Baltimoreans who love Korean food tend to spend a lot of time in Catonsville and Ellicott City, where there are Korean restaurants and BBQ joints in most of the strip malls and shopping courts.
If you want something closer to home, there aren’t that many places left—notably Jong Kak and, next door, Kong Pocha, on an unfussy street in Station North. Those two restaurants have long anchored 20th Street and are remnants of Baltimore’s Koreatown, a vibrant, though small community that thrived from the ‘60s to the ‘90s but then saw most of its markets and eateries shutter. Two popular Korean restaurants in the neighborhood, Nam Kang and Nak Won, have long since closed.
But go a block northeast of Jong Kak and you’ll find, in an unassuming strip mall, another Korean restaurant that’s been there for nearly 20 years.
B1 BBQ Baltimore is a small shop with a single dining room fronting a back kitchen. Above the tables lining the walls are the overhead ventilation hoods required at barbecue restaurants that make the place look a bit like an upside-down laundromat. The restaurant is cozy, showcasing walls lined with lights, posters, signage, and pictures of dishes and bottles. Above the counter, a flatscreen plays cheery, insanely colorful K-Pop videos.
B1 has been open for almost two decades, but four years ago, owner Jay Cho, who came to Baltimore from Seoul, took it over and began offering all-you-can-eat barbecue, which is now its specialty. She’s been running the counter and the tables both times I’ve been, and offers menu advice and helps with the hot grills.
There are various specials: $12.99 for a “happy lunch” that includes Korean fried chicken, noodles, and a bento-style lunch box; $19.95 for a BBQ dinner; and $27.95 for the AYCE deal, which comes, as Korean barbecue does, in trays of uncooked items that you prepare yourself on the grills at the center of your table. Cho will also help with this, coming over to regulate the heat, load and refill your trays, and wield the kitchen shears. The pork belly, bulgogi, and spicy pork are stellar.
Even if you think you’ve gotten all the vegetables you need in the form of the banchan—the traditional repeating small dishes of kimchi, daikon, cucumbers, potato salad, and other appetizers—order from the vegetable category of BBQ items. (A note that you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy your banchan while you wait for your entrees, as the service is less than speedy.) You’ll likely get thick slices of Portobello mushrooms and zucchini, which cook up wonderfully on the grill with the sizzling meats, and provide a bit of ballast to all that splendid carnivorous excess.
And if you’re not a barbecue person, fear not: Cho’s menu includes a wide variety of soups, noodles, rice, and tofu dishes. The soon tofu is a crimson, bubbling cauldron of spicy goodness. The kimchi jjigae, in another coal-black cauldron, is a rich stew of pork, tofu, kimchi, and chile-zapped broth. The japchae, a classic dish of sweet-potato glass noodles and sauteed vegetables, is slightly sweet, slightly punchy, and extremely soothing.
There are also little steamed buns, very like Chinese bao, that come split, filled, and sauced. There’s more, but unless you’ve populated one of the big six-seat tables, you may need to focus on what you’ve already got in front of you, especially if you’ve opted for bottles of Korean beer and soju.
Even if you’re planning on taking advantage of the all-you-can-eat option (which, by the way, is absolutely not for leftovers, so only order what you can actually consume), do not ignore the kimchi pancakes. A pumpkin-colored, scallion-studded disk that is beautifully crunchy, it’s the perfect starter to any meal and easy to share.
And if you down the sauces that arrive in a small metal container, Cho will bring you the bottles.