RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK: TOJI KOREAN GRILL HOUSE Eatery makes a cook out of anyone

By Audrey Van Buskirk

The Portland Tribune, Mar 4, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a strong DIY trend in the Portland food world. Sadly, it hasn’t yet led to the opening of a New York City-style craft-your-own-salad deli, but there are plenty of other ways to make your meal.

First, there are tapas joints galore, where customers create their dinners from many small bites. Then there’s the new influx of fondue spots where diners must get even more actively involved in the cooking process.

Toji Korean Grill House presents another cook-your-own-meal experience. The spare, high-ceilinged space offers low tables and cozier booths fitted with recessed grills in their centers.

The long, foreign menu seems daunting at first, but a deeper look reveals that there are basically two categories Ñ things you cook and things they cook.

Among the appetizers, the standard pot stickers and spring rolls are fine, but the real winner is the pizza-sized scallion pancake, which the server cuts into wedges with scissors. Full of pieces of calamari, shrimp and vegetables, the chewy pancake is a mŽlange of flavors and textures and is delicious dipped in one of the accompanying three sour, vinegary and salty sauces.

The dishes they cook tend to be rice or noodle-based, but not cooking something yourself would be like going to Krispy Kreme and just getting coffee. Choose among a wide variety of meats, seafood and vegetables. On the meat side get anything marinated; it will have more flavor and be less at risk of overcooking.

It’s a bit nerve-racking to hold the fate of lovely giant scallops in your tongs, but the servers are unobtrusively helpful, giving your food a turn from time to time, piling pieces onto a slab of onion when they think they’re done enough, and doling out fair portions.

Each dish comes with a thrilling tableful of smaller condiments: peanut sauce; several forms of kimchi, the famous Korean cabbage dish; other pickled and raw vegetables; soft tofu. It’s great fun to mix and match tastes and textures. And though you’re doing most of the work yourself, this is almost certainly not something you’d cook at home.

Ñ Audrey Van Buskirk

4615 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., 503-232-8998, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday

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