Dan Moo Ji: Duluth, GA, USA
This restaurant is supposed to be reflective of korean “street food”. Now while there are many types of korean street food (and I am no particular expert), this is what my friends have told me and what I have eaten. The menu here is decently sized, ranging from omu-rice to udon and then you have your various forms of dduk-bok-ki, followed with your kim bap selections. One of the things that I like is the fact that the kim bap rolls are perfectly sized for someone like me who is a moderate to small eater. Essentially, it can be a $2.50 lunch (although for most people it would probably be a snack).
Today’s perusings consisted of two types of kim bap and their fried chicken wings. Believe it or not, their wings are pretty tasty. I believe that they dust them with corn starch or potato starch to make it super crispy. I don’t particularly care for their spicy sauce that they serve on the side, but I could definitely demolish a 10-piece wing order by myself (no kim bap). They aren’t too savory or over-seasoned so if you are used to those Taco Mac wings that are heavily doused in sauce, it ain’t gonna do you any good!
fried wings
Our two rolls consisted of the tuna kim bap (my favorite) and the cheese kim bap (my close friend’s favorite…she LOVES cheese). The tuna kim bap is really your basic kim bap that has the pickled daikon (dan moo ji 단모지), the egg, pickled carrot, seasoned and pickled burdock, along with what I believe are sesame leaves? A traditional kim bap will have meat on the inside. However the tuna kim bap (참치킴밮) substitutes the meat for a lightly dressed tuna salad.
tuna kimbap
The cheese kim bap essentially has no meat, but it has dairy so it doesn’t work for vegans. It comes with American cheese (think Kraft singles) and then a nice wedge of cream cheese. HAHAHA. You have to really like cheese. Surprisingly it goes well together, and the cheese actually goes amazingly great with ra-dduk-bok-ki (dukkboki with ramen noodles). Definitely more filling though than the tuna because of all that cheese!
cheese kimbap
All in all a summary:
- fried chicken wings: **** (4 stars)
- tuna kim bap: **** (4 stars)
- cheese kim bap: ***.5 (3.5 stars)
If you wanted to try Dan Moo Ji on your own, you can find them here:
Nukoa Plaza3230 Steve Reynolds Blvd Duluth, GA (770) 814-2310
I will definitely be coming here and hope to try a few more other dishes, or at least ones that I have pictures of. It’s fairly small so if you come, make sure that you plan on waiting if you have a large party. Weekends are also fairly crowded which makes it difficult to eat during cold weather. However, dduk-bok-ki is the best thing to eat when it’s chilly out because it comes out piping hot in a nice big casserole dish here!
Until next time, may your taste buds be plentifully blessed with many flavors…
R/g
