12 hours Ago By Max Veenhuyzen
14.5 / 20 How we score Korean $$ $$ According to the big book of traveller wisdom, the best source for dining advice in foreign cities aren’t food writers, chefs or the other hotel guests in line at the breakfast buffet: it’s the taxi drivers. Like all absolute statements, the whole taxi-drivers-know-the-best-places-to-eat cliché is categorically wrong, yet I can’t help but ponder its origins.
Did it start with a backpacker that, on the ride from the airport, gleaned some hot tips on a must-try pizza joint or regional Malaysian hawker spot deep in suburbia? Or perhaps it was a rumour started by a plain-clothes, undercover cabbie that regaled fellow pubgoers with tall tales of a driver taking him to a locals-only charcoal chicken shop ? (Taxi drivers: the original Michelin tyre-powered inspectors?) Some recent meals, however, suggested that this theory might have started in Korea. It’s in The Land of The Morning Calm that you’ll find the gisa sikdang, aka “taxi driver restaurant”: low-key diners where cabbies could eat balanced, nutritious home-style meals fast. For anyone else that’s yet to cross Korea off their to-visit list, Charim – a Northbridge restaurant inspired by gisa sikdang culture that opened in November – is the closest we’ll get to such a taxi driver hangout, although I suspect the calibre of food here isn’t typical of what’s found at the OGs.
The restaurant’s name is a Brangelina-esque portmanteau fusing the surnames of chef-owner Hyun Cha and his wife, Gee Gwa Im. In a neat stroke of fate, Charim is also Korean for “set the table”. In Charim’s instance, the tables – a dozen or so of them in a sparse yet comfortable dining room in the William Street Shopping Centre – get adorned with dish upon dish of dazzling, on-point Korean cookery.
Things such as pork jowl bo ssam plates ($30) starring slices of fatty grilled meat, sheaths of cos lettuce and a gutsy chilli-barley sauce: a refined version of the build-it-yourself shared meal popularised by firebrand American-Korean chef, David Chang . Or the popular Korean heat sink that is makguksu ($20); chilled buckwheat noodles dressed with bitey perilla oil). Or a benchmark-worthy pancake of kimchi and pork ($25).
Too often a gluey, final resting place for funky, over-fermented kimchi, Cha’s version is by turns crunchy, lush and low-key luxurious courtesy of fine silky threads of enoki mushroom. You’ll find these items on the specials menu: a concise, fluid edit of dishes informed by Cha’s upbringing split between Seoul and his grandma’s place in Jeollanam-do in Korea’s southwest. The cornerstone of Charim’s offering, however, are set meals ($55) featuring laser-sharp renditions of the classics prepared with better ingredients, more care and more deliciousness than the versions you and I might have eaten elsewhere or tried making at home.
They’re written on a short, four-option menu in hangul and include bibimbap and a beef bulgogi cooked with wagyu topside singing with a complex savoury sweetness. There’s controlled sweetness, too, in a mad juicy pork and squid stir-fry ramped up with Cha’s doctored version of the Korean chilli paste gochujang . The dish’s name is osam bulgogi , which both sounds and tastes a lot like awesome.
Admittedly, Charim’s price point is higher than most Korean eateries, but you can taste where those extra dollars go. Part fishmonger, part suburban small bar, Fins Bicton is an irresistible new prospect for seafood lovers If these mains are the heart of Charim, then the soul of the restaurant – and, in my opinion, all Korean cooking – is banchan : the ferments, condiments and other side dishes that add colour and texture to the table. In Perth, the banchan offering usually begins and ends with kimchi, garlic oil and seasoned bean sprouts.
Charim’s selection, meanwhile, includes fritters of snapper fried in egg white and buzzing with pepper; tamago -style egg omelettes dotted with a dusky pink smudge of myeongnanjeot , fermented pollock roe; fat, crisp bookmarks of Korean-style seaweed roasted in sesame oil; plus more of that excellent house kimchi. Like the specials, Cha changes his banchan up frequently, even within the week. You get seven little bowls of banchan and rice with every thali-style set meal, plus a bowl of miyeokguk , a clear wakame and beef soup that’s typically served on birthdays.
Ostensibly, each set meal is designed for one; but with the addition of an extra bowl of rice, one set meal comfortably feeds two, especially if you’re supplementing dinner with some specials (which you absolutely should). Just as Cha might be a self-confessed “baby chef” in Perth – a somewhat harsh self-appraisal, I feel; a former Korean military officer, Cha spent the last 18 years cooking Japanese food in Sydney before heading west six months ago – Charim feels like a baby restaurant preparing to set off on a very promising journey. The room’s fit-out might be basic, but outgoing staff brimming with knowledge and sass give it chutzpah.
The crowd plays its part too, with BYO-clutching guests – including plenty of Korean native speakers – happy to queue for a spot at this no-reservations diner. In short, Charim is a brilliant addition to this city’s (Asian) dining options and – like last week’s review – is another regrettable omission in my wrap of 2024’s best debutants . Charim is a party you want in on.
Run, don’t walk. Take a taxi if you have to. The low-down Vibe: a rollicking Korean Squid Game – and beef game and seafood game and kimchi game – where everyone wins.
Go-to dish: kimchi pancake. Drinks: Korean and non-Korean soft drinks, plus whatever BYO you’ve brought along. Cost: about $110 for two, excluding drinks.
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