Not many restaurants have the courage to line their facade with photos of raw meat platters. Park’s has no such qualms. On their facade, menu and business cards, Park’s alternately advertises itself as a Bar-B-Q, Barbecue and B.B.Q. restaurant. All of this sends a pointed message: vegetarians need not enter.

Inside, Park’s is surprisingly sleek. There are yellow walls, black tables and chairs, and stainless steel hoods over each table, to suck up the smoke from the tabletop charcoal grills. The walls are lined with photos of Korean, Korean-American and American celebrities.

Park’s clearly served the best panchan - complimentary dishes - that I’ve tasted. According to our waiter, there are fourteen different dishes available. We were treated to slices of omelette; chili-soaked sesame leaves; a scoop of pumpkin studded with raisins; small chili-slathered shrimp with sliced jalapenos; slippery seaweed slices; chili-soaked fish cakes with onions; chili-soaked bean sprouts; and chewy shreds of mayo-soaked seaweed that resembled cole slaw.

Round two included a scoop of potato salad and fried cuts of seaweed that were crispy and addictive.

Finally, we received a complimentary dish of raw chili-soaked crab, which was a little like sashimi, but spicier, served with more jalapeno.

The menu was actually surprisingly streamlined, centering on USDA Prime beef in cuts like “Kobe” style beef, seasoned and unseasoned short ribs, both on and off the bone, skirt steak, rib eye, “mountain chain tripe,” abomasum (another type of cow intestine), plus “Tokyo X” style pork belly. We went with the seasoned short ribs ($27), marinated with soy, sesame seeds and possibly more. There were only two of us, so our waiter dissuaded us from ordering more than one platter of meat, since the portions are massive. Here’s a platter of raw ribs with tongs and scissors.

Our waiter unfurled our thin-sliced meats on our tabletop grill to cook. I’m used to cooking meats at Korean barbecue houses myself, but our waiter wouldn’t allow it at Park’s.

With the marinade, the beef developed a nice caramelized crust, with terrific flavor.

After the meats were cooked, the waiter picked up the ribs with tongs and cut it into pieces with scissors.

The meat came with romaine leaves to wrap the meat, plus raw garlic cloves and jalapenos, to grill and wrap with the meat. There was a dish of chili-spiked fermented bean paste, and a murky tan dipping sauce that included chopped jalapenos and who knows what else. The bean paste was a little too pungent for my palate, but the mystery dipping sauce accented the flavor of the ribs.

We ordered a rarely-seen seafood version of “rice in hot stone pot,” aka bibimbap ($10), featuring piles of small shrimp, a pile of smelt eggs, mushrooms, kidney beans, seaweed, lettuce and radishes. The ingredients were stirred together before cooking.

Here’s the bibimbap cooking in the stone pot. Cooked together until a rice crust formed on the stone pot, it was a very good meal, with juicy little bursts from the tiny orange smelt eggs.

Mid-way through our meal, we received green-onion salad with sesame and chilies.

There was also a bowl of broth-y soup. Food never stopped flowing at Park’s.

Korean restaurants don’t focus on dessert, though at dinner, Park’s offers fresh watermelon and orange slices. It was lunch, so we left.

Considering their deft use of Prime beef, that inventive seafood bibimbap and such outstanding giveaways, Park’s Bar-B-Q has clearly reached the upper strata of Korean restaurants in Los Angeles.

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4. Sa Rit Gol - Los Angeles, CA - November 8, 2007
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This entry is filed under California, Eastside, Korean, Los Angeles, Southern California.