Everything Korean at Woori Market

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Woori Market maintains all the traditions of the modern American grocer. Outside, a middle-aged man sits at a solitary stall as he attempts to peddle newspaper subscriptions. Pop music is piped into the aisles. Greeters are placed at the entrance, translating “hello” into a smiling “annyong haseyo.”

The Korean supermarket may have all the products and produce to feed foreign appetites, but Woori is locally-minded in its connection to the Korean community in Cerritos and Artesia. As with many of the surrounding restaurants and businesses, Woori, which opened earlier this year in place of another Korean market, is a crucial cog in the diaspora that extends all the way up to LA’s behemoth Koreatown. And like many of its peers, it’s a great place for cheap eats.

Nothing is particularly pricey here, but your money is maximized best at lunchtime. If you’re fond of banchan (the parade of small sides that accompany Korean meals), you can stock up on prepared tubs of things like salted octopus and squid and pickled radishes and sprouts. Kimchi is expectedly omnipresent, and there’s every brand and variety available here.

But Woori is more than just sides: scattered around the market’s deli-like nucleus are a number of surprisingly complete meals. The richest dish is probably the rice bowl topped with mountainous scoops of fresh fish roe. Though roe is usually doled out in rather tiny portions, it’s the first and only focus of this dish, jewels of color that burst open with that briny rush of flavor. There’s also a huge plate of sashimi for a scant $15 that includes tuna, amberjack and the like. The fish doesn’t approach the quality of cuts served at our finer sushi houses, but it does compete rather well with the offerings at our favorite budget sushi spots.

Woori of course presents plenty with which to make your own meals. There are monkfish filets on ice, and marinated bricks of gorgeous, rosy beef. The produce here is as good as you’d expect, currently stocked with bushels of fresh herbs and apples as big as grapefruits. And condiments are a food group all their own. Witness the entire aisle devoted to the innumerable varieties of fermented chile paste for evidence.

Dessert isn’t forgotten at Woori. Near the entrance is an outpost of Ye Wool Bakery, which also has locations in nearby La Palma and Norwalk. The bakery is excellent, turning out creations likely to be at least vaguely familiar to those who haunt Japanese bakeries. There are all kinds of flavored breads, including ones stuffed with sweet red beans and knotted, challah-like loaves of seasonal pumpkin bread. The pumpkin bread isn’t the sweet, overly-spiced product you’ll find in American markets; instead, the bread is baked using the natural sugars of actual roasted pumpkin, small hunks of which are scattered throughout the airy bread. There are brittle-like almond and peanut concoctions, as well as sweet flatbreads stuffed with chestnut cream.

As with any large market, there’s ample opportunity to be overwhelmed here. But that doesn’t have to happen at Woori. Consider a simple meal of pre-marinated steak (basically the same flavors as any bulgogi or galbi) with a side of dok (tubular rice cakes known as mochi in Japanese). Whip up a fermented chile sauce (reduced and sweetened with some sugar and mirin) for the dok, and you’ll be able to approximate an essential Korean barbecue experience. It can take a lot of looking at Woori, but there are myriad options here.

Still hungry? Visit Miles for more at eatfoodwith.me.

WOORI MARKET 13321 ARTESIA BLVD • CERRITOS 90703 • 562.229.0729 • OPEN DAILY • FOOD FOR TWO $10-25

Tags: cerritos, dok, Food, kimchi, korean, woori market, ye wool bakery