Philadelphia Weekly

Pickled pink: Pork belly, surrounded by delicious banchan, is the highlight of Miga’s menu.

Photo by michael Persico

Hiss, went the thick-cut pork belly on the black-top barbecue. Hissssss. Like cat-eyed Mac in The Nightman Cometh . The snakey sound grew louder as the waitress draped another slice over the tabletop grill with red plastic Fisher-Price tongs. Louder and louder till it mercifully eclipsed the Korean Michael Bolton ballads floating over the dining room.

I remember once upon a time, vivacious Latin beats filled this 15th Street space. When Pasión lived here, the dining room looked like the Cuban drug lord’s villa in Bad Boys II , a transporting hacienda of wrought-iron lanterns, louvered shutters and billowing canopied ceilings. At this building’s new resident, Korean barbecue Miga, the canopied ceilings still exist, but dragon rolls have extinguished the firecracker ceviches, OB lager has usurped the pisco sour. Putting aside my still very raw bereavement over the demise of Pasión, I’m grateful to Miga’s owners, Sam and Jackie Cho. They’ve rescued one of Philadelphia’s prettiest restaurant spaces, one whose bongo drum barstools had been collecting dust since 2007.


The Chos, who came to Philly from Seoul in the 1970s, took over the lease in March and opened in June. Today, the dining room is as black and tan and red as a Tampa Bay Buc, with a bit more explosiveness thanks to the hanji paper window screens, red lacquer latticework and Oriental antiques from the Chos personal collection. But the centerpieces 
of the restaurant are the sleek, seamless 
 Jetsons- esque barbecues imported from Korea and hard-wired into about half the tables. The infrared Cookman ’cues emit a Martian red glow as they heat. No smoke, no fire. My clothes still needed to be doused in Febreeze afterward, but it wasn’t the usual whorebath most Asian barbecues necessitate.


As mouths go, mine isn’t usually the watering type, but as the pork belly hissed away on the grill with white onions and button mushrooms, I could’ve spit like a camel. I think it was the anticipation more than anything. I stared down the pork belly like a telekinetic, mentally willing its edges to caramel quicker as my server sheared each strip into squares gently as a florist dethorning a rose. I’d have gladly jeopardized her fingers if it meant I’d have eaten sooner.


Fortunately, the banchan arrived soon after, a spectrum of vividly colored condiments surrounding the black grill like a Lite-Brite board. These pickles, salads and fermented treats are complimentary at most Korean restaurants and delicious at only the best. A dozen or so crowded the table in neat white dishes, the best of which included umami bomb mushrooms, sweet matchstick pickles I couldn’t stop eating, pillow-soft potatoes, peppery watercress and bitter turnip tops laced with chili.


Praise be the banchan, because dinner had been middling up until that point. Sure, there were some highs, like the ultratender calamari ceviche and teacup Kumamoto oysters splashed with heady house-brewed ponzu, but I was underwhelmed by the standard-
issue edamame and the stringy seaweed 
salad. Sesame oil was the overwhelming flavor in the tofu japchae, a mix of pleasantly chewy sweet potato-starched cellophane noodles and awkwardly shaped veggies seemingly cut with a plastic butter knife.


Those disappointments disappeared after I took a bite of Mrs. Cho’s kimchi, the final part of the banchan parade to arrive. These great swaths of fermented cabbage, bloody with chili paste, retained such serious crunch and packed a fiery funk I loved. I speared leaves between bites of my dinner guest’s dolsot bibimbop, a mountain of white rice, vegetables, beef and egg. The fortifying deal of a meal ($12!) sizzled in its stone bowl, which I promptly excavated for treasure: crunchy bits of rice that crisps on the hot bottom, paella-style. The smoking bowl crackled and sputtered in protest. At Miga, the food isn’t shy about sharing its opinions.


Speaking of which, the pork finally quieted down, and the server switched off the barbecue. The menu describes belly as “unseasoned,” which you should read as “bland.” But it’s okay, really, as the salt-and-peppered sesame oil and intensely savory Korean bean paste take care of that. You’re meant to dip each piece of pork before bundling them in frilly red leaf lettuce cups with sliced garlic and chilies. Dip, wrap. Dip, wrap. United, the ingredients in this leafy Korean burrito brought real balance. Fresh and rich flavors, working in tandem, totally worth the wait. ■