In early 1901, the village of Auburndale (named after Auburn, Massachusetts) was platted on 90 acres of farmland in north central Queens, and by that May, it already had a railroad station. This recently revamped Broadway station still operates on the Long Island Rail Road, two stops east of Flushing's Main Street, and an easy ride from Penn Station. Characterized by crazily swooping streets that still feel like country lanes, Auburndale is probably the best place to eat Korean food in New York City.

Indeed, from Main Street to Bayside in Queens, along a corridor centered on Northern Boulevard, there are well over 100 Korean restaurants, and the area around the Broadway station is particularly rich in tabletop barbecues, porridge places, fried chicken parlors, surprisingly good bakeries, and other exemplars of Korean urban and regional cuisine.

At one corner of the Broadway LIRR station and perfectly situated to grab a snack before stepping on the train, Song's Family Food (162-20 Northern Boulevard, 718-445-4717) plasters colorful pictures of its specialty all over the façade: kimbap, the Korean answer to Japanese maki rolls. The Seoul-food version tends to be bigger—almost the size of futomaki—and spicier, sometimes containing off-the-wall ingredients that don't conform to Nipponese ideas about sushi. (An example: one roll contains BBQ chicken, chile sauce, egg, carrot, avocado, fish cake, pickled radish, and spinach.) If you'd rather eat your kimbap sitting down, from a menu that also includes dumplings and over-rice dishes, check out Nolbu Sushi (164-25A Northern Boulevard, 718-939-7374).

Some of the first Korean franchise fried-chicken restaurants, featuring a made-to-order product in a variety of flavors, appeared six years ago in the Murray Hill section of Queens, about 10 blocks west. Auburndale has its own spot, part of a franchise that includes 1200 branches worldwide: Cheogajip (160-24A Northern Boulevard, 718-445-0806), which subtitles itself "Hof and Chicken," the German word "Hof" telegraphing that the place serves beer. Three varieties of the plump fried bird are available, of which the best is Hot Chicken, which comes smothered is a fiery-sweet sauce and dotted with sesame seeds. The gratis accompaniments include pickled daikon and a cabbage slaw artfully squiggled with ketchup and mayo.

If you still crave something sweet after the fried chicken, pop across the street to the Bible-themed Canaan Bakery (160-13 Northern Boulevard, 718-939-3737) where the French-Korean pastries are really distinguished, running from cookies to cakes to Japanese mochi.

On Depot Road just north of the station are a coterie of the city's most interesting Korean restaurants. Myung San (162-21 Depot Road, 718-888-1245) represent the regional cooking of semi-rural southwestern Korean. The place is modest and small, but many of the herbs and vegetables served, used for wrapping morsels of stewed or barbecued food and in salads, are grown in the owner's garden. Standout dishes include chonggukjang (a wonderfully skanky stew of fermented soybeans), kong biji (a dense side-product of tofu manufacture that looks like cotton fibers immersed in broth), and chu-uh tang (ground-mudfish stew, and it does indeed look like mud). Ask for some of the house special kimchee, fermented for a whopping six months.

Right next door, Tong Sam Gyup Goo Yi (162-23 Depot Road, 877-933-3392) is a stylish place that specializes in barbecue done on big ornate cast-iron domes that sit in the middle of every table. Thick slices of pork belly sizzle on these surfaces, and you grill shredded kimchee and bean sprouts as an accompaniment alongside the uncured bacon. Other highlights of the simple menu (rendered in Korean and English) include an incendiary squid salad and a cooling bowl of naeng myun (buckwheat noodles) in a thin refreshing broth served in a bowl made of ice. You may never go back to Japanese soba again.

— Robert Sietsema
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