390: Koreaworld with Eater LA Editor Matthew Kang

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. At the time, in the late aughts in Los Angeles, people did not care about food. It was not a cultural thing. It was not, like, most of my coworkers ate Chipotle, Subway, and, like, it was just basic.

0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbart.

0:59Matthew King is the longtime editor of Eater LA and is plugged into all things in LA's Koreatown. We get into the big topics of the day in Los Angeles and have a spirited conversation about New York City versus LA Koreatowns. I've known Matt for years and he's been such a good friend and such a great advisor to what's happening in, I would say, Korean food's most important city in America. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:35Matt Kang, welcome to This Is Taste. Long time coming, my friend. How are you? Hi. You've got your notes in front of you. You came prepared. Like any journalist, you come prepared with notes and thoughts. How was your day? What did you have to eat today? Anything good? You know, my mother-in-law was at our house taking care of our son. enzo and she made a tortang which is sort of like tortang talong yeah but without the talong which is the eggplant and it's basically like a really large filipino like tong rang thing or like meat jeon basically with rice and she's like you need to eat that with ketchup and i was like i will eat it with ketchup i'm korean so i had a korean sorry i had a filipino pork ground pork omelet with rice and oh man yeah some broccoli uh which feels so healthy that starts the day like good protein good balance yeah i mean you know a good home-cooked filipino meal not gonna complain um but yeah on the way here i was dreaming of all the things i would eat after this interview that's in in um silver lake because there's a lot of yeah silver lake strap we'll get into like la i mean we'll get into so many topics i mean your your career and and what you represent.

2:48I mean, I've known you a dozen years and I just wanted to start by getting a sense of, you know, how did you come to Eater and how did you get started writing about food? I'd like to get, for our audience, you know, you've been running Eater LA a dozen years. Is that right? No, I've been here officially for almost 10 years. In May, it'll be 10 years as the editor. And before that, I was a contributor and like an associate editor. Wow, well, a decade is like 40 in media, so. I can't even believe that it's been this long. I'm amazed. You know, I started out just interested in food, interested in writing about food.

3:23I studied finance in school and went to business school. And I was in banking. I wore a suit and tie every day and worked in Beverly Hills. And, you know, we had all these celebrity clientele. And I was bored out of my mind. Right. You know, just it's like your whole life, your parents tell you, you should do this. Like, it's good for your career and it's stable or whatever. And I hated every moment of it, you know, being in a cubicle, just crunching numbers, writing bland reports. It was like TPS reports, you know, office space. I was like, this is the dumbest thing ever. And I find no fulfillment in it.

4:00But I was making a little bit of money and I wanted to spend the money that a 22 year old makes, you know, I'm not thinking about retirement and smart investing. I just want to blow all my money on eating at restaurants that I couldn't afford before, you know, and being in LA, like there's a lot of money. all these restaurants you hear about like Spago and you know Angelini Osteria and all these great places that I never had the money for so I went out to eat at all these places and a lot of times I was just trying to find community people that would go with me or like help me eat and it was hard like at the time in the late aughts and in Los Angeles people did not care about food it was not a cultural thing it was not like most of my co-workers ate Chipotle Subway it's and like it It was just basic.

4:47It's such an interesting statement because I think I first started coming to LA for work around 07, 06. And, you know, I've been writing about food since about then, 15 years. And like, you're so right, obviously. I mean, the town was run by celebrity culture, a handful of celebrity chefs. And I don't think the city was being recognized, at least from the national media, for the diversity of the people here and all the restaurants and all the localities. People were like eating at fast food, right? And we're not understanding that you can go to North Hollywood and have some great Thai food or go out to the SGV.

5:16For sure. I mean, I grew up in LA, so obviously I knew about Korean food and ate at a lot of Korean restaurants, but it never occurred to me that LA could have great restaurants, like, you know, just sort of the stuff that national media covers or whatever. But at the time, I was just like, I want to just eat at as many restaurants and just be a fly on the wall, go sit at the bar, talk to bartenders, talk to servers, and just be an enthusiast. Love that. You know, and I think that's kind of like a big process of getting into food is, you know, you want to be an expert right away. You want to be known, you want to be an influencer, but like, I didn't have those aspirations.

