Lighthouse Tofu and BBQ: Korean comfort food in a friendly atmosphere
With the approach of cold weather, one yearns for a hot, filling soup. The small Lighthouse Tofu & BBQ restaurant on Chatelain Road (tucked away behind the Columbia Pike Burger King) is known for its sundubu jjigae, a filling tofu soup served in stone bowls that can be had in several varieties, such as seafood, with clams, shrimp, and oysters; beef; mushroom; and a beef and seafood combination. You’re given a small bowl of rice to add to the soup and a raw egg to crack over the bowl. The soup is so hot, it cooks the egg.
As with other Korean restaurants, a selection of small bowls appears on the table, including two kinds of kimchee, sprouts, and pickled cucumbers (my favorite).
Among other items on the menu, galbi (barbeque ribs) and a mediocre bulgogi (marinated, barbecued beef with onions), the pancakes are the best. The vegetable pancakes were light and tasty. Other varieties include seafood, kimchee, and potato.
Five degrees of spiciness are offered: white, mild, medium, spicy, and, for the fearless, spicy spicy. Mild or medium should suffice for most palates. Don’t be alarmed if the drinking water you order is brown. It’s actually mildly flavored “tea water.” When you arrive, small cups of tea made from corn are placed before you, and your cup will be continually refilled throughout your meal. The servers, attired in red and black Korean dresses, are attentive and friendly.
One response to “Lighthouse Tofu and BBQ: Korean comfort food in a friendly atmosphere”
Leave a reply
If you go on a cold day, they'll probably set you up with "herbal" tea instead of water, but you can always ask for ice water. Koreans usually think of grain-brewed tea as drinking water and prefer it in the cold seasons; it's not brewed with tea leaves. Most places serve barley tea (bo-rhee cha) in this way.
Actually, I believe this restaurant does something interesting that you may need a cultural guide to interpret. They bring out the rice cooked in its own stone bowl (dolsot) and spoon it into your own rice bowls for you. Then they pour the barley (or corn) tea into what's left in the rice dolsot. As you eat your meal, the leftover (mostly burnt rice) in the dolsot steeps with the tea to become a kind of watery porridge upon stirring.
Koreans love nurungji (the burnt/browned rice stuck to the bottom) and this nurungji porridge is kinda a postmeal treat (or desert, if you will). I'm not a huge fan myself, but the procedure is fascinating and I concede it also serves well as a palate/spice cleanser. Koreans consider it a comfort food and have a curious complex about it.