Chingu Hawaii offers Korean-style bar fare on steroids

When the first pocha — roughly the Korean equivalent of the Japanese izakaya — appeared here about 15 years ago, I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to sit in a room surrounded by walls of noise, in the form of big-screen videos showcasing the latest K-pop wonders.

It was loud. It was distracting. No food was worth the nonstop assault and I was anxious to leave. Others felt the same way and the pocha didn’t last long.

How times change. Recently at Chingu Hawaii, I found myself staring intently at the screen instead of trying to ignore it. So much so that a friend of a friend, whose head was just below my line of sight, thought I was entranced by his good looks all evening.

Uh, no.

Having recently taken up K-pop dance, I was simply engrossed in studying the performers’ moves. So it speaks rather highly of the quality of the food that I eventually was able to peel my eyes away from the screen to focus entirely on what I was eating.

What this pocha has going for it is local expertise plus the cult of personality.

Chingu, which translates as “friend” in Korean, is the latest project of L.A.-based chef Chris Oh, a co-founder of Seoul Sausage Co. I was hoping the bar would feature some of his magnificent Seoul Sausage sandwiches or the sausages themselves, but that menu would be a whole different creature deserving of a standalone place in our universe. Its absence leaves me with hope that Chingu’s success will lead to a branch of Seoul Sausage here one day.

Instead, this bar brings a bit of L.A.’s Korea­town to the islands. That means you get all the fried chicken, cheese and kochujang of a Korean-style pocha, but with a heavy dose of sweetness that I associate with a California palate. With flavors bold, fatty and assertive, and audacious combinations of ingredients, this is the pocha on steroids.

The approach starts with Oh’s watermelon soju ($30), a straightforward drink everywhere else, but not here. This one has extras of Fruity Pebbles cereal and Pop Rocks layered over watermelon balls served in a hollowed watermelon rind. When the soju is poured over it, watch out. The snap, crackle and pop can cause high-strung drinkers to jump out of their seats. The drink is proving too sweet for a lot of locals, so there’s now an option of adding the novelty ingredients to taste.

Elsewhere, the honey-butter phenomenon that arrived via Korean potato chips four years ago shows itself in a dish of honey-butter shrimp ($14). The sweet jumbo specimens are deep fried in the shell and topped with a scoop of decadent honey butter that melts into a pool at the bottom of the bowl for dipping the shrimp.

Honey also arrives in an appetizer of Chips n Dip ($15), an unusual combination of shrimp chips with a cream cheese dip spiked with ikura and honey drizzle. This dish received a big question-mark response at our table. Four of us took one bite each and no one attempted a second.

The dip was the only true disappointment. The food is over the top with an amped-up sugar factor, but that won’t keep a young crowd from enjoying these bites.

Pochas are famous for combinations of meat and cheese served on hot plates so that the meat stays warm and the cheese melts. Here, one of the most popular dishes is the Chicken n Cheese ($22) — chicken glazed in kochujang and Thai chili sauce is rolled around in melted mozzarella. As many times as I’ve had this, it remains incomprehensible because the cheese doesn’t add much in terms of taste or texture. For the chili-intolerant, the cheese would work to dampen the spiciness. Otherwise, it only adds a blanket of oozy, stringy fat that I don’t need. It’s a dish that seems to work only in Korea and food-obsessed America.

If youth is not on your side, better call your cardiologist for approval before you show up. The decadence continues with Korean fried chicken ($14), in a spicy, candy-like kochujang honey glaze, and bone-marrow corn cheese ($14). As if buttery corn covered with shaved aged Parmesan isn’t sinful enough, the pot also features two marrow-filled bones. Scrape the fatty marrow into the pot and it disappears into the corn, which actually ends up tasting more like butterscotch than cheese. This was one of my favorite dishes, even if it made me fear for my heart.

After all this, delicious 48-hour marinated kalbi ($23) and a trio of L.A. street tacos ($11) of braised pork, kim chee onions and kim chee aioli seem tame in comparison.

One picturesque dish I forgot to order was the K-town poke ($18), but photos on Instagram show a colorful arrangement of assorted flying fish roe served over rice.

Elsewhere the Best Fries Ever ($7) are really not, but definitely made better with accompanying kim chee Sriracha aioli. And the piece de resistance is the tuna tomahawk ($29), giant tuna collars in a sweet-spicy Korean BBQ sauce. The price seems high but the dish can serve up to 10. So gather up your friends. You’ll need their help finishing the weightier dishes.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.