5:53I just wanted to like pursue this passionately. And, and I saw it as a hobby. And then, you know, after a couple of years, I was like, I want to start a food blog. Cause I was like a thing people did. And I, I always thought of myself as a pretty competent writer. And I read a lot of the great, you know, food writing works by other authors. And I was like, you know what? I want to try this. And I wanted to start flexing that muscle of blogging. And it was stupid. I was probably a terrible writer. And like my, on my blog, like - Matatoui, baby. My blog, Matatoui. We got to stop here and pause and say it's called Matatoui.

6:31Like you can't, you can't get away from that one. I mean, it's great. It was a great blog name. And you know, it was fun to go around and meet other bloggers in LA and just be part of that culture like food GPS oh yeah like who are the guys like food GPS like eater obviously it was there too but like what else well my yeah I mean even like Kathy Chaplin with gastronomy blog I mean I work with her now at eater and there's so many the list goes on and I don't need to name them all but Zach Brooks yeah but food food blogging was kind of how I got into it and with eater it was like I would pit I would throw stories or like tips to cat odell the editor at the time who was amazing i loved eater like i found eater because in my corporate in my banking job i had to read curbed all the time and that was about real estate development and all that stuff and so then they would all occasionally link to eater and i'm like this is great this is like no other food publication i've ever seen it was irreverent and like kind of mean you know like they had like the hottest chefs or like death watch for restaurants like shit posting before shit posting was the thing that's what it was yeah i mean i don't know about shit posting but it was it was mean you know and i think not that i like the meanness but i like the honesty it felt like it was just so real and instant and it was a drug because they updated it like 10 times a day yeah and like old school reverse kron style blogging Oh my God.

7:55You know, like. Quick links, you know, just like a blurb. And it was like the kind of content that I was so addicted to because it was, it was like that. It was meant to feed me and inform me and get me interested. And so, yeah, I, I, I love just falling into it. I, I got, I got lucky, you know, Kat was like, Hey, do you want to start writing? We'll pay you. I don't even want to say the amount. It was a tiny amount of money to write an article. and I was thrilled because that byline was just enough for me. I was like, this is fun. Yeah, you were a fan of the publication. You got some editing, I'm sure.

8:31You maybe tightened up your chops a little bit. Yeah, you know. Generous term. The blog posts back then were like 50 to 100 words. So generous, no editing. But then, okay, so how do you go pro then? Because there's a moment when you realize that the banking job is not really it and Kat, I'm sure, is like, Matt, you got to come join us. It's got to be a moment in time. Again, I think it was just luck and not based on my skill or my prowess. And anyway, it was Kat saying, I'm going to get promoted. I'm going to move back to New York. And she'd been living in L.A. She's going to do other stuff for Eater.

9:08And she was like, do you want to take over my job? And it was very lucky that Eater had been acquired by Vox Media just a few months prior. And so Eater itself was getting out of that startup phase and becoming like a legitimate real publication, you know, and having a semblance of structure. And so I pretty much latched on to that. I grew with the job. I feel like I'm still learning and I'm still trying to like get a handle of how to do this job. Even a decade later, you still feel like you're evolving it. I mean, I was looking back at your guest list and you actually had never you'd never interviewed a city editor for Eater.

9:43I don't think, at least prior to the pandemic, up to the pandemic, you hadn't, you know, speaking with Bill Addison and Ryan Sutton and Emma, who's amazing. All these people are amazing. James, Helen, Rosner, all my like former and present colleagues. But there's something about being a city editor that like I kind of tell people is like being a bureau chief of the CIA outpost, you know, like you're kind of, you are a, you are a different part of the company and how, and you're very local and you're very focused on what is immediately around you. And you have to be extremely, you know, you got to be, you're an intelligence officer in a way, right?

10:24Because you, you have to find the tips. You got to know the things you got to be on top of it. You got to manage a small team. You're also a diplomat. You're also a diplomat. There's a lot of people. There's a national office that has stakes in LA. you've got your local writers and your local community and you want to make sure you cover the city fairly and that you're doing a good job and being objective. But that's a lot of people like that definition of objectivity can be sliding at times. It's a lot. There's a lot to wrestle with because, you know, you're doing the opposite of what a lot of other people in the media do.

