Traditional Korean Beef Soup Surprises With Simplicity

When a restaurant is named “Traditional Korean Beef Soup”, you can go in with a clear expectation of what will be on the menu. It won’t be a place specializing in chili dogs, cupcakes, or tamales. It won’t even be a place that features Korean classics such as bimbimbap, bulgogi, or japchae. It will be a place for soup. Korean sullung tang, to be exact.

I knew little about sullung tang when I walked through the door of Traditional Korean Beef Soup earlier this week. Snuggled into a globally diverse Highway 99 strip mall between Rancho Grande and European Deli, the Edmonds eatery is tidy and brightly-lit with a wall of large booths and a few rows of tables. A Korean TV game show was the evening’s entertainment.

Traditional Korean Beef Soup newbie that I was, I was fortunate to be attended to by a very pleasant and conscientious server who thoughtfully offered her serves in explaining both the menu and the soup-eating process. The menu (in both Korean and English) I could handle. With regard to the soup-eating, I deferred to the expert.

Sullung tang is a Korean soup made from stewing beef bones in order to extract the richness of the marrow’s fatty tissue. To the dismay of cardiologists around the world, fat means flavor, and sullung tang is Exhibit #1,568,745 in support of this case. Unlike Vietnamese pho, sullung tang is not steeped with spices; as my server explained, the diner adds his or her own chopped green onions and salt to taste. Thus if you only prefer a little beefy flavor with your sodium, go crazy, but you have only yourself to blame if your bowl ends up too salty.

My bowl of beef brisket sullung tang ($7.99) quickly arrived at my table while still at a very obvious rolling boil. Somewhat superfluously, my server cautioned, “Don’t touch—it’s very hot.” Fortunately, I had selected a pair of other dishes from Traditional Korean Beef Soup’s brief 11-item menu, and I tucked into these while my soup cooled.

To begin, I sampled a plate of six steamed pot stickers ($3.99), the delicate handmade skins plump to near-bursting with minced pork, onion, and carrot. Thin clear noodles akin to vermicelli were a pleasant addition to the stuffing. With a dunk in the provided soy sauce, the pot stickers proved fresh and satisfying.

I also nibbled on a Korean Seafood Pancake ($12.99) which easily would have been an adequate appetizer for four people to share. On my own, I barely made a dent in the disk of lightly fried golden batter teeming with onions, bay shrimp, and rings of calamari. The pancake’s exterior boasted a pleasant crunchiness without any evidence of burning.

Though enjoyable on its own, I found the pancake didn’t suffer when dabbed with a bit of chili sauce.

Upon confirming that my sullung tang was no longer a scalding hazard, I dutifully sprinkled the grayish liquid with chopped onions and a healthy dose of salt. Admittedly, I initially was a bit dubious of the soup’s distinct fatty aroma. While I do agree that good fat yields good taste, there’s something about the perfume of tallow that can quell my appetite. The relatively colorless surface didn’t help. I forged ahead, however, swirling my soup and taking in a spoonful. And then another spoonful. Somewhere roughly between slurps four and five, I was hooked.

The sullung tang’s broth, salted by my own hand, was enticing and comforting with its beefy richness. With my chopsticks I fished out thin slices of flavorful brisket and clumps of tender clear potato noodles. Traditional Korean Beef Soup can be ordered with either clear (potato) or white (rice) noodles, depending on one’s preference.

With only the dregs remaining in my bowl, I was far beyond full, but nevertheless debated whether I should ask for the remaining thimbleful of soup to be packaged up to take home. I’m still sorry I didn’t. It was an elixir inadequately described merely as “warming”, its unassuming appearance disguising magical abilities to soothe and satisfy.

With an abbreviated menu and straightforward fare, Traditional Korean Beef Soup keeps things simple yet is far from dull. Its signature bowls of broth, beef, and noodles are exciting in their uncomplicated presentation of texture and taste. Though I arrived wholly unaware of sullung tang’s merits, I left a new believer in the goodness of this old dish.