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Doobu (San Francisco)
Author: Ken
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Categories: San Francisco |
Tags: Tags: JapanTown, Korean, SanFrancisco, tofu
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1723 Buchanan Street |
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Doobu is a friendly Korean restaurant in the heart of Japan Town, not far from the Kabuki Theater. Signs near the door advocate tofu for good health, and tofu seems to be their specialty. The restaurant is long and narrow with geometric modern art on the walls, and a long row of roomy booths, like a cool Asian diner.
Kathryn and I found Doobu by accident, wandering around Japan Town, and I’ve been there twice. Both times there were other people in the restaurant, but it wasn’t crowded at all.
My eyes zeroed-in on the mixed vegetable Dolsot Bibimbap, which is my favorite Korean entree. Vegetables, mushroom, soy bean sprouts, and tofu, sizzling in a hot (!) stone pot. Stir in the (not very) hot sauce quickly, before the rice burns to the bowl. The rice they use at Doobu is a little different: tasty with a brownish hue. I loved it, but Kathryn preferred the white rice they use at other Korean restaurants.
On our last visit, we arrived a little bit before our friends, and ordered the Fried Tofu Salad as an appetizer to share with them. Somehow, the half of the salad we intended to save for them didn’t make it. It was too delicious. The tofu seemed somehow battered and fried, but wasn’t heavy or oily. It was more like the skin of the tofu slabs was cooked or boiled, leaving a chewy white tofu center inside the golden shell.
Doobu serves the kind of Korean barley tea that I really love. While they don’t serve as many vegetarian, side-dish appetizers as Shik Do Rock in Albany, there is something you have to watch out for. Unless you specifically tell them otherwise, they bring everyone at the table a whole fried fish. There are many reasons I’m a vegetarian, and that’s one of them. (No thanks!)
I’m looking forward to my next visit to Doobu!
Shik Do Rock (Albany)
Author: Ken
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Categories: Berkeley & Albany |
Tags: Tags: Albany, Korean, SolanoAve
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1137 Solano Ave |
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As recently as 2007 I had never tried Korean Food. But then a fortuitous find in an underground mall in Sapporo, Japan began my love affair with vegetarian dolsot bibimbap—rice, tofu, mushrooms, and veggies served sizzling in a hot stone pot.
Shik Do Rock is a great little neighborhood Korean place we go to all the time. The steam rises from the bowl as the veggies cook. Stir in some not-so-hot sauce, toss it around with a long metal spoon, and let the anticipation build as it’s still way too hot to eat. Before the main meal arrives, the waitress brings six or seven little side dishes to the table. In addition to kimchee, there are two kinds of sprouts, and yam noodles, which are my favorite. I also like the barley tea they serve.
I take work colleagues and Korean visitors there when they’re visiting from out of town, and they all really like it too. It’s also a great place to go before a movie at the Albany Twin.
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