The final stop of the many Korean restaurants I visited during my 6 nights in Paris, Kim & Kim was the 2nd closest one to my hotel. It was my last night in Paris, and wanted to finish it with a deconstructed cooked kimchi dish. It wasn't to my taste.
The restaurant was empty of customers when I entered, watched over by a young Korean man (assuming related to the owners). He spoke perfect accented French, and a decent English but no Korean. Beyond that, he just wanted to do his front-of-house job and efficiently take my order. I ordered two dishes I hadn't ever tried before: a kimchi crepe with cheese (11€) and Kimchi Jaeyook (14€) with a side of white rice (2,5€). I also got a large carafe of tap water which I served myself. Eating kimchi, I figured I would need the entire pitcher, which indeed was the case.
Crepe - came first. Cheese was an ingredient that I only ate with Korean food just recently, but it can work pretty well. But in this case, even though the melted cheese on top of the crepe was plentiful, the melding of the ingredients didn't work for me. Ended up eating a couple of pieces and left the rest.
Jaeyook - this came with 4 small banchan, and the potato was pretty good. The kimchi was old, very sour....which meant, the cooked jaeyook with kimchi wasn't great. The pieces of thinly sliced pork was shoulder which meant a lot of fat and gristle (which I actually like), but the sour and a bit mushy kimchi made the dish unappetizing. It came with a generous amount of firm tofu served cold in large bricks. Would have much preferred it warmed up along with the pork. For the price though, it was a generous amount of food.
Had to leave a large portion of the meal, and asked for my check. By this time, other folks had started to come in to dine and it was getting busier. I felt good about that, so slowly walked back to my hotel before it got too dark/late and appreciated the pure number of Korean restaurants in the City of Lights.
For the five Korean restaurants I visited during my trip, none of them were bad. But the others either had incredible ambience or an out-in-front dish that I'll remember for a while. Kim & Kim kinda reminded me of the many late night Korean restaurants one can find in KTown LA, but with a dish I didn't like. Thus, it was my least favorite: ranked fifth. read more