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Café SuRa Brings Korean To Town
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| GRACIOUS HOSTS. Café SuRa Owner Sharon Kim, left, poses with her staff. —Gazette photo by Maureen Vastardis |
By Larry Hill
Gazette Restaurant Writer
Café SuRa, 621 Atlantic Ave., 495-7872.
• Hours: Open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Location: On Atlantic Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets in downtown Long Beach. There is street parking available and close-by.
• Staff/Service: The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and informative. Service is as quick as you need.
• Food/Drinks: Café SuRa is a Korean restaurant, the only one in Long Beach, or so I’ve been told. It is different from what you might be expecting; it is not a Korean barbecue joint with a revolving metal cooker in the kitchen or hibachi-in-the-table dining room. Instead, it is much more like Korean home cooking.
One of the main menu items is tofu soup, a hearty stew with different varieties of meat or seafood, mushroom, dumpling or kimchi as themes. Unlike the North American idea of soup, the Korean soup, or stew in this case, is the center of the meal.
Appetizers include dumplings, fresh baked on the premises, tofu steak, edamame, ramen and udon.
Sandwiches include roast chicken, beef and a Cuban sandwich.
Entrees include Galbi (short ribs), Bulgogi (sliced beef), chicken, spicy pork and hot stone pot of rice and veggies. The aforementioned soup comes with beef or pork, seafood, mushroom, dumpling, kimchi and a combination with beef, clam, shrimp, squid and oyster.
The combo dinners include an entrée and tofu soup, like Galbi and Tofu Soup.
• Atmosphere: Café SuRa has a small but bright dining room. It is a multiple of a home kitchen circa 1965, which puts it right in style. The dining room is inviting and warm, and when combined with the servers and owner stories and attention, the experience is very pleasant.
• The Taste: Café SuRa is another welcome addition to the dining adventure that is possible in Long Beach. SuRa, the menu states, is Korean for a king’s meal.
Jennifer and I stopped early in the New Year. Jennifer has long been a fan of Korean barbecue-style eateries and was anxious to check out Café SuRa. It was not what we expected, but that does not imply in any way that we were disappointed. Just like there is more to Italian cuisine than spaghetti, there is more to Korean cuisine than barbecue.
We started with Super Dumplings warm from the oven. These dumplings were nice toothy pastry stuffed with a mixture of vegetables and meat. I thought they were fantastic.
Then came the side dishes as a preparation for our meal. These side dishes are also traditional Korean fare.
On this day they include potato salad (a common Korean side dish and excellent), fried fish with egg (Jennifer loved this and asked for another round, which was happily provided), kimchi (spicy cabbage), spinach, grilled tofu, beans, cucumber salad and shredded potato. The side dishes were all excellent and each had a unique flavor and texture.
Our tofu soup arrived next in a very hot, hot pot. The soup bubbling like lava, it is thick, hearty and yet silky. To the soup, we added an uncooked egg, which cooked instantly from the heat and thickened the soup a little more. The flavor of the soup we ordered is reminiscent kimchi — spicy, but not insane. Jennifer loved it. It took me a few minutes to warm to the flavor, but once I sorted it out, I was quite happy. It is yummy and filling. Rice accompanies the soup.
We ordered the Galbi Combo with short ribs. The rib meat was tender and quite tasty. Our combo was the most expensive at $15 and easily filled both of us. Amazing!
We finished with a peanut butter cookie baked that morning on the premises.
If your mother was Korean and a good cook, Café SuRa will remind you of home. For everyone else, it is a treat and a reminder that there are always new foods to taste.
• Price: Lunch or dinner for two is $10 to $20.
• Hours: Open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Location: On Atlantic Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets in downtown Long Beach. There is street parking available and close-by.
• Staff/Service: The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and informative. Service is as quick as you need.
• Food/Drinks: Café SuRa is a Korean restaurant, the only one in Long Beach, or so I’ve been told. It is different from what you might be expecting; it is not a Korean barbecue joint with a revolving metal cooker in the kitchen or hibachi-in-the-table dining room. Instead, it is much more like Korean home cooking.
One of the main menu items is tofu soup, a hearty stew with different varieties of meat or seafood, mushroom, dumpling or kimchi as themes. Unlike the North American idea of soup, the Korean soup, or stew in this case, is the center of the meal.
Appetizers include dumplings, fresh baked on the premises, tofu steak, edamame, ramen and udon.
Sandwiches include roast chicken, beef and a Cuban sandwich.
Entrees include Galbi (short ribs), Bulgogi (sliced beef), chicken, spicy pork and hot stone pot of rice and veggies. The aforementioned soup comes with beef or pork, seafood, mushroom, dumpling, kimchi and a combination with beef, clam, shrimp, squid and oyster.
The combo dinners include an entrée and tofu soup, like Galbi and Tofu Soup.
• Atmosphere: Café SuRa has a small but bright dining room. It is a multiple of a home kitchen circa 1965, which puts it right in style. The dining room is inviting and warm, and when combined with the servers and owner stories and attention, the experience is very pleasant.
• The Taste: Café SuRa is another welcome addition to the dining adventure that is possible in Long Beach. SuRa, the menu states, is Korean for a king’s meal.
Jennifer and I stopped early in the New Year. Jennifer has long been a fan of Korean barbecue-style eateries and was anxious to check out Café SuRa. It was not what we expected, but that does not imply in any way that we were disappointed. Just like there is more to Italian cuisine than spaghetti, there is more to Korean cuisine than barbecue.
We started with Super Dumplings warm from the oven. These dumplings were nice toothy pastry stuffed with a mixture of vegetables and meat. I thought they were fantastic.
Then came the side dishes as a preparation for our meal. These side dishes are also traditional Korean fare.
On this day they include potato salad (a common Korean side dish and excellent), fried fish with egg (Jennifer loved this and asked for another round, which was happily provided), kimchi (spicy cabbage), spinach, grilled tofu, beans, cucumber salad and shredded potato. The side dishes were all excellent and each had a unique flavor and texture.
Our tofu soup arrived next in a very hot, hot pot. The soup bubbling like lava, it is thick, hearty and yet silky. To the soup, we added an uncooked egg, which cooked instantly from the heat and thickened the soup a little more. The flavor of the soup we ordered is reminiscent kimchi — spicy, but not insane. Jennifer loved it. It took me a few minutes to warm to the flavor, but once I sorted it out, I was quite happy. It is yummy and filling. Rice accompanies the soup.
We ordered the Galbi Combo with short ribs. The rib meat was tender and quite tasty. Our combo was the most expensive at $15 and easily filled both of us. Amazing!
We finished with a peanut butter cookie baked that morning on the premises.
If your mother was Korean and a good cook, Café SuRa will remind you of home. For everyone else, it is a treat and a reminder that there are always new foods to taste.
• Price: Lunch or dinner for two is $10 to $20.
