Not all good Korean food requires a drive to the suburbs. Kimchi can’t compete with some of our North Seattle favorites, but it’s no consolation prize, either. It may not have the tabletop grills or the outstanding and endless banchan, but it does a good job with the standards many Korean-restaurantgoers crave most: soft, spicy tofu soup, for instance, or bi bim bap hot pot (which is loaded with rice, kimchi, egg, vegetables, and meat or tofu). Other standards, like kalbi beef and bulgolgi, are also consistently good. The kimchi has a nice kick to it, and in general, dishes are sufficiently hot and spicy.

Kimchi does have one thing in common with the North Seattle standbys: a strange location. It’s tucked into one of Broadway’s depressing mini-malls next to a cigar shop—if you didn’t know to look for the place, you’d never find it. But inside its tiny confines, Kimchi is warm and pleasant, thanks in large part to surprisingly genial service.