The New York Times-20080127-From Bi Bim Bop to a Huge Spa

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From Bi Bim Bop to a Huge Spa

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AS extravagant real-estate costs and gentrification do away with most of Manhattan's ethnic neighborhoods outside Chinatown, the valuable commercial strip of West 32nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway remains firmly, surprisingly, overwhelmingly Korean. It is here that many New Yorkers and visitors first taste kimchi (spicy fermented vegetables), bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef) and bi bim bop (Google it), and here that Koreans and Korean-Americans gather for parties and social events.

Many will say you haven't experienced Korean New York without a trip to Flushing, Queens, but you can easily fill a weekend without leaving Manhattan. Among the culinary choices on and near West 32nd Street, Kunjip is your standard Koreatown restaurant, offering generous portions of do-it-yourself barbecue, other traditional Korean dishes and several brands of soju, the clear Korean liquor. Across the street, Woorijip is an informal, by-the-pound Korean buffet that also stocks Korean snacks like spicy shrimp crackers and sweet rice drinks, good for a quick lunch or bargain dinner; Korean-style fried chicken -- with a full bar -- is available at the largely hidden, chic gathering place Bon Chon chicken.

At the upscale vegetarian spot HanGawi, which back in the day got two stars from Ruth Reichl when she was restaurant critic for The Times, you remove your shoes as you would in a Korean home; it features rice bowls and hot pots with a stress on ingredients like mushrooms and tofu, and reasonably priced prix fixe menus take the stress out of choosing. (There are plenty of other upscale Korean spots elsewhere, such as Woo Lae Oak in SoHo.)

Also on West 32nd is one of the worst-advertised museums of all time: the Lee Young Hee Museum of Korean Culture, founded in 2004 and hidden ever since on the third floor of an anonymous office building, though there is a banner out there if you crane your neck and look hard enough. The museum was founded by Ms. Lee, a well-known Korean designer, to showcase traditional Korean costumes. Inside are modern-day replicas of ceremonial robes, antique hairpins known as pinyos, and elaborate tassels known as norigaes, some over a century old.

There is plenty more Korean art scattered around the city. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a modest Arts of Korea room, and the Brooklyn Museum's Asian art collection has 400 pieces (23 currently on show), including a rare 12th-century celadon ewer. And the New Museum for Contemporary Art, which just opened in December, also has a few surprising Korean components, including Black on White, Gray Ascending, by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, a two-artist collective from Seoul. Installed beyond the first-floor gift shop and cafe, seven huge screens play sequences of text, which the museum's Web site explains is a chilling story of abduction and assassination from seven separate points of view. (You have to be very patient to figure it out for yourself.)

There are also Korean galleries, including KooNewYork, which sells everything from Korean antiques to contemporary art, and the Kang Collection of traditional Korean art. Both are open by appointment only. On the lighter side, Toy Stories: Souvenirs from Korean Childhood opens this Thursday at the Korea Society (weekdays only, alas) featuring made-and-used-in-Korea action figures, robots, dolls and more from the 1970s and 1980s.

If you have time to make it out to Queens, you'll find more Korea than you could ever hope for. So many Koreans live in Flushing that the neighborhood supports three Han Ah Reum supermarkets -- a k a H Marts -- the locally based Korean chain where an eight-pound bucket of tofu goes for $4.99 (that's either the best or worst buy in town, depending on how quickly you go through eight pounds of tofu). You'll have no trouble finding places to eat and shop just wandering around: head toward Union Street near the 7 train's Flushing stop.

There is a place beyond walking distance that you might otherwise miss:

Inspa World, a crazy, flashy, 60,000-square-foot monster spa that opened last year in the College Point neighborhood next to Flushing. There, tackiness and technology become one in a fantasyland of wacky saunas and bubbling hot pools of all shapes and sizes. Thirty dollars gets you in for the day with your watchlike electronic gizmo that opens your two lockers (one for shoes, one for everything else), and allows you to pay for anything extra, like a massage or an $8 pina colada at the Caribbean-style in-pool bar. Everyone -- Korean families and a sizable number of outsiders -- prances around in Inspa uniforms, orange for women and blue-gray for men, sort of like an ultra-low-security prison.

It has nothing in common with the bustle of West 32nd Street, except that it's really fun, full of surprises and 100 percent Korean.

THE KOREAN EXPERIENCE

Kunjip, 9 West 32nd Street; (212) 216-9487; www.kunjip.net

Woorijip, 12 West 32nd Street; (212) 244-1115

HanGawi, 12 East 32nd Street; (212) 213-0077; www.hangawirestaurant.com

Woo Lae Oak, 148 Mercer Street; (212) 925-8200; www.woolaeoaksoho.com

Lee Young Hee Museum of Korean Culture, 2 West 32nd Street, Suite 301; (212) 560-0722; www.lyhkm.org

New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery; (212) 219-1222; www.newmuseum.org

KooNewYork, 126 East 64th Street, second floor; (646) 918-7030; www.koonewyork.com

Kang Collection, 9 East 82nd Street; (212) 734-1490; www.kangcollection.com

Korea Society, 950 Third Avenue, eighth floor; (212) 759-7525; www.koreasociety.org

Han Ah Reum (H Mart), 29-02 Union Street, Flushing, Queens (and other locations); (718) 445-5656; www.hmart.com

Inspa World, 11-11 131st Street, College Point, Queens; (718) 939-6300; www.nyinspaworld.com

[Illustration]PHOTO: Kunjip offers Korean-style do-it-yourself barbecue dishes. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CAPLIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)