Soot Bull Jeep Koreatown

It was a lunch we had all looked forward to in varying degrees. There I was with artists Miles Kape and Jeff Mohr. Miles is also the pizza chef at Rivas in Santa Monica, a pizza highly ranked as one of the best in the City. Soot Bull Jeep is perhaps the cornerstone for Korean BBQ in Koreatown. Unfortunately, my last visit was over ten years ago but that was a memorable dinner. On that night, still crystal clear in my mind, I was invited by friends who's friend was on his final night in LA, having been studying and teaching at the Zen Center. The next day, he would be on his way to Japan to begin his rightful place as the head of his families Buddhist temple. This was his last meal of meat. It was a magnificent culinary experience and I was honored to be a part of it, along with a handful of his friends. But, this week, I was there with Miles and Jeff and we were hungry. We ordered the Rib Eye and Marinated Pork. They were both beyond delicious and quite complimentary to each other. I thought it was funny how the servers kept coming to our table and cooking the food for us. You're suppose to cook the food yourself. There's an art to it which none of us had and evidentally it was obvious to them. Anyway, we left that afternoon with smiles and a little dazed sheen in our eyes. The rest of the day, we giggled and kept smelling our clothes to remind us of that charcoal heaven. You see, they use real or natural charcoal. In Japanese, they call it sumi and it makes all the difference in the world; in this world and the other we paid a visit to at Soot Bull Jeep.