10:57They're thinking national, what's relevant, you know, what's the best new restaurant in America, blah, blah, blah. And I just don't care about that stuff. I'm only thinking about Los Angeles, what a local audience cares about. And it's frankly something that is kind of dying out, right? I mean, you have the LA Times and their food section, which is historic, but it's gone through ups and downs and just had, you know, it just had layoffs recently. You know, local food coverage is its own beast. And it's been great to kind of navigate through it and I really appreciate like where Eater LA how far it's come well I appreciate you Matt and I have to give you a lot of credit for being really consistent in the way that you cover the city which is tenacious which is you know without any apologies and I think you obviously haven't made friends with everyone you write about and that's definitely okay but I also like what you've done which is like you've elevated communities like Mexican American communities, Korean, Thai.

11:59You've written stories about SGV. You've written stories about Napa. You've gone up there. You've written stories about, you know, black community. And, you know, you did that well before these big changes in food media around 2020. You've been doing it since the day one because that's like your instinct. And I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, I remember when 2020 and George Floyd and the sort of backlash against food media that was so, you know, white and hegemonic and very like it was about power and um as a korean american as somebody who grew up in la who you know frankly didn't know shit about west hollywood or beverly hills or these big you know kind of glossy places of la and instead you know being in and spending time in communities that most transplants have never heard of and covering those places and eating at these restaurants it was always my inclination to be like you know i'm these places are just more interesting yeah i agree i'm the same way and you know communities these communities in la and this is true of a lot of big cities in america they're not cooking for a general population the koreans in la they don't care about the non-koreans that come in they want to impress and be you know serve korean diners first and then of course if anybody comes in they want to try the food then they just follow.

13:22You just buy into that. And I think that's true of a lot of different international and ethnic communities in Southern California. Let me ask you about Glendale growing up there, not too far from the traditional Koreatown, but not Koreatown. Let me ask you, what was Korean food like in your household growing up? And I framed this around Korea World, the book that I'm putting out with Dookie. You're in the book and Matt, I got to give you so much credit for being such a wonderful friend and resource and collaborator. And we've shared many meals in Koreatown in L.A. And you know more than anyone.

14:02And you gave Jonathan Gold a lot of information firsthand. And I'll give you credit for that, too. But what was it like growing up for you? What was Korean food like for you? Yeah, it was interesting. My parents left Korea. They both left Korea at a young age. And they went to Brazil. And they were both raised in Brazil. They didn't know each other in Brazil. And then they met in the United States. So I feel like I kind of grew up with a weird, stunted Korean kind of American identity. Like, obviously, my parents were still Korean. They're still, you know, first generation Korean immigrants. But they were fluent in English.

14:36They were very much well-versed in American culture. My dad was like, he sounded like an American dude, which is very rare, you know, for an older Korean American gentleman. And like, we ate steak. and like you know pasta and like my dad loved cooking and made pasta and would watch food network and like pbs and just try to make you know ming side just whatever that he thought was creative and fun we had a lot of brazilian food growing up a lot of brazilian barbecue and so it wasn't like a classic traditional korean yeah my mom you know she wasn't the best cook growing up she's a lot better now you know now that she's a grandma and like you know has a lot more time to cook but like growing up it was very simple stuff you know bulgogi and kimchi and banchan that a lot of time they would get from you know the markets you know in k-town and that was kind of my formative experience with korean food was just simple home cooking i didn't even eat that much of like my grandparents food um and so my real education of korean food was from Korean restaurants in Koreatown.

15:42Going with my parents, going to get seollongdang, going to get gogi or jjigae, and my parents going like, oh, this is kimchi jjigae. This is why it tastes like this. They're really just telling you this is the way it should taste. Yeah, and Korean restaurants are amazing just as a concept because there's such a standard. You've eaten now Korean restaurants all over the world and all over the country, and there's something about Korean dishes where there's a certain minimum level of excellence that they will often achieve, you know, and some places will go beyond. And it's weird. There's not a lot of people will argue about it.

