Lots of cultures find beauty in burnt rice. In Spain it’s socarrat, the crispy layer of bomba that adheres to the paella pan. In Persia it’s tahdig, the saffron-stained crust of basmati that scrapes up from the bottom of the pot. In Senegal, the chef treats herself to the xoon, the dark matrix of broken rice that lurks beneath her thiebu djeun, the national dish of fish and rice.
It’s rare to come across a specialist, so when I hear of one I investigate. Sleuths at LTHForum recently found one in an unlikely place. Moccozy is a small, five-month-old restaurant in Boystown that does dolsot bibimbop extremely well. At times it sounds like there’s a brush fire in the tiny kitchen behind the register, where 46-year-old Kim Young Hee heats her dolsot to a ferocious temperature, which produces an extraordinarily thick nurungi that, when you dig at it with your spoon, lifts from the bowl to be distributed among the softer rice and vegetables in chunky mouthfuls of crispiness. It’s a relatively minimal presentation—steamed spinach, bean sprouts, mushrooms, shredded raw carrot, and cucumber—but the sesame-seed-sprinkled proteins offered are a little more varied. In addition to the common fried egg, you might try it with tender, sweet slices of short rib or squid, shrimp, and a fat green-lipped mussel. Anyway you take it, what’s key here is the rice, which after all is the foundation of the Korean table.
I’m a partisan of specialists, and though they may not think of themselves as such, the husband-and-wife team behind Moccozy are specialists of rare power. v
3333 N. Broadway 872-802-4030
