- So we're standing outside of Mott Street in Chicago.
It's honestly one of the best
new-school restaurants in this city.
It comes from chef/owner Edward Kim
who had a fine dining background but opened this
pretty approachable restaurant using a ton of like,
Asian influences, especially Korean.
And two of my favorite dishes in the entire city
are on this menu.
Can you explain this place to me, just a little bit?
- So, American, that's what we consider it,
is American food.
But it always sticks to the roots of having like,
you know, Asian influence, Asian ingredients.
Korean influence, in particular,
'cause, you know, Chef Edward Kim is Korean American,
so, we bring a lot of that influence here as well.
- The two dishes that I love here,
the stuffed cabbage
and then you have then mentaiko kimchi…
- Udon. - Udon.
- Yeah.
- Which is sort of like carbonara-y pasta type thing.
So you basically have lasagna and pasta.
- Kind of like East meets West
in terms of ingredients and technique.
So you'll see like the stuffed cabbage, for instance,
mixes in some French technique,
like the pork shoulder, the pork that we use for it
is braised overnight, at least 12 hours.
So when we, when we pull it out and we're ready to
build this cabbage it's nice and soft
and pulls apart super easily.
And we'll layer that thinly with sliced kimchi and
the pork butt and some sticky rice so we'll have
all these nice layers going on,
then we'll weigh it down overnight so all those layers
are compact, portioned into nice squares,
then we'll sear it so it gets nice and crispy
and use a kimchi broth that has a ton of butter in it.
And the udon has kind of like a Korean bar food,
Japanese bar food thing going on.
Like you said, it's almost like carbonara-esque.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- 'Cause of the broth, we have a lot of butter in there.
We have these noodles that are cooked with some kimchi
and some spicy cod roe, the kimchi nage,
so like kimchi broth with the butter in it,
we top it with some bonito flakes so it's like,
like the bacon of the sea.
- I'm so excited to try this, this thing is just,
I mean it's just a visual feast.
I love the, the colors and the textures
and immediately when you get this, it is,
like you have to dive in.
So I'm gonna go into the mentaiko udon first.
I mean on the outside, this is kind of like,
okay, this is like Japanese food.
I've had this before, this is udon, mentaiko,
which is also, it's pollock roe.
You know, it's just tinted a beautiful
orange-y pink, that's all thanks to the kimchi.
Gonna give it a little stir to let the ingredients
kind of incorporate because the,
the bonito flake was on top.
Hot damn, that is good.
I can honestly say that this is one of the best
noodle dishes I have ever had.
It is spectacular.
I love that each strand of this udon
is coated,
just absolutely coated with the,
the mentaiko and you get
aromatics, the chives, the nori,
the flavor, the spice, the funk,
the slight acidity that comes from the kimchi broth
ties it all together.
It gives it a sense of like, hey,
this is a super comforting Asian pasta.
It is kind of like an Asian carbonara,
except it doesn't really have any cheese in there,
which is nice.
It's a little bit lighter,
the udon is almost like a slightly softer tonnarelli, right?
So it's more substantial than spaghetti
but not quite like super hefty like another kind of pasta.
You've got bonito, a little smoky meatiness,
a rich, creamy base,
and then you have kimchi and that kimchi is just like,
it keeps it so addictive.
The kimchi broth is definitely not a young kimchi broth,
it's very mature, it's aged,
it's got this depth and this like,
kind of like soul-reaching intensity.
If you like kimchi, if you understand the flavors of kimchi
and Korean food, this is like one of the most crave-able,
amazing things you will eat.
This dish must be finished, and I don't usually finish
all the food that I'm tasting,
and I'm not gonna leave a bite for any of the crew here.
So don't even think about it.
Nothing left for you.
Not even this
will be left for you.
Do you want this?
Want to try it?
Oh, sorry.
Nothing left.
Next.
Alright, next we're gonna move on to the stuffed cabbage.
It comes in a form that looks nothing like Korean food,
except maybe like, you know, you see this broth
and you're like, okay, this red-tinted broth
could remind me of something that's sort of like
a Korean soup, and then you have the crispy
Korean rice on top which is nurungji,
this burnt rice, this crispy rice,
is an essential
food category in Korean food.
The kimchi is the pasta part of this lasagna
and then the rice is sort of the cheese element, right?
You get the same kind of crumbliness that you would get
with ricotta, but instead you have chewy, glutinous rice
and then you have meat.
So instead of like a ragu,
you have Korean-style roast pork.
The kicker here is that instead of tomato sauce,
you have this kimchi butter broth
that immediately gets soaked up on your first bite.
That's legit.
I might finish all this, too.
You got chewy, crisp rice,
that's the first thing.
And then you go into the roast pork,
which is comforting, it's like almost
braised and stringy, really tender.
You know, kimchi is kind of,
it's been compressed, and you get just kind of the
stringy remnants of the Napa cabbage.
Even in that, it's retained an intensity,
that kind of naturally just funky,
like, fermented cabbage.
It sets the tone for the whole dish.
Like I want to eat this whole thing
and I want to keep eating it, but the kimchi,
it lightens it up a little bit, right?
You get a little bit of brightness from it,
a little bit of crunch.
I find that that is the reason why this thing is delicious,
and then, of course, you have the butter.
But I mean, butter makes everything better,
but when you put butter with kimchi broth,
then you have something that's extremely fat and just like,
wants to coat your palate,
and then it's countered by the funk and the kimchi.
It's, if you don't know this,
like good Korean kimchi fried rice
is delicious because there's a lot of butter in there.
And in fact, like maybe, even though this takes the form
of lasagna, I'm kind of thinking of kimchi fried rice
when I eat this dish.
This really is triumphant.
I mean I can see why these two dishes are the
signature dishes at Mott Street,
and yet, if you were to say oh, this is a Korean restaurant,
like no, not really, it's just using kimchi
and Korean ingredients in a really interesting,
compelling way that feels very appropriate for Chicago,
like feels very appropriate for the way that Chicagoans
want to eat now.
This is an infusion of a lot of different ethnicities
and a lot of different food cultures on a form and
like a format that people can relate to.
They are incredibly Korean
but they are incredibly American.
They're a perfect picture of Korean-American food.