Manna Kitchen

Picture from the Manna Kitchen website

Heej is probably going to kick me for blowing up our secret spot, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Many Tuesdays and Thursdays after yoga, we refuel at Manna Kitchen in Union Square.  It's an modest, cheap little Korean joint on 18th St., right next to the Fresh store.     

We've pretty much eaten our way through the entire menu at this point, but the thing I order most often, the thing I have probably eaten more of in the last year than anything else, is the Rock 'n Rice -- it's a variation on dol sot bibimbap, the hot stone bowl kind, that can be ordered with tofu or white meat chicken instead of beef. 

You've seen it all before -- the ketchup squirt bottle of chili sauce, the bottomless cups of barley tea, the colorful assortment of sesame oil-sauteed vegetables.  But their secret weapon is the magical, mystical brown rice option.  Brown rice you say?  YES!  It crisps and puffs in that fiery rock pit like nothing else.  Think of that crunchy, toasty, nutty goodness against the jiggle of tofu with a slick of hot sauce.  I can eat it twice a week after yoga and not feel disgusting.

Entree prices hover around $10, and every dish comes with little environmentally-unfriendly foam bowls of kimchi and panchan like cold soy potatoes and onion or marinated fish cakes, often accompanied by a shallow bowl of miso soup.

As a myopic Asian, I really don't mind the retina-stimulating fluorescent lighting against the orange and kelly green formica tables.  In the winter, we sit at the bar stools, hovering over spicy soups that fog up the window we're facing.  In the warmer months, we bring our cafeteria trays outside and sit at wobbly aluminum tables outside, sipping ice water from little styrofoam cups.

Considering the regularity with which we sup at Manna Kitchen, we should probably be on a first name basis with the tall, jolly and bespectacled Korean guy who's always behind the register in his cap and orange t-shirt.  I think I see that guy more often than I see some of my good friends in New York, and though we never acknowledge that out loud, he probably smiles inside about that, too.

Okay, it's not destination dining, obviously.  It's not going to make it onto any best of lists, or even any obscure-chaser's cheap eats list.  And yet it is a destination I dine at probably three or four times a month. The whole ritual -- yoga, casual Korean grub and Chit Chat of Beautiful Ladies with my girlfriends Heej and Sarah -- is something I look forward to every week. 

If you're looking for black goat chigae blessed by a female Korean shaman who smokes mountaintop sesame leaves, then it may not be authentic enough for you.  But that kind of authenticity is bad for my arteries.  I could happily eat this perfect, perfect dish twice a week for as long as I live in New York.

Walking to the subway after dinner:

HEEJ: Do you know how many times I have eaten Korean food this week?  And I'm eating Korean food again tomorrow.

ME: Let me tell you something -- in Korea, they eat Korean food every day.

HEEJ:  Hey, that's true.

Manna Kitchen
28 E. 18th Street between Bway and Park Ave. So.
New York, NY 10003
212-228-1044

*Hello!  Three posts three days in a row!  This NaBloPoMo thing is working!  Except I can't get the acronym right.  I keep thinking NAMBLA.