Nam Kang

Nam Kang
2126 Maryland Ave. (at 22nd St.)
Charles North, Baltimore
Korean
410-685-6237
Cost: $$
Reservations: Not needed
Date of meal: September 5, 2007
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: On It

Nam Kang is a medium-size restaurant in the basement of a rather sketchy block of Charles North (south of Charles Village and North of Mt. Vernon); there are lots of Korean establishments right around here. The inside is far from fancy, but it is clean and has homey touches. (The bathroom could have been worse but it could have smelled better.) A few excellent signs about Nam Kang:

1. When I called, the hostess answered in Korean.
2. Nearly all the patrons were Korean, the main exceptions for the night being my spouse, me, and a Caucasian graduate student I know who speaks in Korean and lived in Korea.

Nearly 100% of the speaking we overheard was in Korean (except for the annoying flat-screen TV showing CNN which we asked them to turn down). While I'm not a stickler for excellent English skills for servers in ethnic restaurants, our server's English was not really good enough to do her job. We were unable to successfully communicate the question "Can we have dish x served without ingredient y?" Despite her limited English, the server was attentive, competent, friendly and tried hard. They were not understaffed.

Panchan were outstanding. For those who haven't done these before, these are the little bowls of vegetables, kimchi, and such that they bring out before the meal. These are free. The highlights for me were the fish cakes (sweet and savory) and a chili-rubbed green vegetable (spicy but not overpowering). The tofu was a little bland.

We ordered bolgogi ($17, Korean barbecued beef in a sizzling platter) that was a bit sweet and quite good, though the price was a bit steep. The Bi Bim Bap ($11 since we got it in a hot stone pot, which is rice with egg and vegetables) was also very good. The stone was hot enough that you got the crispy rice goodness that comes from the rice getting seared against the stone. These are standard dishes and they were perfectly prepared. We also got one of our favorites, which is a scallion pancake (with not-too-spicy green chilis, $11) which was out of sight. Thing of a pizza-sized vegetable-laden version of what you can get as an appetizer in Chinese restaurants. Huge chunks of scallion and chili would just fall out of it. It was oily enough not to be dry but not so much as to be heavy and gross. This could not have been better.

At the end of our meal, they brought complimentary desserty beverages. These were latte colored and cold, with visible grains of rice. It had a rice and (????) bean-paste taste. Normally, I do not really like Asian desserts (a horrible generalization, I know, but I have tried a lot of them in my day) but this one was refreshing, palate cleansing, and tasted pretty good.

I absolutely loved Nam Kang. I think it would be a strong contender is Seattle, LA, or San Francisco (cities with lots of options for Korean food), though it would have to cut prices 20% to be competitive in these cities. I would be happy to bring Korean friends here.