Ethnic City - Korean vice

I forgot how much I loved smoking in restaurants until I visited Café Todahmgol (2442 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, 770-813-8202). Going to this tiny Korean strip mall spot feels like you’ve traveled back to that time when you could light up without any nasty, judgmental looks from fellow diners. Remember that? I bet the fact that smoking is allowed will deter most of you. However, the rest will get to see the ironic beauty of Korean culture, which is health-obsessed but also completely unapologetic about its alcohol and nicotine consumption.

Café Todahmgol is, in fact, a tavern of sorts, which is why smoking is permitted. People of all ages come here to eat, but mostly drink and shrug off the shackles of the workweek. Most of the restaurant’s seating is in private cubbies where you can lean back without a care and do whatever you wish — be it get blindingly drunk (you won’t be the only one) or eat much more than you should. The ceiling is cluttered with hanging plastic grapevines, ivy, fake flowers and glowing lanterns wrapped in natural rope. Wallpaper filled with Korean characters covers most of the space. It’s all very rustic, yet the bouncing Korean pop music brings everything up to date.

A gaggle of women servers in a range of ages buzzes around the restaurant while simultaneously tending to your table, shouting a chorus of affirmations every time someone presses the service button at their table (best invention ever), and loudly greeting every patron. There is no English menu and few of the waitresses speak English fluently. Therefore, ordering anything you can’t point to (check the walls) is practically impossible. There is, however, the option of all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue, an increasingly popular trend, which is both easy to order and super cheap at $16.99.

The barbecue is cooked on a sloping iron griddle that’s perched — sometimes precariously — on an electric burner. The all-you-can-eat deal comes with slabs of quality pork belly and chunks of beef you have to be careful not to overcook or they’ll be rendered tough. A small metal bowl is placed at the corner to catch the fat that drips from the sizzling meats. A bundle of kimchi cabbage is strategically placed just above the spout so that it’s instantly flavored with all of the fatty goodness from the pork.

Unlike some of its competitors, Café Todoghmal’s all-you-can-eat meal comes with an abundance of rotating sides. Banchan ranges from carrots served with ice cubes to white kimchi cabbage (a milder chili-free version) to tiny dried fish. More substantial items — a fluffy egg soufflé served in the same blazing hot cast iron vessel in which it’s cooked, lightly seasoned so the eggs shine; a green salad enlivened with a dressing sharp with vinegar; a chili-tinged soup swimming with cubes of firm tofu and crescents of zucchini, onions and scallions — tide you over as your meat cooks. Once your meat is ready, you can dip it in a soy-based sauce spiked with slivers of green onions, a mix of crunchy rock salt and black pepper, and, best of all, powdered soy beans that turn creamy when rehydrated by the pork fat.

No meal at Café Todoghmal is complete without some booze. Tall bottles of Hite (a Korean beer) served with tiny glasses emblazoned with the beer’s logo provide plenty of refreshment, although you may want to pair it with a some soju, which is served in a metal teapot with small shot glasses. Smoking is, of course, optional.