Late-night Korean
12590 S.W. 1st St., Beaverton
503-643-5388
A snug, dimly lit bar that's open later than just about anywhere else in downtown Beaverton, Du Kuh Bee is known for offering dinner with a show as cooks in the noisy open kitchen turn lumps of wheat dough into thin noodles through feats of superhuman cat's cradle. The chewy, irregular noodles, stir-fried with cabbage, green onion and your choice of meat (pork or chicken $12, shrimp or squid $14) are excellent, especially ordered spicy with a bottle of Sapporo lager or two, but it would be a disservice not to explore the rest of the Korean and Chinese dishes on the menu. The restaurant's boiled mandu dumplings ($6 for 8) are pleasingly slippery and filled with soft ground pork and chives. The cold fish salads ($10) provide a cooling counterpart to the intensely peppery and salty pan-fried baby octopus with chile paste and sliced rice cake ($12). If it's cold out you can't go wrong with the jjajangmyeon ($10), a bowl of silky noodles topped with pork belly, cucumbers, and a hefty scoop of salty black bean paste.
Order: Jellyfish salad, pok mandu, grilled mackerel ($8), extra spicy noodles with squid, shoju or beer.
-- Ben Waterhouse