Eating alone in Koreatown
By: Jane Koo
Tags: Diaspora, Personal Essay, Asian American, Food, Korean

It’s 9:17pm in Koreatown, Los Angeles. I just checked into my room and the large street it’s facing is bustling with noise and blinding light, all too much right now. An early morning flight and a long and stressful work day, followed by a failed attempt at retail therapy led to my current state: too hungry too close to the bedtime, too tired and too alone to venture out for food.

By the time I’ve finished a long pep talk with myself (“You need to eat something! Do you think the hotel bar makes smoothie?”) and brought myself down to the hotel bar, I’ve been informed I’ve missed the last call only by a few minutes. I ask the bartender if there’s anything around I could walk to, and he excitedly recommends BCD Tofu House, a “totally legit” Korean joint, since I am in K-town and all. I stare at a bowl of wavy potato chips he served me earlier and seriously consider if this could be my dinner. I love tofu soup. I know the place is legit— Do you even know what BCD stands for, bro?

The truth is, I am afraid to venture out of the hotel tonight. I am not ready to eat solo under the fluorescent light that would brutally expose my exhaustion to LA.

I was sitting at this very bar only a few weeks ago. The first trip back to LA over a decade since high school (where my biggest concern was shopping) felt much more romantic—I stayed at an upscalish hotel in Koreatown, the neighbourhood now so noble and special to the grown-up version of me. Prior to the trip, I imagined how I’d get to breathe and feel the rich history of the Korean American diaspora I yearned on a daily basis here in Vancouver. I checked into my stark-but-totally-on-purpose room, took an Uber to a studio, did my job, ordered a Katsu Sando at the hotel restaurant on the company dime and ended my night happily buzzed with a nightcap (“Please charge it to the room.”). I felt like a confident professional Korean woman fully deserving to be hanging out and thriving in this part of the town. Tonight, not so much, somehow.

After staring at my Google map (A straight 200m line to the destination — A LOT closer than I expected.) for three minutes too long, I decide to head to BCD Tofu House because, hunger. And character building, right?

When I get there, a man with spiky bleached hair greets me. With my staged nonchalantness, I lift my index finger and say “One,” as if I eat alone all the time. He doesn’t care or judge, because clearly the only thing he cares about is feeding me a bowl of tofu soup as soon as possible. The restaurant is buzzing with people and lit so brightly with the kind of light that makes you forget the time of the day. It’s very much reminiscent of my hometown of Seoul. The whole day becomes a blur. Where am I even?

The menu goes something like this: Tofu soup with beef, tofu soup with pork, tofu soup with seafood, tofu soup with all of the above or none of the above. Then something on the menu caught my eye: 양념 게장, Spicy marinated raw crab. Perhaps most unexpected dish to encounter at a tofu soup restaurant but also, my absolute favourite. If you know me, you know marinated raw crab symbolizes many things: my home, my mom, my dad, the seaside towns they had spent their childhood, my identity, my nothing-is-too-wild palate. Tonight, it also symbolizes the courage to sit alone with the exhaustion under the fluorescent light and and feel the feels and get down and messy and eat with my hands in public.

Spicy marinated raw crab and seafood tofu soup combo set, please.

When the dish shows up, I can’t help myself but start laughing out loud. Everyone’s eyes are fixated on the enormous mound of halved raw crab doused with rich red sauce that undoubtedly will stain inner organs forever. And it’s just landed on the table of a young lady dining alone. Did she know what she was getting into? I feel as though I’ve ordered one of those ridiculous eating challenge items (“If you finish our Whole-Lot-A burger in 20 minutes, your meal is free and your name will forever be inducted to our hall of fame!”). Then again, I get it —I would look at me and find it amusing, too. There’s no going back.

I sit there and think about what a great deal this combo set is before settling in.

As the piping hot tofu soup and spicy crab dish soothe my tired body and soul, I can’t help myself but thinking about the alternate outcome had I come down to the hotel bar 12 minutes earlier. I would be eating burnt (but it’s on purpose!) lettuce wrap and chicken wings with “gochujang sauce” in a dark corner of the bar for double the amount of price. Instead, I am home tonight after the most terrifying and worthy 200m I have ventured out on this trip with chopsticks too skinny, too heavy and too slippery for most but comfortable and perfect for me in my hand.

When I come back to my room, the noise and the light feel a lot more familiar and energizing all of a sudden. I now know the best thing about this hotel isn’t the smooth cup of oat milk Gibraltar or the hotel restaurant with a hint of a Michelin-star chef collaboration.

I will be back here.