A New Champion of Short Ribs in Koreatown
Yoon Haeundae Galbi traces its method for making the cut tender back to a restaurant founded in Busan in 1964.
June 1, 2021, 11:44 a.m. ET
There is something deeply admirable about a menu that knows how to quit when it is ahead. When the choices have been edited to the essentials, you don’t need to ask the server, “What’s good here?” and the servers don’t need to lie and say, “Everything.”
A few blocks from Haeundae Beach in Busan, South Korea, behind the gleaming modern hotel towers that ring the coast, is a one-story wooden house. Built in the traditional hanok style, with a curved roof and a secluded inner courtyard, the structure has been the site of a barbecue restaurant since 1964. Its name — Haeundae Somunnan Amso Galbijip — may be longer than its menu. Posted on the wall in English and Korean, it lists only four items: grilled short rib, grilled marinated short rib, bulgogi made from rib-eye and a soybean stew that itself contains a good helping of short rib.