54 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM Within OLHSO’s sophisticated dining room, lamps bathe dark marble tabletops in a warm glow, while a wraparound projection on the room’s walls transports diners to Korea with a sunset scene and silhouettes of red pines, a shower of flower petals, stone lanterns and a Buddhist temple. Black-clad servers whisk around this upscale Korean barbecue restaurant, ferrying fresh cuts of meat in segmented boxes to the tables and cooking the meat over the built-in grills as sizzling sounds and savory aromas fill the air. In Korean, OLHSO translates to “That’s right,” says co-owner Jay Shin, who handles the San Mateo restaurant’s strategy and business side. “It's like an exclamation mark when you have great food or you meet the right people.” He adds, “If you take out each character separately, it means ‘every part of the beef.’” