Hidden in plain sight in the Tenderloin is Sungho, which opened in late 2024 and only recently came across my radar.
Korean food is having quite the (long) moment in the City. It’s not all KBBQ, either; Chef Seongho (the name can be translated as “ascending greatness”), features homey, traditional dishes he remembers from his childhood and not commonly found in most Korean establishments in San Francisco.
Not for nothing, I noted that most of the clientele was Korean.
For what it’s worth, Sungho is a Michelin-mentioned restaurant, meaning it doesn’t have a star, but is deemed worth noticing by the powers that be. The space is minimalist, with clean lines and blond wood frames, through which motes of light filter in. KPop streams through the air.
Three of us started out with a bottle of makgeolli, a traditional, lightly fizzy and milky rice wine.
Very pleasant with a slight sweetness, it went down easy and paired great with all the bold flavors. I read that it’s the oldest fermented beverage in Korea, and I loved that we were provided with traditional metal bowls for quaffing.
Our first dish was the kimchi pancake with pork.
Bright and sassy, yet a comforting dish, with good chewiness and hints of heat and funk, and delicious pork slices inside.
Next, perhaps the star of the show … bossam.
As a home cook, Chef David Chang made this dish popular to many of us over a decade ago, but this was the first time I’d had the chance to try it in a restaurant.
Gorgeous, tender slices of fatty (but not too) roast pork came with banchan — the myriad little side dishes that come with KBBQ. Some fermented, such as kimchi; some fresh, like sliced jalapeno and garlic; and ssamjang, a combo of doenjang (fermented bean paste) and gochujang (spicy chili paste), with lettuce and perilla leaves to make yourself little Korean tacos in all the permutations your spicy little heart desires.
You should know, if you don’t already, that Korean food is highly addictive; once you get that lovely combination of spicy/sweet/umami/funk into your system, you’ll crave it forever.
And speaking of da funk.
Spicy jokbal rice: Funky, chewy, bad-ass pork trotters, chopped into toothsome fried rice, sided by a cooling, crunchy, cabbage salad. I could have eaten this for days (and indeed, leftovers came home with me).
Our final dish was a unicorn for me.
Spicy marinated fresh raw crab, or yangnyeom-gejang. I’ve drooled over countless reels of young Korean folk donning rubber gloves (provided here too) and squeezing out glistening, gelatinous hunks of crab flesh, awash in a spicy gochujang/gochugaru sauce, right into their mouths, awe and bliss dawning over their faces, but this was the first time I’d encountered it IRL.
I don’t know if this version was representative of How It Should Be, but it was good. Spicy, fresh, and such a tactile experience, wrangling the sweet meat out of its shell with your hands, getting red goo all over your face (or was that just me?).
The food was so plentiful, we couldn’t have swallowed another bite, but I was kicking myself for not trying the dish Chef Seongho is really known for — gukbab — slow- cooked, traditional stews. I felt it would be remiss to not include these dishes, so back I went, this time with the BF in tow.
We sat at the bar, in view of all the prep-cook action. There are three versions of Sungho’s signature dish, all simmered for 24 hours: Pork, spicy pork with radish greens, and beef short rib with glass noodles, Korean radish and the gigantic bones prominently displayed.
We got the mild pork and the beef. Both were fiery cauldrons that stayed hot for a good 15 minutes, and I marveled at the young women next to us who were served after us but who intrepidly dove right in. Us tenderfoots waited for things to cool down a bit.
The beef broth was light and mild-flavored, with fatty beef chunks we had to wrestle off the bones with our chopsticks and spoon — no easy feat for the uninitiated, but we managed. I loved the slightly bitter bite of the radish and the slippery noodles, and by the end of the meal had (almost) mastered nestling them onto my spoon and into my mouth.
The pork broth was equally mild in flavor, but the silky pork slices were full-bore pig, and I had to stop myself from eating all of it before trading bowls with the BF. On the side was a small bowl of chili paste, which I dabbed on the tender slices of flesh, as well as a few banchan.
The BF is a huge KBBQ fan and wasn’t wowed by the gukbab, but I found them intriguing. I assume you’re not meant to be wowed by dishes like this, but instead brought back to memories of childhood, of steaming bowls served by grandmothers on frigid days. These are clearly bowls of nostalgia Chef Seongho is serving.
Happy to have now eaten almost everything off Sungho’s tidy little menu, I’d still like to try the knife-cut noodles and seafood pancake. For beverages, Sungho offers makgeolli as well as soju, Korean beer, a Japanese rice beer (nicely floral), and soft drinks.
Service on both visits was friendly but unobtrusive, and prices aren’t crazy expensive, for the quality of food. Come to Sungho and step outside of your Korean comfort zone.
Sungho Korean Soul Food
250 Hyde St.
San Francisco
