Toad Know Pork
Ktown, when combined with my buddy Kdrive, basically guarantees a world of trouble for me these days. If it’s not overindulging at OB Bear at midnight (last week), it’s having one dozen too many sojus and two dozen too many glasses of OB interspersed with one-half-a-dozen too many kimchi pancakes at Prince followed by late-night prowling, questionable arcades and dodgy speakeasies (last night). Man I’m working myself into a frenzy just putting it down in words. What’s not to love about Koreatown!!
I’m not here to talk about Prince, though it’s a killer bar. I’m here to talk about the Toad. The one thing that can cure a Koreatown hangover is of course Korean food. As such when my friend Pam called up and asked if I had lunch plans, I found myself melting in my couch and knew that Korean food was in order. In today’s case, it was Korean pork. Thusly…Toad.
Toad wasn’t crowded and the food was great. The waitress was surprised I ordered the pork trotters, motioning repeatedly to her calves and insisting we wouldn’t care for them in the slightest. Hey lady – it may be bad, sure, but just let me make the bad decision. I finally relented and let her talk us into a different combo.
The signature sizzling pork belly slabs must really be experienced firsthand, but to help you out… imagine something that looks like a 6-lb piece of juiced bacon grilling quietly in front of you. Suddenly sna-snip! snip-ip-ippity! it is snipped into pieces by the waitress. Replay this picture in your mind four times, one for each slab.
Random Photos
Toad
4503 W. Beverly Blvd
(323) 460-7037
I also dug up the original JG Recommendation
Finally, I’m ending this one with a song, because I haven’t written one in a while and Toad definitely merits a song.
There is a place called Toad
Where you can order pork trotters like Jonathan Goad
But you won’t get them so for-get it!
You won’t get them, so for-get it!
Stick to the wine and the bellies, watch ‘em sizzle
Slap some lettuce on your dduk with the ponzu give a drizzle
yeah. sorry hun, but i wasn’t quite as enthralled by the toad as you were.
[...] It’s no secret that in my youth I’ve made some questionable choices when it comes time for dinner. It takes a strong stomach to bring you the hard, cold facts regarding porkneck soup, sizzling pork bellies, steaming oki-dogs, philly cheesesteak shacks, all-pudding diets and armenian-salvadorian booze binges. As much as it pains me to say it, I’ve got to look in the mirror and recognize that I’m a man getting on in years. Recently the doctor advised me to watch the diet, and watch it well. In fact I have been watchign it well…but not changing it. I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to make a change. Make no bones about it: my days are numbered in the chilicheese circuit. [...]
[...] Jgold has a Koreatown flush: Han Bat, HamJiPark, Ma Dang, Toad, Ham Kyung Do. Nothing cohesive, same family. Ktown flush. Strong hand but it doesn’t beat my full house. [...]