Out to Eat: NYC: Han Bat Korean Restaurant

This is my favorite Korean go-to restaurant in all of Manhattan. It might've been my cousin Ester who introduced me to this restaurant years ago when I first moved to New York City, and what a find. My two favorite dishes here are Pajun (seafood pancake) and Gop Dol Bi Bim Bap. I always leave here painfully full. It's just too hard to stop eating even when you think your last bite will be your last...it never is.

Here's why these are my favorite dishes...the Pajun is perfectly crispy on the outside and chock full of seafood and scallions on the inside without being greasy. What a wonderful combination of flavors and textures. The Gop Dol Bi Bim Bap is the BEST in all of New York. Bi Bim Bap is a bowl of rice, assorted vegetables, beef and a fried egg on top. You mix in some guchujang (hot chili paste) and you mix it all up. Gop Dol or Dol Sot, is a stone bowl used to serve your bi bim bap extra hot. This is my favorite Korean dish, and since it's something you can't really replicate at home unless you have a stone bowl, this is the place where I go when I have this special craving. No other Korean restaurant makes their stone bowl as hot as Hanbat. The best part of this dish is scrapping the bottom to get the crunchy burnt rice. After eating here a few dozen times, I've finally mastered the mixing technique to maximize the surface of burnt rice in my bowl...my mouth is watering right now just thinking about eating here again.