707 Sutter Gives Drinking Snacks A Good Name

The wall of projected K-pop videos may clue you in: 707 Sutter is as much a bar and hangout as it is a restaurant.

The average customer age may be 25, and the bottles of soju on the tables may multiply as the evening progresses, but the food served at 707 Sutter, while not uniformly excellent, is better than mere drinking snacks.

If you're dining solo, there's a respectable kimchi soft-tofu stew ($8), which arrives at the table bubbling so enthusiastically that the fiery red broth erupts over the sides of the serving bowl.

Got a drinking buddy? Tack on a pan-fried seafood pancake ($12), a lattice of scallions and cuttlefish tentacles knit together with a batter that stays crisp while you polish it off.

And if there are more than three of you at the table, the jokbal ($17) should be there with you.

Described on the menu as "pig's foot," it actually resembles a Korean take on salumi. A hefty pork shank is braised for hours in a delicately sweet broth. The meat is then cooled, deboned and sliced into supple, thin half-moons, onto which you dab salted shrimp sauce or fermented soybean paste.

What goes well with jokbal? Soju, of course.