Each bite had a savory flavor that was then accentuated with umami whenever you got some of the seafood in there too. It was a mix of egg and flour for the main pancake batter, along with squid, clam, and scallions also added into the mix. The seafood pajeon was also pretty good, pan-fried so that it was crispy on the outside but yet still soft on the inside. I paired up some pieces of kimchi in with the bulgogi and some rice, which I thought created a nice balance of the sweet, spicy, and tangy flavors. The bulgogi had more of a ground pork texture than I was anticipating, but it still had a nice sweet flavor from its marinade.
#Bcd tofu house cracked
The seafood pancake was the last one to arrive, after which our two-person table had all of its surface real estate taken up by plates of food and drinks.Īs is traditional with soondubu, we cracked two eggs into the stoneware pot, letting the eggs cook in the piping hot broth while we turned our attention to the other two main dishes. The beef soondubu arrived first, still piping hot and bubbling a little bit inside the stoneware pot, followed shortly by the bulgogi. In addition, our stoneware pots that were filled with rice also got brought out in preparation for the remainder of the main dishes arriving. Kimchi, pickles, and (what I believe to be) a mashed potato salad were the dishes that I recognized, but there were three other dishes that I wasn’t as familiar with, but were seafood-based. The assortment of Korean side dishes, or banchan, arrived to the table not too long afterwards. We decided to go with a beef soondubu for the both of us, along with additional orders of the bulgogi and the seafood pancake (pajeon) to round out the whole meal as well.
There were an extensive variety of options on what could complement the tofu in the soondubu, ranging from meats to seafood to veggies. We did get lucky though, since after waiting for about 15 minutes, they opened up their outdoor seating area and we were able to grab a spot out there instead.įor the soondubu dishes, all the tofu is made in-house. area, so it had been a while for me.Įmily mentioned that BCD was one of the more popular spots down in Koreatown this was very evident in the fact that there was already a pretty good-sized line waiting outside the restaurant to be seated. I hadn’t eaten tofu soup since my time living out in the D.C. My friend Emily and I were down in Koreatown and decided to go hit up BCD Tofu House for dinner to wrap up our day. The Korean community on Twitter mourned Lee and shared their gratitude for what she did for the flavor profile of Korean cuisine in America.There is something about a bowl of Korean tofu soup (soondubu) that really helps to warm you up on a cold evening. Lee trademarked the name BCD Tofu House, beginning the grocery-store line of prepackaged soondubu that is stocked on shelves today, and expanded to 13 units in 24 years. “No matter what other people tell you, you shouldn’t look back.”Īnd devoted she was. “To succeed in anything, you just have to be fanatically devoted to it,” Lee said in 2006, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Lee eventually focused on Soon Tofu specifically because of the protein’s health benefits and taste. The name BCD Tofu House came from Lee’s mother-in-law’s restaurant in Korea, which was located in a district named Bukchang Dong – incidentally where Lee received her own culinary training. She opened her first restaurant in 1996, and her first international locations in Seoul and Tokyo by 1998.
in 1989 searching for a better education for her three sons. According to the company’s website, Lee was inspired by a “passion to spread Korea’s wonderful cuisine around the world.” Her recipe itself is a closely guarded secret of the restaurant. Lee is often credited with popularizing Korean dishes like soondubu jjigae, a tofu stew made with curdled soft tofu, vegetables, optional additional protein and gochujang or gochu garu that comes in various levels of spice, in America. BCD Tofu House began in Los Angeles’ Koreatown as a silken tofu stew restaurant in 1996 before growing to its current 13-unit size with locations in New Jersey, Texas, Southern California and New York City. Hee Sook Lee, a first-generation Korean immigrant known for founding BCD Tofu House, has died at 61, according to the Koreatown Youth and Community Center’s Facebook page.