Address:
3465 West 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Phone Number:
213 388 6800
Date of Visit: January 15, 2010
If somebody casts a net into an aquarium, their catch would probably look similar to what you’d find on the tabletop grills at Flaming Clam Grill of Cheongdamdong. The casual Koreatown restaurant absolutely bombards diners with waves of crustaceans and mollusks, including shrimp, oysters, conch, giant clams, scallops and mussels. Flaming Clam is truly a pescatarian’s dream, named for Cheongdamdong, “a posh Seoul suburb nicknamed the Korean Beverly Hills and known for designer boutiques and art galleries,” a description from Linda Burum’s review in the LA Times, a review that alerted me to the restaurant’s existence.
Flaming Clam Grill of Cheongdamdong’s menu is entirely in Korean and touts photos of the limited options. You’ll find small bites like eel fillet and seafood soup, but most people fill tables in large groups to split mountainous seafood platters, which are available in small ($39.99), medium ($59.99) and large ($99.99) sizes. A medium platter feeds four, with no problem.
Instead of the typical panchan, our feast started light with edamame, raw cuts of carrot and cucumber, and hard-boiled quail eggs.
Jook was a Korean variation on congee – Chinese rice porridge – with the soaked grains studded with chewy bits of abalone. We each received a small salad with an aggressive citrus dressing.
The barrage continued with starchy wedges of potato tempura, a crisp-edged green onion pancake and creamy corn “chowder” presented on a foil-wrapped scallop shell, strewn with bits of shrimp.
A soup arrived floating with braids, cylinders and balls of imitation fish cake (soy based), all submerged in a light broth studded with scallions.
At first, it was unclear what was in the aluminum foil baking tin when our waitress slid it onto the tabletop grill. Eventually, it became clear that we were looking at Duk Boki, beaded rice cakes that became supple as they absorbed the chile paste and mozzarella cheese. The molten mass also hosted enoki mushrooms, calamari strips and tiny mussels.
Our waiter lifted the lid on a pot to reveal egg that was soufflé-like and studded with scallions.
The show-stopping moment was when our waitress brought a heaping platter of seafood to our table, with varieties still in the shell, served on the half shell or wrapped in foil. She and a waiter subsequently loaded our tabletop grill with the various seafood as space became available.
Since the sea scallops and giant clams were so massive, our waitress used scissors to cut them into bite-sized portions. The oversized half-shells served as cooking vessels, with the briny juice acting as the only cooking liquid. The scallops were sweet and tender, and the giant clams offered surprisingly little resistance.
Our waitress pulled conch from the grill and plucked meat from each spiral-shaped cavity using tongs. The scissor cuts of conch meat were yellow on the outside, with chewy clam-like texture.
Throughout the course of the meal, open-faced clams arrived in several shapes and sizes. The mid-sized clams cooked in their own brine and remained fairly tender.
Earlier in the meal, in a clever move, our waitress poured briny pink clam juice from the shell onto steamed white rice topped with nori – dried seaweed sheets. Later, the dish was mixed and loaded back into the shell and placed back on the grill to create an inventive fried rice.
Massive oysters were wrapped in foil so the juice wouldn’t drain once the shells popped on the grill. This was an interesting attention to detail. These particular oysters contained a little too much grey matter for my enjoyment, but they were tender.
Simple shell-on shrimp were a real highlight, wrapped in foil and finished on the grill until they became blistered and smoky. They were good on their own, and even better when dipped in chile paste. Of course the shrimp were also blazing hot to touch.
We finished mild and mellow with a steaming bowl of knife-cut noodles in a light broth with thin-shaved zucchini, onions and sweet, tiny clams.
For some strange reason, it took until meal’s end to finally receive kimchi. It was unusually pungent, tasting like it had been fermenting for years.
Flaming Clam Grill of Cheongdamdong offered a unique dining experience. It’s hard to imagine how they can charge so little for so much seafood, but at no point during the meal did I question the integrity of the shellfish. They must move high volume. Considering how unique the restaurant is, they should.
If you’re located in Orange County, there’s also a branch of Flaming Clam Grill in Buena Park (8552 Beach Boulevard, 714 229 8978).
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Just a few names for you: the abalone jook is called “jun bok jook”, the pancake is called “bin dae dduk” and is commonly made with ground mung bean, the fish cake soup is called “oh deng”, the steamed egg is called “geh ran chim”, or literally steamed egg. Not necessary, but just clarifications.
In Korea you can get all this stuff fresh at the seafood markets near the coast (I had some at Busan and Seoraksan), where everything is grilled over hot coals. You sit around on buckets drinking soju and beer. It’s awesome.
Matt, it’s good to know the Korean names. Thanks for chiming in. I bet it would be even more fun to sit around hot coals drinking beer on the Korean coast.
I want to eat with you. This looks awesome!
Jo, Flaming Clam Grill was very good, and full of surprises (of course not anymore). I’d be up for a return trip in the future, though I kind of feel like once you’ve eaten there once, you more or less know what it’s about.