20 April 27th–MAy 3rd, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | Meat Metropolis Phoenix is full of Korean barbecue, but Smoking Tiger proves there’s room for more. BY DOMINIC ARMATO F orget what they told you in high school. Phoenix’s gateway drug is meat. Oh, sure, we pay lip service to vegetables and have grown to appreciate fish. But nine times out of ten, if there’s an animal-based way to approach a cuisine, Phoenix diners will zero in on it like a meat-seeking missile. Take Korean food. Circa 2010, Korean cuisine in Phoenix consisted of venerable traditionalists Hodori and Chodang and a handful of hole-in-the-wall joints flying well under the radar of anybody outside the Korean community and the food-obsessed. Then, sometime around 2017, the number of Korean restaurants in Phoenix suddenly exploded. But it wasn’t tofu soup, cold noodles, or kimchi pancakes that captured everybody’s attention. So what was it that catapulted Korean fare straight into the fluffy gut of the Arizona mainstream? Korean barbecue. Big, heaping helpings of meat, in endless supply, loudly sizzling on a grill right in front of you. That’s the kind of Korean food Phoenix could relate to. Look, I get it. Some folks just aren’t comfortable trying tteokbokki, soondubu, and naengmyeon until the third date. Grilled meat, on the other hand, is the kind of universal solvent that can wash away any Phoenician’s inhibitions. Sean Soohun Kim knows this, which is partly why he launched Smoking Tiger Korean BBQ into an increasingly crowded market. But unlike many local Korean restaurateurs, Kim isn’t just hopping on the bandwagon. Hodori’s History You might not know Kim’s name, but you probably know his first restaurant. Kim owns and operates Hodori, the grande dame of Phoenix’s Korean restaurant scene and the polar opposite of the buzzy new wave of hip KBBQ joints. Rather, it’s a throwback to the casual immigrant restau- rants of yore, an unpretentious, no-frills family restaurant serving hearty, home- style food that’s more concerned with embracing tradition than it is with prosely- tizing a mainstream clientele. Notably, Hodori’s lengthy menu is loaded with soups, stews, noodles, stir- fried seafood, and all manner of Korean foodstuffs that aren’t grilled on the table in front of you because, contrary to popular belief, not all Korean restaurants have tabletop grills. And yet, to his credit, Kim is consider- ably less cynical about Phoenix’s carnivo- rous proclivities than I am. “I think that’s how it started here, so many restaurants serving Korean barbecue. For Asian restaurant owners, I think it’s a good thing,” Kim says. “[Barbecue] is a start, and I think that’s a really good thing for us.” So, after working at Hodori for more than a decade and owning it for another four, Kim took the backdoor route to Phoenix’s favorite style of Korean food, opening his second restaurant — Smoking Tiger — in December. Smoking Tiger is a latecomer to its particular subgenre. Korean BBQ restau- rants are multiplying like Starbucks these days, and as a local dining critic and senior food geek, it is my sacred duty to remind you at every opportunity that there is so much more to Korean cuisine than grilled beef with a sizzled pork chaser. But herein lies the critic’s dilemma. Just when I want to get all huffy about the meatification of every cuisine under the sun, I drop into a place like Smoking Tiger and a slab of marinated short rib hits the griddle with a sputter and snap, the scent of singed garlic and ginger intermingles with thick, luscious meat smoke, and damnit, I get socked right in the giblets, same as you. So if your interest in Korean cuisine is limited to barbecue restaurants, at least let me steer you to one of the better ones. Those who hope to find Hodori 2.0, however, should check their expectations. “I see people, and if they want to treat somebody nice, they go to somewhere else, other than Hodori, because it’s very family cafeteria style,” Kim says. “And I was thinking maybe if I open something nice, nice interior, nice vibe, then they can bring their guests here. That was the idea. Something very authentic, very high-end, very nice, so that you could treat some- body there.” Far from Hodori’s homestyle mom- and-pop charm, Smoking Tiger joins the ranks of Phoenix’s more lively, upscale Korean restaurants. This isn’t the SoCal neon club vibe of Tempe’s Gen Korean BBQ House nor the pure ear-shattering volume of Mesa’s Hanshin Pocha, but Smoking Tiger glimmers and thumps nonetheless, clad in black and silver and polished to a lustrous shine. Quality Over Quantity General Manager Leah Heo joins Kim in making the trek over from Hodori, and her staff certainly aspires to a higher level of service than your typical KBBQ, even if they still need some time to even out the edges. To separate itself from the crowd, Smoking Tiger joins a minority of KBBQ places, such as Sizzle and Jin BBQ, that place the emphasis on quality cuts rather than an all-you-can-eat format where guests stuff their gullets with as many tiny, cheap plates as they can in 90 minutes. And while the cuts at Smoking Tiger can be a bit inconsistent, Kim says he’s spending nearly $2,500 per case of prime Wagyu, and I’m inclined to believe it. Overplayed or not, galbi is a benchmark, and Smoking Tiger’s is handled with enough skill to justify the price tag. Rather than the snippets of trim and bony “L.A.- Style” flanken cut of the all-you-can-eat joints — not that there’s anything wrong with bones! — unrolling this hefty rib reveals a long, thick curtain of meat that’s beautifully marbled, juicy, and sweet without being cloying. More impressive is the bulgogi, slices of sweet, marinated ribeye cut thicker than you’d expect, the atypical heft lending a better balance of meat to marinade and preventing the beef from turning into shredded kibble on the griddle. A personal favorite, however, might be the beef belly — similarly sweet but with a pungent, aromatic depth redolent of five spice and ribbons of bonus fat that singe and crisp as they crackle and smack on the grill. While the beef is strong, the pork is not as consistently sharp. Thinly shaved spicy pork belly — heartbreak! — arrives precooked, and you’re encouraged to crisp it on the grill if you like. Unfortunately, that mostly just leaves you with overcooked pork. The jowl and shoulder are workman- like. They’re a little dull on their own and best wrapped up in lettuce with ssamjang — an intensely seasoned fermented bean paste — and a bit of pickly banchan, all manner of diminutive side dishes that arrive at the table, gratis. A different, unseasoned version of the pork belly, however, is one of the menu’s highlights — cut thick like a steak, scored in a crosshatch pattern to lend some texture, and brim- ming with luscious, sweet, creamy fat. If you’re into intestines, availability seems to be an issue at Smoking Tiger. Bad luck, perhaps, but I’ve only managed to wrangle up the small intestines on one visit. And if you’re not into intestines, this probably isn’t the place to start. I never miss a chance to introduce diners to gateway offal, but taking on the texture and intense funk of Smoking Tiger’s is jumping into the deep end of the pool. ▼ Chow The pork combo at Smoking Tiger includes items such as pork jowl, belly, and shoulder. Dominic Armato
