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For every three massive, two-floor, fluorescent-lit eateries in Koreatown, there is one restaurant like this. Small and outfitted in wood from floors to tables, it teems with mostly twentysomethings, either standing in a long, amorphous line or crammed elbow-to-elbow at tables; the scene is as raucous as its food is satisfying. The lively little dishes—cubes of tangy, spicy pickled turnip, for instance, and strips of chewy, sweet-dried catfish—that appear when you sit down are an auspicious beginning and suggest that any of the stews, noodles, and casseroles listed on the extensive menu will also make a fine meal. Most do: Seafood pancakes are crispy and laced with tender squid; gobdol bibimbap (a hodgepodge of rice, beef, and vegetables in a sizzling stone bowl) achieves a properly crunchy bottom. The disorientation that sets in after a few bottles of soju might even steer you away from standard fare and toward a bubbling-hot stew of oxtails floating with purplish chunks of blood. Embrace it—it’s fiery and fabulous. — JJ Goode

Seafood bibimbap, $13.95; seafood pancake, $13.95; ox-bone stew, $7.95