs and cheese right?
- [Matthew] No.
No.
Oh, wait that's hotdogs?
- Yeah this, soveanese...
sausage thing.
These were, these were really big with
with budae jjigae. - [Matthew] Right, right.
I can see why this place is insanely popular
in Korea, because it's fun, it's shareable,
it looks amazing, you wanna take a picture of it
and put it on your instagram.
- What is, what is she do?
She went like this, then she went like that.
It's like--
Oh! It's kinda like an elastic band.
Right.
So it's, this is, yeah, you see this
and then she went something like that
for theatrical purposes right?
And then she dunked into this like that.
(Matthew laughing)
She didn't create this affect, I did.
- Okay, okay, okay. Are you gonna eat that?
- Yeah.
- You can eat that. Alright. (giggles)
The marinade
little bit sweet, has a tender spice.
- I'm always terrified of coming to a restaurant
that's got this much cheese
and I see a lot of Asians around.
I'm serious--
- I mean we're not gonna be hanging out afterwards (laughs).
- No, we better not be because...
- I'm okay, I'm not lactose though.
- This place is gonna smell very different.
- Are you lactose?
- Of course. You're not lactose?
- [Matthew] No.
You've been in L.A. too long man.
- I know, I'm good.
(smooth lounge music)
My knowledge of Toronto is only like, through my family
and I haven't been here for over 20 years.
What's, tell me about the Korean food scene.
The Korean community, the restaurants.
- Koreatown consists of Bloor street
which we affectionately term as South Korea
and then there is the whole North Korea.
We call it North Korea.
It's right up along Young street
and it's pretty north of here.
We're much much more...
tied to...
culinary back home.
So they would have been chefs,
they would have owned restaurants.
- [Matthew] They know how to run restaurants.
- That's right.
And so it was easy for them to really get set up up there
and so you're finding
that the food is a little bit more refined.
It's less of the same old that you get on Bloor street,
which is that whole--
- Homestyle, bibimbap, kimchi setting.
- To regional stuff and also stuff that are
starting to fuse now with Western traditions.
(smooth lounge music)
- Thank you so much for joining me, this has been super fun.
I feel like I just wanna be, eating ribs
and more Korean food with you all the time (chuckles).
(smooth lounge music)
Thank you so much for watching
and if you wanna see more of my dining adventures
in K-town, click right here.
(rock music)