16:18Like if you have daengjangjigae somewhere and it's well-made, few people are going to be like, well, my mom's version. Right. I mean, it might actually be better, but if it's the restaurant level of kimchijigae or daengjangjigae or halong tang, then it's just damn good. Yeah, I fully agree. I mean, you're definitely at a baseline. And I think my read is like, if you're not if like some reason your tenjeon is watery or your pancheon is like you're only offering one or two and not eight or nine you're out of business totally you're out i mean i think the only place that really you see these places that are kind of not as high quality as like like west michigan i i i wish i could say like my hometown has like truly the worst korean restaurant in the world uh and it's not the i'm sorry to say i think it's because there's no other restaurant literally it's tough it's tough with korean food in particular you get this synergy the more korean restaurants yeah the more competition call you got to be better and that's why i think you know i love the korean food in southern california it's it's just grounded in tradition and it's just the same you know 50 grandmas that are all just competing i love it you know for to make the best version of a dish let's get into the weeds i want to just get what's your i mean is this i asked you this ahead of time i mean i know it's hard but like maybe you have an answer all-time favorite like traditional korean dish yeah i have an easy answer for that i love yukyejang oh bless you what a what a great dish love that it's such a like explain it a little bit i love yukyejang it's basically like a spicy um korean beef soup yep it's so texturally interesting because you have like stringy brisket meat and then you have like stringy fern break like kozari oh i love that I love that part.

18:01You know what I mean? And then you have like stringy, it's like this is just a stringy dish, it's weird. Like you have to bring your floss. I mean a nookie, you'll throw some mushroom, I mean some of these will be like, the vegetables will be stringy, it's so stringy. You're right. Yeah, I mean it's like green onion strands and then there's like, you might like scramble an egg into it. And then you have vermicelli, which is chewy. And then it's all kind of like suspended in this very dank, like rich, spicy beef broth with like kind of like chili, almost like a, like a, you know, gochugaru like oil on the top.

18:36It's just, it's just very, I don't even know how to make the dish. It's funny. I actually have never tried to make it. Really? Because it's like, I'm not going to make a better version than the restaurant. With the restaurant, I mean, in Koreatown, we have a yukajang recipe and, you know, it's like heavy on the gochugaru. I mean, it's lovely. I would have to look at that recipe and like, I don't think it'll be better because I'm sure the restaurant, they have their broth nailed down and it's just a process. Is Yudae still your place? Yuktejang? Yeah, Yudae, Yuktejang, isn't that the place? What's that place?

19:08Yeah, there's a place in LA. On 6th Street? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a chain in LA called Yuktejang. Yuktejang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. And they specialize in the dish. And my wife and I probably get it like once every other week. It is so good. Yeah. But what's interesting about this dish is that it doesn't actually have a lot of interpretation. Like pretty much people make it one way. I've never seen a modern version of it. Yuktejang puts like ramen noodles in it as like a contrast. But like otherwise, it's just very solid. Like I love how consistent it is. It's my like final, like before I, you know, go to heaven dish.

19:43That's the last meal. Yeah, this is Yuktejang. Well, let's continue talking about Korean restaurants. I want to ask you a few more questions. I guess this is like such a big one too. maybe it's easy you know out-of-towners are coming in they want to hit the one restaurant for a korean restaurant in la matt where are you taking them i always talk about soban i mean i love soban i think it's the best korean restaurant overall korean restaurant in los angeles probably my favorite in the country they have a pretty small menu it's really centered on three dishes ganjang they do an amazing version which is explain the marinated crab it's like a marinated like sort of fermented it is fermented technically but it's like a marinated flour crab and it's a little bigger and meatier and sweeter than like a blue crab and it's just this ridiculously delicious dish it's i just think of it like cold crab bat you know you kind of like squeeze it out it's like just really complex there's like all these spices and herbs and flavorings you know like antler ear or antler horns i don't even know what's in it just all these things that gives it this very complex flavor and then you like squeeze it out and you can suck it right out of the carapace or like you know spoon it gently over right like warm rice always have the warm rice bowl oh man spoon it and then of the marinade i mean you can go orchard fruits too you get a little bit of like sweetness in there too at times oh it's it's it's like a it's a mysterious liquid but it's mainly soy right mainly soy sauce yeah so it's got this kind of like soy but then there's so much complexity in it they do the best version of that dish anywhere um and they also do a very very good version of kailbichim yeah and they also do a phenomenal undegujorim which is one of my favorite korean dishes is some braised spicy braised black cod with like these big fat yeah tender radish slices and man like you just get those three things and like they have their panchan starts at 12 and it will go to 16.

