Okdonsik opens in Bayside with standout Korean soup
Okdonsik in Bayside, Queens, serves a clear pork broth soup called dweji gomtang. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
Okdonsik, a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant from Seoul opened its second U.S. location in the Korean restaurant row of Bayside, Queens in January. Like the original and the Midtown locations, there's only one main dish on the menu. That's dweji gomtang, a specialty soup with the lightest pork broth you'll ever taste. This hardly-known dish — and the restaurant itself — challenges any cultural assumptions you might have about Korean food.
Seoul-based chef OK Donsik opened the Manhattan location in 2022 with Hand Hospitality, which manages many of the city's most forward-thinking Korean concepts. More locations are in the works for Tokyo, Paris, Honolulu and Los Angeles. The brand's motto is "the essence of simplicity," and you'll see that in everything from the minimalist dining room to the highly-technical method of preparing the soup. The thin space is dominated by a long counter that looks much like a Japanese omakase bar, but instead of a sushi chef there's an employee scooping broth out of shiny steel pots on electric burners.
Each place setting has a steel plate of a mild radish kimchi called seokbakji, which is typically served with this kind of soup. Another steel plate is mostly empty, with a swipe of deep red pepper paste called gochuji hanging off the side. Similar to the most well-known gochujang paste but less sweet and more funky, gochuji is meant to be eaten by swiping a piece of pork onto it. (And as they'll instruct you, not to be dumped in the soup.)
There is also a small paper menu that lists a total of six items: There's a kimchi mandoo dumpling and a spongy seafood cake ($5) that tastes almost like an omelet. There's also a side thickly-sliced pork that tasted almost like charcuterie, two funky nonalcoholic juice drinks, and then the soup. If you go with a friend, you'll most likely be able to eat through the entire menu in under an hour.
Korea is known for its bubbling and explosively flavored soups, and gomtang is a homey but popular genre of soup that's not hard to find on Long Island. (Food Court Korea in Albertson, for example, has kalbi tang made with short ribs and samgyetang made with chicken on its menu.) But this dweji gomtang, made by slow-simmering pork shoulder and aromatic vegetables is unique.
The result is alarmingly subtle. The steel bowl ($20 for a large) has a few pieces of whisper-thin pork shoulder floating atop a translucent yellow broth. For someone who's eating their fare share of milky tonkotsu ramen, it was difficult to believe that this broth is made with pork. It's so clean tasting and clear, it seems like chicken broth. Underneath it all, there's a mound of high-quality al dente white rice. If you like to be smacked in the face by robust Korean flavors, you'd be better served by seeking out a Korean barbecue spot down the street. But if enjoy pure, quiet mastery, give this a try. Okdonsik creates more questions in my mind than answers. And sometimes, it's the intrigue that thrills most of all.
Okdonsik, 43-13 Bell Blvd., Bayside, Queens, okdongsik.net. Open 11 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. (last seating) Tuesday through Sunday, closed Monday.
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
