About Hwang Geum Tae
Hwang Geum Tae (황금태) is a Korean restaurant in Koreatown, Los Angeles, specializing in hwangtae — pollock dried through a mountain winter. We opened in September 2026 at 3498 W 8th St. Every soup here is built on ox bone broth we simmer ourselves each morning.
What is hwangtae?
Hwangtae is pollock left outdoors through a Korean mountain winter — freezing at night, thawing by day, for two to three months, until the flesh swells, splits into fibers, and turns deep gold. That porous texture is why hwangtae gives up far more flavor into a broth than fresh or plain-dried pollock.
Koreans have four words for the same fish, depending on how it was handled:
Myeongtae 명태: Fresh pollock
Bugeo 북어: Dried quickly in open air, never frozen
Hwangtae 황태: Freeze-dried over a winter; gold, porous, richest broth
Nogari 노가리: Juvenile pollock, dried as a snack
What is the broth made of?
Ox bone. We simmer bones down every morning until the stock runs clear and heavy, and that stock is the base of every soup here — the tang and the hwangtae dishes alike. The hwangtae goes in after. The beef gives the soup its body; the hwangtae gives it a clean, faintly sweet finish you cannot get from beef alone, with none of the fishiness people expect from a fish soup.
Hwangtae-guk is the plain version — radish, tofu, egg, nothing else. From the same pot we make a seaweed soup, a dumpling soup, and a soft tofu stew that stays white instead of red.
What was here before?
This address was Haemaru Sullungtang for years — a soup house people stopped at on 8th Street in the morning and after midnight. We took over the space in 2026 and kept the cauldrons and the method. Galbitang and yukgaltang are made the way they were made here before.
How we do it
Broth, every morning
We simmer ox bones down every morning until the stock runs clear. That broth is the base of the tang and of every hwangtae dish on the menu.
Banchan, refilled
Every hansang and tang comes with rice and banchan.