Korean-style barbecue beef known as pulgogi is served on a lettuce leaf with green onions, red chili sauce, sliced garlic and jalapeño pepper. Surrounding the plate are other Korean dishes including, from left to right: rice, dried cuttlefish with malt syrup and red peppers, a mung-bean-based jelly known as muk and a savory, shellfish-studded pancake known as p'ajon.

A small sushi bar is tucked into one side of the place. Korean food does not encompass sushi, but the Japanese tradition is popular with Korean diners in general, and loyal Four Seasons patrons in particular. Shoji screens over the plate-glass windows enhance the Japanese theme. Next door to Shay's Irish Restaurant and Lounge on Aurora Avenue North, just south of North 160th Street, The Four Seasons reflects the weird jumble that lies outside its relatively tranquil doors.

As long as I'm here, I think, I might as well have some pulgogi. Often translated as Korean barbecue, the grilled steak reminiscent of teriyaki is probably the Korean food easiest for Westerners like me to understand. Even though I have worked with Koreans for a few years and tried to appreciate their cuisine, much of the Korean kitchen has remained enigmatic.

But judging by the crowds I've seen at this place late at night and by the excitement that lights up the face of almost any food lover I know at the sound of the words "Korean food," the veil that has hidden the secrets of the Korean kitchen may be about to lift. For months I've been poring over a copy of Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's "Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen." The book has helped me understand the origins and aesthetics of the Korean table, though I've been intimidated about trying the recipes because I don't have any clear expectations of how the finished dishes should look or taste.

Years ago, one of my more eccentric friends and neighbors had a habit of making his own kimchi, though he was decidedly not Korean. Every fall, Jeff packed Napa cabbages, daikon radish, lots of salt, hot peppers, garlic and ginger into stoneware jars and buried the jars in his backyard. Though I thought this was peculiar, I had to admit that the resulting, somewhat spritzy pickle was good in a smelly sort of way, but maybe not so good that I wanted to make my own.

Serves 4 to 6 Adapted from "Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen" by Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall
2 pounds lean beef sirloin For the marinade: 1/2 cup vermouth or rice wine 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice 2 green onions, thinly sliced 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 4 walnut halves 3 tablespoons malt syrup or corn syrup 1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon sesame seeds 1/4 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper For the garnish: Hot steamed rice Lettuce leaves 2 teaspoons hot pepper flakes 1. Slice the beef across the grain into strips 1/8 inch thick. 2. Combine the rice wine, soy sauce, orange juice, green onions, garlic, walnuts, malt or corn syrup, sugar, sesame oil, sesame seeds and pepper in a bowl; mix well with a spoon. 3. Add the beef and toss to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate the beef in the marinade for at least one hour. 4. Grill the beef over hot coals or on a gas grill for about 5 minutes on each side. 5. Using scissors, snip the beef strips into bite-size pieces. 6. Serve the beef with the rice, lettuce leaves and hot pepper flakes. Each person wraps bite-sized pieces of grilled beef in the lettuce leaves, seasoning to taste with pepper flakes. Print friendly version.

Now, when my pulgogi arrives at The Four Seasons, it is accompanied by six bowls of pickles and salads, including one that looks, smells and tastes exactly like Jeff's old backyard version and another that is incongruously filled with a very Western-style potato salad. The other bowls contain julienne strips of daikon radish and carrot, tossed with rice vinegar and sugar; mung-bean sprouts handled the same way; a dark red kimchi made from Chinese broccoli and red chili paste, and a zesty kimchi of daikon cubes. All Korean meals include rice and six or seven small dishes like these, known collectively as ban chan or panch'an.

The kind of kimchi my friend made in college, paek kimchi, or white cabbage kimchi, is just one of dozens of pickles that make up about half of the traditional Korean diet. The pickled vegetables are eaten in the winter when fresh vegetables are not available. But even in the summer, fresh vegetables are often salted, seasoned with peppers and tossed with rice vinegar to make quick kimchi.

Here on Aurora, Chef Cho opened his own place three years ago after working in Korean restaurants in Federal Way and Bellevue. By the time the photographer arrives to meet us, I can see that ordering lunch was a mistake. At a table with a grill in the center, Cho has laid out dozens of bowls and platters containing all the elements of a Korean feast.

Two kinds of soup are boiling: Soon Tofu Chige, a rich and spicy mélange of seafood, and Yook Gae Jang, beef soup with rice. Hae Mool Pa Jeun, a huge green-onion pancake with seafood, is studded with tentacles of octopus. The grill itself is being heated for Bool Gogi, more often spelled Pulgogi, Kahl Bee or Kalbi, and barbecued pork that Cho calls Sam Gyub Sal. A vast array of panch'an plates hold not just kimchi but dishes such as muk, a starchy jelly made from mung-bean flour, and dried cuttlefish sweetened with malt syrup and sesame leaves or perilla seasoned with chili paste and soy.

For the next hour, Cho describes all the dishes we taste while my friend Mee Sook translates. I jot down ingredients and, for the first time, I begin to get a handle on what distinguishes Korean food from its Japanese and Chinese counterparts. "Chinese food has a lot of oil," says Mee Sook, "and Japanese food is often sweet or tangy. But Korean food is always hot." Indeed, every dish we taste has some of the fiery red chilies that color the brine in kimchi red.

After a visit to Hodori Market not far north in Edmonds, I go home with malt syrup, sesame leaves, red chili threads and a head swimming with ideas. Armed with "Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen," I put together a Korean meal and, at last, I think I've got it. I've moved beyond kimchi.

Greg Atkinson is chef at the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center. He is also author of "The Northwest Essentials Cookbook" (Sasquatch Books, 1999). Barry Wong is a staff photographer for Pacific Northwest magazine.