In the heart of K-town, on Wilshire and Hobart, an epic Korean BBQ Cook-Off war was raging. As hungry locals waited in long lines to get a taste of the goods, the chefs took to their grills and began preparing. Restaurants such as Park’s BBQ, Palsaik and Don Dae Gam set up under cabanas along the street and sold plates of meat and banchan (side dishes). Beer Belly was there as well working the beer garden from their truck with convenient tap handles along the side with dark Stone IPA beers and lighter apple cider beers. If one contest wasn’t enough, the event also hosted a Choco Pie eating contest — which may have been a little too much for the crowd of full onlookers.

Chefs Pat Chung, Chris Oh, Hogan Lee, and Wesley Lieberher were the four contestants competing for the title. They presented their best to the panel of judges which included L.A. Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold, Heros actor James Kyson Lee and Simon Majumdar, a judge on The Next Iron Chef. In the end, it was Wesley Lieberher (executive chef at Beer Belly) who took home the trophy and showed everyone that non-Korean folks can cook Korean food just as good as Koreans do. We’d like to congratulate Wesley and Beer Belly on his win! Well deserved.

Some of Koreatown’s finest were also at the Cook-off…

Dumbfoundead and his crew.

Beats Per Mnet host Paul ‘PK‘ Kim (who MC’d the event) with Rick Lee (a.k.a Lyricks)

[Photo of Wesley: theREALbck on yfrog; 1st photo, Dumbfoundead/PK and Lyricks: Audrey Yun-Suong]