Danji

What?  Huh? *Nervous Giggle* *Nervous Giggle*.  That was my response when I walked into my birthday dinner with Albert to discover that the whole time I thought he had planned nothing beyond the idea of us doing dinner together on my bday, he was really plotting to arrange something with a group of my closest friends.  Not only did he want me to be surrounded by my besties as I turned 28, he wanted me to be able to hit up a blog-worthy restaurant since those are pretty much the two things that make me the happiest.  Check and check.

I had been to Danji once before for lunch, but they have a very different menu for dinner, and I have been dying to try it after hearing rave reviews.  Unfortunately, it has been tough convincing a group to go there for a fun weekend dinner since it's not in the area of town we either live or go out in and would therefore requires a little extra planning.  We usually don't have time or patience for extra planning.  I guess my Grandma's right: we are a lazy generation.

The dinner menu lived up to my expectations.  We started with a kim chi trio and kept ordering from there.  Dinner is served tapas style and we steadily worked our way through both the traditional and modern sides of the Korean menu.  We ordered the scallion and pepper pancake (tons of filling - not all egg), vermicielli noodles (sweet and delicate), crispy tofu (far more satisfying than I could have imagined), spicy honey chicken wings, bulgogi beef sliders, rice cakes, and short ribs.  All the dishes were good but there was no debate about the best dish of the night: bossam.  This crispy yet tender pork belly was served with dehydrated daikon kim chi and paper thin cabbage for wrapping.  There was one extra left on the plate and I didn't even bother going through the "no, you take it" routine.  I just grabbed it.

I'm a big fan of K-Town, but it's nice to see Korean food go beyond they speedy KBBQ setup.  This was sophisticated without abandoning traditional Korean flavors.  Birthday success!