L'Arbre De Sel (Tree Of Salt). Montparnasse.

I can't believe I even uttered the words.
"Where do you want to go to dinner?", he said.
"Anywhere not French", I responded.

Here in the city of escargot and duck, chocolate mousse and cheese, wine and bread and butter, puddles of delicious butter...
and all I wanted was spicy, fresh, crunchy, clean, light, savory..."how about korean?"

I have to say, this restaurant was a revelation- the salty, fluffy mushroom cakes, simple bouillon soup, pickled vegetables, spicy sauteed meats & fried-egg-topped noodle dishes...heaven. Even the kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) was a delight. I've never gone to a Korean restaurant before, since I usually avoid things linked to the word BBQ unless I feel like eating an elephant - but this restaurant mixed the pro-vegetarian flare of most asian cuisines with a distinctively delightful (and not deep-fried, over-sauced) carnivore element.

I've heard it said that Paris has the best asian cuisine in the western hemisphere, and L'Arbre de Sel is certainly setting the bar high.