Gam Mee Ok

Standing on 32^nd Street between 5^th and Broadway is very much like traveling to a foreign country; the block is even laid out like downtown Seoul. Restaurants, supermarkets, a hardware store, luggage shops, and banks are found on the high-rent ground level. Piled on top are beauty salons, travel agencies, karaoke bars, bookstores; all you have to do is look up.

Everyone on 32^nd Street seems to be Korean. A group of Korean teenagers, decked out in Burberry scarves and fake Prada knapsacks, smoke Marlboro Lights on a street corner. A young Korean cabbie, blasting Korean pop music from his speakers, wrangles for a few inches of space in front of a fire hydrant, causing a maddening traffic jam. Honking horns of every language protest while the beat-up Towncar wiggles to and fro. Bleary-eyed tourists, clutching giant plastic shopping bags from Macy’s, seem to be wondering if they might have taken a wrong turn onto the wrong continent – all of the signs are written in Korean. And the locals who live around the corner curse themselves for ending up on 32^nd Street once again.

Seeking refuge from the hustle and bustle, as well as the brisk cold, there are two choices. The first choice is to walk briskly, toppling the old ladies examining persimmons at the fruit stands, in order to get off the block. The second choice is to duck into one of the many restaurants for a steaming bowl of something, anything. Among a dizzying array of seemingly identical Korean restaurants on 32^nd Street, especially when prim women workers are meticulously assembling foodstuff in the steamy windows, which to choose?

You choose the busiest one, the storefront with customers waiting in a queue just to get inside, of course. I use this very logic when I travel to foreign countries. The busiest restaurants tend to have a high turnover of food, so that the food doesn’t even have a chance to spoil. Further, eating foods that have been cooked thoroughly insures against stomach trouble later. I don’t even know why I am contemplating the choices, when I’d subconsciously made a destination decision by “accidentally stumbling” onto this block.

Just walking into Gam Mee Ok is a treat in and of itself: I am instantly deluged with steam, the hazy scent of beef brisket and garlic, and of course, my friends who have served me breakfast, lunch, dinner and the occasional 5AM post-drinking binge fortification. There’s an open kitchen in the back, where a giant iron cauldron of steaming oxtail broth percolates. One fella flips a mung bean pancakes, a woman arranges organ meats on a platter.

I’m offered a seat in the back, where I must remove my shoes and sit on a mat, on the floor. The minute I am settled, I have a cup of hot barley tea. A busboy carries over a ceramic pot and a set of kitchen shears, then promptly disappears. Those who don’t know any better are tempted to manhandle the contents of the ceramic pot on their own, but will be gently scolded by the woman who appears moments later, who sets to work. Her job is to take the kitchen shears and transform the pickled radishes and kimchi into manageable segments. To follow the woman is a plate of cabbage, raw garlic, and hot pepper for dipping into a spicy mung bean paste.

If this wasn’t enough of a show, then there is the steaming bowl of oxtail stew from the cauldron, doused with a double starch dose of rice noodles and white rice, topped with thin beef brisket. On the table is a bowl of coarse sea salt, a pepper shaker, and diced scallions, with which to season to one’s liking. Too much salt? You have only yourself to blame.

The concept of breakfast is a Western one; Gam Mee Ok bustles with activity 24 hours a day, and a piping bowl of stew is a perfect breakfast. The scene at 5AM is particularly vibrant; young drunk people mix with old drunk people, all uniformly hoarse after a night of active karaoke.

Belly full of fire, salt, and heat, I find that I suddenly don’t mind a post-prandial walk through the hustle and bustle. There’s a good chance that I will pop into a Korean bakery for a red bean pastry and a cup of coffee, too, without a single complaint.