Chris V.
Yelp
Yiiii's, buddy!
Yi's Traditional Korean Beef Soup is a bit of a chain that has launched their first Las Vegas location not far from Spring Mountain. They actually have their own parking lot and an intimidating display of the Korean alphabet, which appears to have far more letters than its English counterpart.
Inside is a well-lit, clean interior with plenty of seating, and tables that actually have pull-out drawers that hold the utensils and napkins. The menu is pretty simple and consists mainly of apps, soups, and steamed meat platters. There was another menu of foods served cold, and a chef's special menu including a kalbijjim.
I kept it straightforward with a Beef Bone Soup (Seolleontang), the #2 containing brisket, tripe, and shank ($17.99). The broth is an absolute tour de force of creamy collagen and other goodies extracted from beef bones over at least 24 hours (reportedly 3 days?). If you ladle enough of it into your mouth (once it cools down), it even feels like liquid bone marrow. They provide written notice that the broth starts unsalted, but it still has tons of flavor at that point. Incremental addition of salt is almost just gilding the lily, and the tableside pepper actually feels strong in the broth even though it's already ground.
The proteins in that bowl were also great. The brisket and flank were fantastically tender, even more so than I can recall from any bowl of pho I've had. The tripe had a little bit of what Andrew Zimmern would call barnyard character, but it was still very enjoyable as a contrast to the clean soup. I did feel like the glass noodles were a bit low in portion, but that wasn't a big deal.
The shareable Pajeon, or Seafood Scallion Pancake ($24.99), actually came out a bit later on. It was also excellent. It was thoroughly crispy despite the presence of scallions, and the tender squid lent so much flavor even in bites where it wasn't actually there. Keep it light on the accompanying sauce since it's salty, or use the purple rice to balance that out.
Oh, and they do have some banchan: the regular cabbage kimchi, and a cubed radish kimchi. The normal kimchi had a lot more flavor intensity, which was helpful at times, while the radish was just bursting with sweetness. I'm not a kimchi expert by any means, but I enjoyed both items.
Service is ideal for anyone who doesn't want to be interrupted much if at all. They dropped off water pitches and cups early, explained the utensil locations when we asked, and they asked us to walk up to the counter to pay, the latter of which is quite familiar to me from Vietnamese restaurants.
Drive, don't run, to Yi's for some of the best Korean food around. (Skip the tripe if you're not a tripe eater.) They're supposedly even open at 8:30am if you want these treats or some sort of alcoholic beverage for breakfast.