By Frank Sabatini Jr. | Restaurant Review

When restaurateur Daniel Bohlen opened East Village Asian Diner in Encinitas several years ago, he decided to break a few rules in Korean cooking that carry over to his subsequent location in Hillcrest.

Rather than offering a traditional Korean restaurant experience you’d find on Convoy Street, he skipped the bamboo décor and shook up the menu with unexpected items like carnitas “dynamite” fries and beef-kimchi burritos. Even his version of Korea’s wildly popular bibimbap receives a modern, California spin.

The dish typically involves a sizzling medley of white rice, seasoned vegetables, an easy-over egg and chili paste served in super-heated bowls. Here, they’re called “monk’s stone pots” and feature slightly unconventional options of brown rice along with proteins such as salmon, chicken breast and tofu. Or if you opt for rib eye, the meat is marinated differently compared to what you’ll find in hardcore Korean kitchens, tasting a little more savory than sweet thanks to wine in the recipe.

In addition, organics such as spinach, mushrooms, zucchini and bamboo shoots are tossed into the pots fresh, with little or no seasoning except for marinated bean sprouts mingled in. Bohlen also tones down the chili paste squiggled on top by cutting it with vinegar to reduce the tongue shock, thus naming it “monk’s sauce.”

“Just like you can have a million versions of pizza, our stone pots aren’t so different that a Korean wouldn’t recognize them,” he said, citing his half-Korean roots and his mother’s trusty Korean cooking. Bohlen is also a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, meaning that he isn’t some wannabe chef experimenting zanily in the kitchen.

Crackles and pops ensue when forking into the pots, which are heated to 400 degrees. Essentially, everything in them continues cooking, especially the rice at the bottom, which turns delectably brittle as you go along. But dress lightly if you order one of these hearty meals because they emit sauna-like heat during an entire sitting.

My companion chose salmon in his, a subtler accent compared

to the ribbons of tangy rib eye strewn throughout mine. Give the absence of salt (applause) or brined vegetables I’ve encountered in other versions of bibimbap, we applied varying measures of monk’s and soba sauces on the table for extra acidity.

Forgetting about the weighty volume of food contained in the pots, which generated a meal’s worth of leftovers the following day, we began with kimchi-chive pancakes and a big cast iron bowl of spicy Korean noodle soup. When ingredients are this fresh and wholesome, you can eat rather lawlessly without stroking your stomach on the way out.

The gently fried pancakes were greaseless and mild tasting. They’re made with mung bean powder, not potatoes as some might guess without looking at the menu description. Served with a stimulating soy sauce, we polished them off with gusto.

The soup was medicinal, a fragrant porridge of Japanese chilies, baby corn, zucchini, bean sprouts and thick udon noodles — all the better with the sweet shrimp we chose to have added in. The broth (vegetarian) was clean and a little gingery, but not over-the-top spicy.

In keeping with the fusion concept, the menu trots through Asia with Thai peanut noodles, sweet-and-sour chili shrimp and Mandarin chicken salad. I’m reserving those dishes, and possibly the aforementioned burrito, for another visit.

As for desserts, Bohlen prefers them “with a Western slant,” meaning brownie-chunk or chocolate-chip cookies that his wife makes. A little espresso goes into the latter, which were particularly toothsome. There are also Belgian chocolate brownies a la mode and apple wontons.

Robots and Japanese action figures cram a few shelves throughout the restaurant, which formerly housed The Pink Noodle.

“I’ve always been into Japanese anime and Kung Fu movies,” said Bohlen, who completely gutted the dining room and kitchen after taking over the space. The result is an oddly warm, industrial design marked by retro diner tables, red vinyl upholstery and a bar stocked with microbrews of local, national and European origins.

“East Village” in the restaurant’s name is equally curious, given there is no connection to San Diego’s Downtown neighborhood. It relates instead to the East Village in Manhattan, where Bohlen ate out regularly when attending culinary school.