21:44I mean, it's absurd. The young woman running it who took it over from her family and I'm sure you know her name, she is like really, really focusing on panchan right now. Deborah and her mother, yeah, Deborah Pack and her mother, Jennifer, they purchased a restaurant after it was opened, but they've just taken it to another level. And, you know, they're like family friends now. They're really wonderful. But their panchan game is just, you could just get a bowl of rice and eat their panchan and that's like the best meal. I mean, it should be like a meal and I feel like they could probably, she's very innovative and I would say probably could do a panchan restaurant.

22:18I mean, if there was one. They could. I mean, Jennifer, the mother, now she like bought a large piece of property in northern LA County and like is like now growing a lot of the vegetables and like bringing it over and doing a lot of cool stuff. So Soban, it's definitely a well-regarded place. Matt, I have to ask you for a few more, maybe three or four more Korean restaurants that you really think exhibit LA at its best. Totally. I mean, I just went last night again to, what's that place? 성북동. Yeah. Which is kind of like another old school grandma, classic Korean food. You know, they have fried fish and they have jjigae and they got galbi chim.

22:58Phenomenal. And they just doubled the size of their restaurant. I didn't even know that they had done that. So now I'm like, man, so you're clearly doing well and you're, I love Park's Barbecue for Korean barbecue. They do the best version. but there's so many good places. I just went to a new place called Origin, which is where Baekjeong used to be. Oh, really? Did Baekjeong pull out of LA? No, no, no. It just closed that location. Oh, the Chapman Plaza one? Yeah. Yeah. But they're going to reopen. So Baekjeong will reopen in a different location. But that one, I just went this week, and it was like such a smart reworking of Korean barbecue as it makes sense for Angelenos.

23:35Yeah. They have like dokgalbi there, which is like a very strange, you know, it's not a common preparation. is just like this ginormous hamburger patty looking thing but it's just my son loved it he was eating the crap out of it there's a great ducal b recipe in korea world nice it's a favorite of mine and it's one of those dishes that you see everywhere in seoul but it's not as common in america so like they're trying to make it a thing in la i love that but like you know i also i re i really like the new school kind of crop of korean restaurants yangban and baru and perilla are very cool in their own way.

24:10Extremely cool, all three of them. Yeah, so I think, yeah. I mean, Korean food, I'm always excited by it. I have to shout out, I'm surprised you didn't mention it, is Kobowo, the Busan place? Yeah, I mean, Kobowo is definitely super reliable. I think I sent you there. You sent me there originally, I mean, back in like 12 or 13. Yeah. But I mean, I've been there maybe four or five times. They are phenomenal. and you know their posam is unparalleled nobody can touch it it's the best um and yeah they're they're an amazing restaurant for sure yeah well well i appreciate that korean talk we could we could go all day and make this a korean episode but there's so much more to cover your job you know you are it's an expansive job um but i want to ask i have a broad question and it's a food media question i think you were really well positioned to answer it how do you matt and your team how do you share space with these tiktok backseat reviewers you know they're everywhere and that's like a genre i'm saying you know i i'm kind of i used to be so optimistic like oh my tiktok's awesome it's diplomatic it's cool but like i'm like down on it now i'm like i'm like this stuff is kind of nonsense a lot of it and like i these people don't know what the fuck they're talking about frankly i'm just gonna say it that's my words not yours i just like how do you share space with them in a very, I would say, competitive food media market?

25:33Yeah, it's really interesting. I think it's definitely the discussion of the last few years and for this year. Our team in particular is heavily interested in this topic. And I love TikTok. I love the app. I hope they don't ban it. It's about the time that the government might ban it or force somebody else to buy it. And yeah, I mean, the surveillance aspect is all there. I'm, you know, it's Chinese, whatever. Like in terms of food, in terms of like how we as consumers view TikTok, it is an incredible medium. And if you don't embrace it or appreciate it, like you're going to get left in the dust.

