California: Parks BBQ

Its been a few weeks now and I’m writing my final California post from my 2014 trip.  Its hard to believe that I was only in Southern California for 6 days and was able to experience so much.  My last meal in California before catching a red eye back to Toronto was for some Korean bbq in Korea town.  After I saw Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown episode on Korea town, it went onto my bucket list.   Our host J took us to ParksBBQ.  Parks is the epitomy of “you can’t judge a book by its cover”.  Located in a very ordinary strip mall on a very busy street full of strip malls, I was pleasantly surprised by the interior, simplistic and clean.  The sides that were served was delicious but the meats is what made this meal and that’s how it should be.  We ordered Park’s gal-bi, a prime beef short rib that is marinated in a special house sauce.  Cut in a way that I haven’t seen before with the bone attached to one end.  Once grilled, the server comes with scissors to cut the short rib into bite size pieces – it was so tender and sweet.  The bulgogi was just as good, just a different cut and with the house marinade, it too was grilled to perfection.  Eaten with a bowl of white steamed rice, it was a great culinary ending to my first trip to California!