Koreana provides true dining experience

   Koreana serves something you can’t order off the menu — an experience. In this hyperstimulated age where hibachi grills, Mongolian barbecues, and Medieval Knights are considered the apex of the experiential dining world, Korea Na awakens you. Eating here for the first time provides something new. Something unexpected, and very, very special.
   Founded in October of 2008 Beong-Heon Kim — also founder of Kim’s Tae Kwon Do Academy — Korea Na is currently the only Toledo restaurant devoted to Korean cuisine. It’s tough to predict if Korean restaurants will suddenly become the new culinary trend here like Thai restaurants and Japanese steakhouses did a few years back, but even if a Korean bistro popped up on every corner, Koreana would still stand out.
   Located beside the Asian market on Reynolds Rd. (between Hill and Angola), Koreana’s welcoming interior greets you warmly as you enter. Designed with wood supports resembling a traditional Korean home and featuring tables and murals hand-painted by the owner, this is one impressive dining room.
   We were promptly seated and welcomed by Kim. As we opened our menus, we realized, slightly embarrassed, that neither of us knew a thing about Korean cuisine. We recognized menu items like ‘egg roll’ and ‘miso soup,’ but that was it. So we asked Mr. Kim for help and he happily provided it to us. And how.
   After checking to see if either of us had any special dietary considerations (ie: vegetarian), he set us up with appetizers of kimbab ($5.95) — the Korean take on the maki roll — and bowls of miso soup ($1.95). Maki roll fans, take note; this is a damn good appetizer — stuffed with cooked beef and fresh vegetables.
   The salad assortment course, pauchun, consisted of an offering of kim du (spicy cabbage), fish cakes, chicken radish slaw, and seaweed salad (simultaneously salty, spicy and crunchy).
  Mr. Kim recommended we try the authentic Korean barbecue, and as he’s a tae kwon do master, we were not about to argue. And we didn’t need to, as the two barbecue entrees we ordered — kalbi ($16.95) and Korean Seafood ($32.95) — were flavorful and tender. Kalbi is a beef short rib, which must be eaten with your hands. Guys, next time you have a first date, take her here. If she’s squeamish about getting her fingers covered in the delicious marinade, don’t call her again.
The seafood barbecue, cooked at the table, was a sampling of clams, squid, shrimp and scallops, bathed in a spicy sauce.
   Also on the advice of Mr. Kim, we tried the dolsot bibim bab ($10.95), a traditional Korean rice bowl, featuring beef, vegetables and eggs, cooked in a stone bowl. Served with a side of the delicious hot sauce and an array of traditional Korean side dishes (fish flakes, fermented cabbage, black beans and anchovies, etc.), this was pure palate pleasure.
   Two other tidbits — all food is prepared without MSG and the chopsticks and soup spoons, made of metal, are imported from Korea. For fans of Asian cuisine, this is as close to edible nirvana as it comes. Koreana is not a restaurant, it’s an experience — and one worth repeating.