Restaurant: Mirak
Location: 1134 S Western Ave A2, Los Angeles, CA 90006. (323) 732-7577
Date: April 11, 2019
Cuisine: Korean Goat
Rating: Solid, but small menu focused on goat
Mirak’s is a Korea Town place specializing in Black Goat. Gotta try the exotics, right? Plus, goat is the most popular meat in the world!
It’s that barely-labeled place with the yellow sign in the back corner of this Western Ave minimall.
The interior is well… typical.
This sauce was interesting. Mustard, mustard seed, chili, sesame oil. What’s not to like?
Cooking is partially done table-side on the little burners. Truth is, I’m not sure these are even legal, but who cares.
Every Korean place has banchan. This salad was okay.
And the spicy daikon.
Don’t really need the bean sprouts.
Eggplant and kimchee are good though.
And the cabbage in vaguely sweet water is a bit of a mystery.
This is the main signature item — the black goat stew.
Eventually it gets roiling and is actually quite good. Meat is very cooked, which for goat is a good thing.
This was a kind of sizzling duck with garlic and onions dish. Excellent.
Then pork belly.
They do most of the cooking.
It’s pretty good, if a bit piggy, when finished.
Bulgolgi. This was a winner, tender, sweet, and full of flavor.
Goat ribs. They tasted okay, if a bit gamey. The rubbery texture of the skin I could do without.
Rice to go into kimchee fried rice.
Seaweed and seasonings.
Combine it all in the bottom of the goat soup.
And fry it up to make the kimchee fried rice — which is pretty excellent.
This one was done in a different base and so was slightly different.
Kimchee, chewy pork, and tofu. Awesome dish actually. Lots of flavor and heat.
Chicken and potato red pot. Pretty good too.
Chewy spicy squid. Excellent, actually.
As usual I BYOG (brought my own gelato):
New flavor — Limoncello Biscotti — Limoncello Zabaione base with lemon cookie flavor and Lemon Oreos — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Tastes just like lemon cookie! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #IceCream #NomNom #dessert #lemon #limoncello #Zabaione #LemonCookie #Oreo #LemonOreos
Fresh back from Hawaii I created this new flavor with things I dragged home — Big Island — Coconut dairy base, Macadamia Nuts, and Fresh Mango — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Island Fever! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #IceCream #NomNom #dessert #Hawaii #MacadamiaNuts #nuts #mango #coconut #tropical
The gang.
Yarom and the owner (with someone else’s banchan).
Overall, Mirak is tasty, but it’s a very small, focused menu with mostly goat. We pretty much ordered everything. The goat stew is very good. As was the bulgolgi and a couple other dishes. Ambiance is vintage k-town but they are very nice and let us bring our wine too. This is not entry level Korean, but more a place you go if you are exploring “the real Korea town.”
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