hee been
6231 little river turnpike
alexandria, va 22312
703.941.3737

hello, my name is sachi and i'm addicted to korean food. (chorus: hi sachi)

yesterday after discovering at 4:30pm that eastern market was closed, i was demoralized. why is it that most places are closed on mondays? more importantly, why are most places i want to go to on mondays, closed?

eastern market being closed yesterday created a problem for me, strictly because i wanted to pick up beef short ribs a day in advance, so that when i left work early today, i could go straight home and start cooking them and not be up all night due to the many hours it takes to braise them. but my plan was foiled by the case of the mondays. so what's a girl to do? get cavin to drive me to h-mart all the way in virginia! and, since we were already going out that way, why not stop in annandale (aka koreatown) and get korean food?

we've been able to try four different korean restaurants in the area thus far, but our go-to korean is hee been. i can't exactly remember our first experience there, but i do remember the first time i saw it. when you get off 395 onto little river turnpike, it's right there on the left hand side, which i happened to notice sometime last year when, in fact, we were driving to another korean (buffet) restaurant, il mee, which is further down the road.

when we first started going to hee been, they only had buffet during lunch. so occasionally on a weekend when we were going to h-mart, we would try to hit the lunch time buffet. the buffet wasn't just prepared foods that were sitting there for diners to take, but it also included korean bbq, so you could load up your plate with raw meat like kalbi, shrimps, bulgogi, pork belly, etc. and have it cooked at your table. it was quite better than il mee, whose quality of meat i sometimes questioned in the past. almost one side of hee been's buffet is dedicated to different panchan dishes (marinated cucumber, kimchi, spicy fish strips, bean sprouts and more) which was great because a korean meal is not complete without the panchan!

in the middle of the summer though, we noticed a big banner advertising dinner buffet as well. cavin and i were psyched about this (or maybe i was just psyched for the both of us) so as soon as we had the chance, we went there in the summer for the dinner buffet. while it was still great, the price was not so awesome. while lunch on the weekends was $16.95 (14.95 m-f), dinner was $26.95 (24.95 m-th) - dinner buffet was putting us back over 50 bucks!

the next time we went to hee been though, we came to our senses. when we eat at the buffet, we normally just get the bbq, and panchan. if we don't buffet and just order the bbq off the menu, it's so much cheaper! since then, we've just ordered off the regular menu (with much success) and our bill is at least 10-15 dollars cheaper than if doing the buffet.

on a recent visit, we decided to try something different. we ordered the bo ssam ($19.95), which in my many korean experiences have not yet had. described as "steamed pork belly served with spicy radish and sailted [sic] cabbage to rapped with," we were quite excited. here are some descriptions of what came out: perfectly stacked salted napa cabbage; spicy matchsticks of daikon radish piled high in the middle of the plate; steamed pork belly fanned around the perimeter of the round plate; raw oysters set aside on the opposite side of the plate from the pork belly.

eating bo ssam is similar to eating kalbi: pile the different components of what's on the plate onto the leafy green (be it cabbage or lettuce), roll it up, and eat it like a little package. i have to say that while it wasn't the best thing i've eaten there, it was interesting and i would perhaps in the future try it again. some complaints: the cabbage was a little bit too salty for me, which is sometimes hard to do because i love salty things. while i do understand that they weren't going to include fancy kumomoto oysters on the plate, somehow everytime i ate an oyster, there was a voice in my head telling my stomach to "hang on tight!" because i wasn't sure where these raw oysters came from or how long they were sitting out (they tasted ok, and i didn't get sick...mind over matter). some highlights: the pork, while fatty (i mean, come on, it is pork belly!) and only steamed, had great flavor. the spicy radish complemented the salty cabbage, and i discovered some raw oysters gems inside the nest of radish, which was fantastic because they somehow marinated in the kimchi-like flavor of the daikon.

last night though, we opted for the special kalbi ($20.95) which we had them cook back in the kitchen instead of on the table top grill, and kimchi jigae. i think that when you order off the menu, the quality of meat is better than what you get at the buffet. when our kalbi came out, the meat looked rich and thick and was still stuck to the short rib bone, which our server cut into pieces for us with scissors. the kimchi jigae wasn't as spicy as some i've had in the past at other places, but it was still delicious. the only complaint was that the bowl that the kimchi jigae came in was a bit smaller than i've seen before, yet the price was still $10.95.

we've also ordered the dol sat bi bim bap, which is quite standard fare for us. only the last time we ordered it, there was no fried egg on top (maybe the dol sat doesn't come with the egg, yet the regular bi bim bap does? i didn't think so, but i wasn't complaining - i'm trying to watch my cholesterol). our favorite part of the dol sat bi bim bap is eating the crisped rice stuck to the bottom of the hot stone bowl.

it would be remiss of me not to mention the panchan. of the four korean restaurants that cavin and i have been to in the dc metro area, i think the panchan at hee been is the best. they usually don't skimp, and last night was proof. soon after we ordered, our panchan was brought out. there were about 10 different panchan, including kimchi, bean sprouts, mashed potato with hard boiled egg on top, blanched green beans and bell peppers, marinated cucumber, fishcakes, and rectangles of (acorn?) gelatin covered with soy sauce and scallions.

i know i've mentioned that this is our first choice for korean in the area, but we have yet to try a few other places that i've read about (yechon, annangol, mandu). the dishes are obviously not perfect, and to be quite honest (and i guess pessimistic), i don't think cavin and i are going to find a restaurant in the area that we will be raving about for years to come, especially after we've been exposed to kimchi hana, which is, hands down, the best korean/japanese restaurant we've ever been to.

if you are in the new brunswick, nj area, please do yourself a favor and visit!

kimchi hana
6101 hadley road
south plainfield, nj
908.755.0777

Labels: restaurant