Han Joo

Although Han Joo bills itself as a naeng-myun (Korean cold-noodle) specialist, our Korean-barbecue guru begs to differ. “Skip the naeng-myun; get the pork belly,” he says with a leave-the-gun-take-the-cannoli matter-of-factness. Almost everyone at Han Joo, you see, orders the pork belly. And understandably so. That the meat gets cooked on quartz-crystal tabletop grills that look like New Age backgammon boards does not deter them. Once you’ve filled your nostrils with the intoxicating scent of pork belly sizzling away on your neighbor’s table, that’s it. Resistance is futile. All that’s left for you to do is choose “thick” (steaklike slabs) or “thin” (ribbon-candy curls) and your marinade (garlic, green tea, bean paste). Order the do ya ji combination and get all of the above, a nonstop parade of pig, plus a salad bar’s worth of banchan, pristine lettuce wrappers, and zingy condiments that could feed a small Korean army.