Gahm Mi Oak
43 W. 32nd St., Midtown, NY
map & more
Neighborhood
Midtown
Cuisine
Korean
Nearby
Empire State Building
Hammerstein Ballroom
Madison Square Garden
Penn Station
212-695-4113
K-Town, we’re trying. We really are. Just call me Kim Jong Steinthal at this point. Sadly, we just haven’t found our sweet spot in this ‘hood yet.
We recently checked in with our Twitter familia to find a place to eat before a sorry Knicks playoff loss, and the unanimous choice was Gahm Mi Oak. Naturally, we listen to our friends.
Gahm Mi Oak is known for Sul Long Tang – a milky beef broth soup with brisket and scallions that we’d never heard of before. Although it wouldn’t be our first choice for nourishment, apparently this bowl of Tang is the ultimate Korean hangover medicine. We watched a pair of young girls next to us, clearly dying from whatever they got themselves into the night before, pound their soups and then proceed to pass out face first on the table. Quite an inspiring performance. But we didn’t enjoy the Sul Long Tang quite as much as they did. The beefy, milky combination was a little strange for our taste, and it seemed to get more pungent as we ate it. There’s other food at Gahm Mi Oak too, but not much. The menu is surprisingly limited. There are maybe ten things to choose from, and the Korean fried pancake and the passed out chicks ended up being the highlights of our meal. Maybe this place is best left for Adventurous Eaters, or those familiar with the cuisine. Or maybe we should have gone on a bender the night before we had dinner. Next time.
Photo Credit: Shanna Ravindra/NY Mag
Food Rundown:
Sul Long Tang
Up until a week and a half ago, we’d never heard of this liquid Korean favorite. This was the reason we came here, and, to be quite honest, it wasn’t that exciting. Sul Long Tang is an ox-bone soup, snowy white in color with white rice and white noodles. Upon first slurp, it was nice, and even inspired a pretty positive tweet. But as we got into it, the beef flavor in the broth was overpowering. Regardless of how much salt, pepper or scallions we threw into the mix, all we could taste was beef. The milky consistency of it is kind of weird too. Not something we’re used to, or can fully get behind. Koreans and Korean food enthusiasts, we apologize. We don’t really get the big draw here.
Bin Dae Dduk
On the other hand, we thoroughly enjoyed the other item Gahm Mi Oak is known for, their excellent Korean style fried pancake. This one was made of mung beans, carrot, onion, scallion, bean sprouts and ground pork. Check it out, that’s an impressive looking (and tasting) pancake.
Abai Soon Dae
Skip city. God damn, this was pretty gross. We knew we were taking a chance by testing the waters on the pork blood sausage, but this sausage was pure arteries. It’s super rich, overly gamey and served on a big ass platter with all kinds of additional pig innards. If you’re into intestines, knock yourself out. If not, stay far far away.
Bibim Bap
If there’s one thing we know about Korean food, it’s that we freakin’ love Bibim Bap, a Korean dish with rice, assorted vegetables, ground beef and hot sauce. This one was by far and away the worst one we’ve sampled so far. It’s possible that it was more authentic than all the others too, but for our money, we’d way rather get down at Dokebi.
