Profile: Ma Dang Gook Soo, aka Intern Does Not Contest Ryan’s Beratement / Review

(Note: This is the second iteration of losanjealous’ Ma Dang Gook Soo restaurant review. Read the first here. –ed.)

Indeed Ryan is right when he restated (sic) how I don’t like Korean food. I mean, I like the popular standards of kalbi (galbi) and bulgogi, and I like the occasional side dish that are like free appetizers (panchan –ed.), especially the sliced hot dogs in ketchup served with sesame seeds served specifically at the Korean restaurant next door to my old workplace on Wilshire and Harvard where there is a Japanese or is it Korean school room theme, I digress. (??? –ed.)

The clam soup noodle dish was good. (Gook soo –ed.) Definitely not bad, and it was better than Ryan’s sweet Asian spaghetti dish with other strange flavors in it. I’m a hot food eater, if I had the choice between a cold sandwich and one with melted cheese, I’d choose the melted cheese. More flavors come out when the food is heated. Just like my baked goods, I’d rather have a warm brownie or cookie more so than a room temperature one. Apologies, I digress even further.

Overall, I like paying less than $10 on a meal, but I have been known to splurge most of the time and go to popularly rated Zagat recommendations. But it is very comforting to know for a lot less money one can find a decent dinner for a reasonable price, you just have to know where to go and it doesn’t hurt to have an intern be the guinea pig for hidden treasures. (… — ed)

My favorite part of the meal was dissecting [photo] the Kim Bim Bap, is that a boy band song? (Kim Bap or Kim Bop, but never Kim Bim Bap — ed.) It was very fun to see what craziness winds up rolled in rice and seaweed. I play with my food to this day and it was nice to actually have reason to do it.

In the end, I recommend what I ordered. It was not very salty, it filled me up and it was very nice to have soup and noodles on a cold night. I’m more of a pho fan, but maybe because I grew up eating pho on a weekly basis and my momma is the best cook in the world. Some people can’t handle the excess of msg found in the popular Vietnamese noodle dish, but I can.

Ma Dang Gook Soo
869 S. Western
213-487-6008