Uno fuego!” Jenny Cha calls into her walkie-talkie for the fifth time in as many minutes, requesting another flaming charcoal pot for a table at Garden Buffet. An employee in the back room is constantly stoking the blazing-hot baskets, and diners are issued one as soon as they sit down. Meanwhile Cha’s mother, 73-year-old Myung Lee, is in the kitchen making kimchi–Korea’s spicy, fermented national side dish, usually made of napa cabbage–or frying delicate tofu cakes.
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Cha and her sister Mary Im (who now runs Pacific Buffet in Arlington Heights) moved to Chicago from Seoul in 1973, right after high school. Mary got into the men’s clothing business, while Jenny worked at an IBM plant in Elk Grove Village inspecting computer-chip assemblies. Their mom finally got a visa and moved here in 1980; eventually there were nine family members all living in Chicago. “We had so much family here; we wanted to be together and open a big place so we could share the profits,” says Cha.
Their renovations included building an underground vacuum system that sucks smoke down through the tables, under the floor, and out through a chimney in the back of the restaurant. “Otherwise the whole room is full of smoke,” Cha says. She claims Garden Buffet was the first Korean barbecue in Chicago with underground vents; most have overhead hoods. On a recent Saturday night, with more than two dozen tables grilling full blast, there wasn’t a trace of smoke in the air, just the sounds of a gently cascading water fountain and the big-screen TV that hovers above the buffet line.
The charcoal pot sits in a sunken hole in the middle of the table, and it’s up to the people sitting around it to keep an eye on things. Once the meat is cooked to your liking, you place it onto a lettuce leaf with some shredded scallion, a little bean paste, and whatever else sounds good–maybe some panjan, or just white rice. Then you just fold and eat–the ultimate Korean burrito.
Lexi’s opened this week in the former Madison’s space at 1330 W. Madison, serving contemporary American food by chef Andrew Pratt (Spruce, Fahrenheit).
