Woo Lae Oak, Tysons Corner

Tonight my family had Chicken Out carryout. Maybe I'll write about Chicken Out sometime, but most of you know this place.

Last night we went to Woo Lae Oak, a chain of about 6 or 7 restaurants (the last time I looked), serving Korean food. The first restaurant opened in Korea, I think, but I really don't know. More interesting to me is the rumor that I heard when there were only 3 or 4 Woo Lae Oaks -- that the owner opened a different restaurant for his wife and girlfriends to keep them all happy and busy. This is only a rumor, and something I only heard twice from people who have no connections to the restaurant, the original owner, managers or anyone connected to the restaurant, so don't take my word for it.

I've eaten at three Woo Lae Oaks, L.A., Arlington (VA) and Tysons Corner (VA). I might have eaten at the Seoul, Korea, location, but I can't remember.

The one constant seems to be that their kalbi (cubes of beef rib cooked on a grill at your table) is very good. The Tysons location experimented with Asian fusion food when they first opened, but that bad idea stopped quickly. As a friend of mine once said at another fusion place while eating not-so-satisfying fusionized ramen noodles, "[Asians] spent thousands of years perfecting this dish, so why mess around with it?"

I don't have much other to say about Tysons Woo Lae Oak, except that its spicy cod fish stew was pretty good. But most real Korean food, and the cod fish stew is real, takes time for the typical Western tastebud to get used to. Once you develop a taste for it, though, you will miss it if you don't get enough of it. My son, for instance, started salivating at the mere mention of kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage) since he was about two.