26:10And that means I think we're being left in the dust. There is a sort of casualness that's kind of positive, but there's also an inanity. Like it's just like a guy in a car eating a burger that he took out and he's like rating it. I'm like, that is dumb shit. But that is not, you know, food that I don't I'm not enriched by that. No, it's just a hot take or whatever. It's like empty calories, pun intended. It's yeah, exactly. But but I do think there's an opportunity. I think that the same way that food media dismissed the blogger generation of which I was a part of, you know, and I was stupid. I didn't know, you know, I'd have the food knowledge of like people, you know, Jeffrey Steingarten or whatever.

26:53Like, yeah, he would probably slap me. Right. If he met me in 2008. but we learned and we got smarter and we got more informed uh and we stayed curious and i think that the tiktok influencer that's going out there and getting hit up by all these restaurants you want to collab with us you want to get you want to collab with us i'm like dude i'm so tired of that word because it's just payola you know it's pure pay for play it's pure like come we'll give you a ton of free food and you just have to make us look good and it's like you know what the tiktok influencer is going to only shoot themselves in the foot if they do that because then the consumer is going to go there and they're going to be disappointed they're not going to get styled out they're not going to get the same thing that and you could say the food writer or food media has that same thing you know it's not like i go to a restaurant like fully anonymously all the time or that I don't get made, you know, but it's different.

27:54Like they're presenting something so visually enticing and so wonderful that may or may not align with a normal person's experience. And that takes away its usefulness. It's the idea is to be service, right? TikTok is trying to be service. The right word. Exactly. Service journalism. But it ceases to be serviceable when it's just a one of a one off experience. Yeah. And it's like, and I'll just add, I think I fully agree with you, Matt. And I think it's really well said about switching in generations and not being the old guy pointing at the way, yelling at the cloud and saying, like, I don't like anything about TikTok.

28:31And to be clear, I love TikTok as a medium and I hope it doesn't get banned as well. And I just think that these TikTok backseat reviewers are like trying to do it at scale, which is like weird. Like we need to go to like eight places in a weekend and like get up all the vids because obviously they're getting paid by the amount of streams. And so if they are doing X amount per month, they're going to get X amount revenue for their advertising collaboration. So I think that they don't think about it like as a one on one, the way that food writers think. Like I'm thinking really heavily about this one story or this one review and they're trying to scale it.

29:07And it's an unscalable piece of content. Yeah, I mean, I think we will find out what happens at the end of the day. We just look at the results and like certainly places and restaurants are benefiting. not only from getting featured on TikToks, but now they're going and saying, let's make our own content. You know, like your friend and collaborator Daniel is like killing it with his own pizza content because you know why? He makes dope ass pizza content. I want to watch him make pizzas and talk about what he cooks. And like, I've been telling that to a lot of restaurants who beg me for coverage or whatever.

29:40And I'm like, there's really no avenue, but hey, you are making cool stuff. Show people what you're doing. You don't need me anymore in that sense. Okay, Matt, let's talk about some storylines in LA. I feel like a lot is happening here and you're always on top of it. And I respect your takes. Broadly speaking, is there a story that we just aren't, we meaning the national media, I consider myself part of that, are just not understanding getting covering in Los Angeles? One thing we have visited time and again, and we need to probably look more into is the sort of financial model of restaurants and how tenuous that is and looking and trying to understand why there have been so many prominent closures, so many very rapid closures, places that open with huge fanfare and then come crumbling down.

30:30Like Best Bet Restaurant was a place that had been in development for three years and an ungodly amount of money was spent on it and it closed after six months. Wow, that's insane. Why did it flame? There's a lot of reasons for that, some of which are publicly available to know and many of which is not, you know, but, but the bottom line is that I think a lot of restaurants are struggling. It's a tough, tough market. And there are so many unfortunate forces of, you know, labor, cost, rent, regulation, all these things that just to make it impossible for restaurants to truly make it. Do you talk with the mayor's office and the government of Los Angeles ever?