Convenience In K-Town
Super 32 Cafe
34 W. 32nd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-736-0099
In Koreatown, Midtown's one-block glitch of kimchee and karaoke, sits a curious oasis. It is bright. It is open all night. And it serves beer at prices Heartland natives could appreciate. Drawbacks? Well, there is one rather convenient peculiarity. But first, a primer:
K-Town, as locals call it, bloomed in the 80s as Korean businesses filled 32nd Street's hang-dog storefronts. A microcorridor soon thrived, much like Little India in the East Village. These days, stroll the luminous neon street for everything from Hello Kitty toasters to do-it-yourself BBQ.
In my mind's eye, K-town, much like Chinatown, was a bastion of bargain eats and drinks. The former was accurate: Eight bucks buys chili-red pork and a dozen banchan, tiny dishes, much like tapas, of pickled vegetables. It's a feast for kings of thrift. The liquor is not. At restaurants, a palm-sized bottle of soju (weak rice vodka) is typically a 10 spot; at bars, the prices can double.
"People in this neighborhood like to show off in front of their friends," says Kimber Choi, 30, owner of K-Town's Super 32 Cafe. With few all-Korean bars in town, "they're willing to pay crazy drink prices."
That I quickly discover. Early one evening, my drinking companions and I sampled downstairs lounge Space 212. While the decor reminded us of Woody Allen's nebbishly futuristic Sleeper, the bartender blasted DMX. We were served microwave popcorn. And a $5.99 Sapporo bottle. This should only be the fee for beer bought at 2 a.m., when another round is vital to belting out hair-metal karaoke.
With that in mind, let's revisit Super 32. At first blush, the Day-Glo deli (which opened in January on, yes, 32nd Street) follows the template: Buttered bagels, turkey sandwiches and a meaty buffet appeal to famished tourists and businessmen. By serving kalguksu and bibimbap, the menu also caters to K-Town. The menus are disparate, yet upstairs, about 10 feet above the buffet, sits the bridge between palates-and the solution to highway-robbery alcohol.
In other settings, this second-floor perch would hold harried salary men munching corned beef. Yet Choi, a Columbia grad with a masters in philosophy, saw beyond the sandwich. A few weeks after opening, her sit-down liquor license was stamped and approved. In came beer taps. Tables. A plasma-screen tv.
A food-court bar was born.
On a bare-arms kind of night, a chalkboard sign sucks me and several friends inside Super 32. The tractor-beam allure? Five-dollar pitchers of beer. Strolling past food grazers, we park on the second floor. It is not unlike sitting in a mall, a suburban childhood memory unleashing, for me, a fair amount of displaced serotonin.
"Tired of spending rent money on K-Town alcohol prices?" reads a sign above the bar. Uhh, yes. No hard-liquor license nixes 100-proof stuff, but there's ample better bottled beer, such as Anchor Steam and Brooklyn Lager-sold downstairs, if you crave a carryout six-pack. A genial waitress (yes, a convenience-store waitress) delivers our pitcher of Bud.
We pour a foamy glass and gaze below at the car-crash of commercial biosphere and bar. Sure, saloon-appropriate David Bowie plays on loudspeakers, but shoppers are ordained by commerce's quiet, orderly rules: Don't linger. Don't talk. Don't make eye contact. Observing this surreal blend is like cracking a beer in a 7-11 and watching truck drivers inhale sweaty, wienie-carousel meat.
At Super 32, selecting dinner is a jittery dance, a mental tabulation of sustenance over per-pound cost, rice defeated by meat. Overwhelming choice usually means much uncertainty. For some. We watch, like omniscient gods, as a man fills his large sweatshirt pockets with gooey ribs while nibbling fish, white and flaked. His plastic container grows large, then small, then large again. This lasts 10 minutes-or, five ribs-before an employee eyes his antics. The drift is caught. Mr. Freeloader pays a pittance and leaves, a rib peeking from his pocket.
Our departure takes time. One pitcher becomes two. Happy hour ends (at 8), but prices jump just two dollars. Another pitcher. We spy a young couple creating a costly dumpling mountain that becomes a pocket-conscious molehill. We are too polite to tattle, too tipsy not to laugh. What's convenience-store protocol? In this fluorescent land, the boundaries between besotted and shopper are blurred, which may not be such a bad thing. When hunger grumbles, the munchies, after all, are no further than an outstretched arm.