Food Digest

Met a buddy for lunch. I needed be bim bop. I don’t know why. It’s not like something I normally crave.

In fact, my noviceness in the Korean dish was unveiled for the world to see last December, when I came to the Evanston Grill for the first time.

I needed to come back. And even though it was only my second time in the place, the waiter must’ve remembered me. He walked up to the table with his order pad in his hand, looked me square in the eye and said, “be bim bop?”

Yes, please.

There is something so refreshingly different and borderline healthy about this aluminum bowl of rice, egg, teriyaki chicken and vegetables, topped with an ample ooze of spicy sauce.

And if one time makes me a regular, well, I like that kind of recognition. I bet it took the regulars at “Cheers” more than one time to remember your name.

That being said, I don’t want anyone here to know my name. That’d be super creepy. And if a postman started talking to me, I’d chopstick him in the Adam’s apple and high-tail it.

I’d been out chasing a story for the newspaper all morning and happened to find myself ringing apartment buzzers in Evanston. No one answered, and I looked a couple doors to the north and saw a sign: “Evanston Grill.”

When life gives you a sign, you’re obligated to follow it. I dropped a couple nickels in the meter and found a stool at the lunch counter.

It’s a pretty standard burgers-and-club-sandwiches kind of greasy spoon diner, run by a Korean family. Besides the American food on the menu, they also offer Be Bim Bop — basically the Famous Bowl of Korea. Once I discerned it was free of fish sauce (I’m allergic) I figured, what the heck. I’ll give it a shot.

Rice, teriyaki beef, a fried egg and a bunch of vegetables. Mixed up with the spicy sauce in a plastic container on the counter.

I’ve only had Be Bim Bop once before — when my punk band was on tour and playing a show at a club in a Korean part of Oakland — so I’m clearly no expert. But I can say this: It was really, really good. Way better than my first experience. I’m still thinking about it, in fact.

And I don’t think I’m alone. People on Yelp rave about it (though not much else). More than half the restaurant was also eating it. And people were coming in to pick up to-go orders of it.