Kobawoo House
Korean restaurant · Koreatown
698 S Vermont Ave #109, Los Angeles, CA 90005
Highlights
Kobawoo House, a Koreatown staple since 1983, serves up legendary bossam with hearty sides in a cozy, wood-accented strip mall spot.
Kobawoo House, a Koreatown staple since 1983, serves up legendary bossam with hearty sides in a cozy, wood-accented strip mall spot.
"Kobawoo House has been around since before Koreatown was the land of limited street parking and soju bars blasting pop music. This traditional Korean restaurant is an oasis of calm in a strip mall off busy Vermont Avenue where you can sit peacefully in a booth while a water fountain trickles in the background. Kobawoo serves excellent jeon and chewy acorn noodles, but the specialty here is undoubtedly bossam. The portions are huge, the service is warm, and you'll leave with a renewed appreciation for the power of pork belly with kimchi." - brant cox, cathy park, garrett snyder, sylvio martins
"One of the most classic Koreatown restaurants, Kobawoo opened by the Baik family back in 1983 and has endured for over 40 years by serving some of the best homestyle Korean food in Los Angeles. The nearly 30-year-old traditional wooden chairs and tables are enough of a reason to visit this dimly-lit strip mall space.Though crowds show up mainly for the superior bossam, a Korean specialty featuring pork belly slices and accompaniments, it’s worth trying basically everything on the menu, including the hulking seafood pajeon and kimchi stew in a stone pot." - Matthew Kang
"Most people go to Kobawoo for the restaurant's famous pork belly ready to be wrapped into little bundles with cabbage and kimchi. Rightfully so—it's our favorite bossam in the city. But Kobawoo’s real draw is that the restaurant feels refreshingly traditional, especially when so many buzzy, new-school restaurants have popped up (and sometimes disappeared) nearby. The Koreatown institution has been around since the 1980s. It's still the kind of wooden-beamed restaurant that makes you want to sip on a hot cup of tea and get lost in an old picture of a Korean home on the wall. Meals aren't just for social media, they're for real socializing: friends dipping slices of pajeon in soy sauce, cousins layering bites of bossam and slurping spoonfuls of jjigae. The exception to the "groups are better" rule is lunch, when Kobawoo House offers $20-ish specials for individual portions of bossam and stew. It's one of the best and most affordable ways to experience the dish, and always a great solo dining idea. Kobawoo House's tight menu hasn’t changed much over the years, either. Every meal starts with a bowl of purple rice and a small spread of classic banchan (including soy-braised beef) before your soups, tangy acorn noodles, and platters arrive. Glistening, slow-cooked bossam may be the obvious choice, but don’t stop there. LA's less shiny stuff deserves love, too. Food Rundown photo credit: Cathy Park Bossam Meet the aforementioned famous platter of thinly sliced pork belly—some fatty and chewy, others meatier—lined up like dominoes. The pork is neutral in flavor, and it's best when loaded up with some acidity and funk. So stack each slice with few strips of kimchi and a scoop of pungent shrimp paste before wrapping it in a sheet of napa cabbage or radish. photo credit: Cathy Park Kimchi Jjigae There are lots of good options for stew here, but this bubbling red soup with aged kimchi, huge braised chunks of beef and pork belly, potatoes, tofu, and rice cakes is our favorite. Jangban Guksoo With so many vegetables on this plate, this dish is basically a salad. Though to be clear, Sweetgreen could never. It takes some serious mixing to get everything properly coated in the gochujang glaze, but it's worth the effort so that each bite of the springy noodles is tangled with crunch. photo credit: Matt Gendal Haemul Pajeon This seafood pancake is the size of a pizza, so there’s enough to go around. It’s thick, crispy, and stuffed to the brim with shrimp, squid, and green onions." - Cathy Park
"Open since 1985, Kobawoo is a Koreatown staple, and home to our favorite plate of bossam in the neighborhood. With big, wooden booths and clean lines everywhere, Kobawoo’s interior is a little upscale, and ideal for a date. That said, if you’re flying solo and don’t want to eat a giant plate of pork belly wraps by yourself, they have a smaller lunch special for around $20. And maybe throw in a plate of their deservedly famous spicy acorn noodles if you're feeling peckish." - brant cox, nikko duren, sylvio martins
"One of LA’s longest-running Korean restaurants is Kobawoo, located in the same Vermont Avenue strip mall since 1983. Sporting a dim, often quiet dining room that lights up for weekday lunches, most people come for the incredible bossam, a Korean steamed pork preparation that remains unparalleled at Kobawoo. Served with traditional accompaniments of cold blanched napa cabbage, fermented baby shrimp, julienned spicy radish, and pickled rounds of paper-thin radish, the bossam here makes for a wonderful shareable feast. Other traditional dishes are stellar too, such as the spicy braised black cod, golden brown seafood pancake, and stone pot bibimbap." - Matthew Kang, Eater Staff, Mona Holmes
