THE Korean passion for octopus runs so deep that there is a whole street of restaurants specializing in dishes prepared with them in the Mu Gyo Dong nightlife area of Seoul.
Here in Los Angeles, the love affair with tentacled cephalopods is in its infancy, but local Korean-octopus aficionados can find their heart's desire at new specialty restaurants springing up in and around Koreatown. For culinary adventurers, they offer some delightful never-tried-this-before choices, but the food is so appealing that you don't have to be hunting for novelty to enjoy the meal.
The restaurant My Secret Recipe on 3rd Street and its much smaller newly opened branch, Nakzi Village, in Koreatown Plaza, are exceedingly popular examples of octopus-centric establishments. Both offer tender "baby" octopuses prepared dozens of ways: crispy, savory minced octopus pancake appetizers, grand paella-like dishes cooked at the table, bouillabaisse-style soups crammed with assorted seafood as well as grilled, with noodles and in other preparations.
The menus focus on the two small, not technically baby, species of cephalopods, nakzi (pronounced NAK gee) and its more diminutive shorter-legged relative chukumi (choo koo mee). Although it's scarce in retail outlets here, the fresh nakzi flown in from Korea that occasionally shows up in some L.A. Korean supermarkets for about $20 per pound is snapped up rapidly.
Both nakzi and chukumi, far more tender than their larger rubbery relatives, have a delicate taste that accommodates almost any flavoring but is an exceptional foil for spicy seasonings.
At My Secret Recipe, laminated Technicolor-bright menus -- written entirely in the Korean script, Hangul, are already laid out on tables when you arrive. But handwritten, photocopied sheets listing every dish in English -- although sometimes not particularly appetizingly -- are available for the asking.
We found the servers ready to answer questions and eager to make suggestions. "You might want a mild version of that," our waitress suggested when we ordered the house specialty: boiled octopus pot.
That name is a bit deceiving. The dish, which must be ordered for two or more, is cooked in a huge shallow pan fitted into a gas-fired burner sunk into your dining table, but there's no boiling to speak of. In the pan are cut-up pieces of nakzi, a heap of clear, springy noodles and an assortment of colorful vegetables, including soy bean sprouts and delicate, edible chrysanthemum leaves called \o7sukkat.
