Louisville, KYKorean

A family run Korean kitchen that has held down Bishop Lane for roughly forty years. LEO Weekly's guide to the city's Korean restaurants sends readers here for the jajangmyeon, the black bean noodle bowl that anchors the menu, alongside the stews and grilled plates regulars order without looking. It is a plain room built for eating rather than for looking at.

Tabletop Korean barbecue on Bardstown Road, where the grills are set into the tables and the marinated short rib and pork belly arrive raw for you to cook yourself. LEO Weekly readers voted it first in the 2024 Readers' Choice Korean category. Banchan land in a wide spread before the meat, and the room fills up early on weekends.

A small family run room on Eastern Parkway that LEO Weekly names in its guide to Louisville Korean cooking. The menu is built around bulgogi and bibimbap, the stone bowl arriving still crackling, with soups and banchan filling out the rest of the table. Portions run generous and the pace is unhurried, which is part of why it keeps a steady neighborhood following.

Family style Korean cooking on Poplar Level Road, one of the kitchens LEO Weekly points to in its survey of the city's Korean restaurants. Locals come for soondubu jigae, the soft tofu stew that reaches the table still boiling, with grilled meats and a rotating set of banchan beside it. Unfussy, and priced for an ordinary weeknight.

LEO Weekly lists it among the newer Louisville rooms worth a visit. Table grills and communal soup pots sit side by side on Bardstown Road, mimicking the Seoul barbecue and hotpot format: you pick the broth, pick the meat, and cook the whole meal yourself. It works for a group, and it takes a while, by design.