A barbecue buff could spend days on end tending the tabletop grills without repeating a meat here — Mr. Kim’s selection goes way beyond galbi to include beef tongue and intestine, pork skin and neck, squid and delightful duck bulgogi. The scallion pancake shines on the golden-brown, crunchy end of the spectrum, somewhat reminiscent of a hash brown.

What is Chinese-Korean cuisine? For an armchair introduction, click here. For a hands-on, face-in introduction, hit up this neighbor to Seoul (see below), where the richly earthy jajangmyeon (noodles in porky black-bean sauce) has a veritable cult following and the jjambong deserves one, especially among hotheads, who will happily swear the shellfish-noodle soup must have been ladled from a cauldron of hellfire.

Though best-known for barbecue, this sprawling, bustling longtimer does a bang-up job of seafood too, from the simplest broiled or braised fish — hairtail, mackerel, cod — to plump snails doused in spicy-sweet chile sauce. That it happens to deliver mega-banchan for the buck is just a bonus.

What this strip-mall watering hole lacks in atmosphere it more than makes up for with sensational bar food, Korean-style — blazing-hot and juicy wings; crispy, chewy strips of semi-dried squid for dipping in mayo (sounds strange, is awesome); deep-fried potstickers and octopus fritters (takoyaki); the tubular rice cakes called tteokbokki served like a casserole with everything from bulgogi to cream sauce to cheese; and much more. 

It’s a bulgogi-a-go-go at this relatively mellow Havana Street retreat, which offers it not only in the form of beef, pork, chicken or duck for cooking on the grill but also in prepared dishes like the wonderfully aromatic beef bulgogi–octopus hot pot and the squid and pork belly bulgogi stir fry. Though banchan goes well beyond the basics here, the scallion pancake’s worth getting too — eggy-smooth and chock-full of green onion.

It’s all about the fried chicken, with or without sweet chile sauce, at this jumping strip-mall joint. Except when it’s about the Army soup (budae jjigae), a sort of culinary and cultural kitchen-sink concoction with sausage and other meats, dumplings, noodles, and more. Or the tteokbokki, also mixed with dumplings and noodles as well as fishcakes, hard-boiled eggs, and veggies galore. Or the popular drinking snack called corn cheese, which is just what it sounds like. Of course it’s about soju, too, especially as the night wears on. Whether or not all that’s funny, it’s certainly a plus.

Though there’s plenty of protein to grill up here, the starches steal the show at Silla: giant dumplings stuffed to bursting with kimchi; chilled buckwheat noodles in tangy beef broth beneath crisp veggies; rice cakes smothered in blistering chile sauce or sliced into soothing dumpling soup laced with seaweed and egg. And speaking of rice, the browned bits at the bottom of the bibimbap pot are always worth fighting for.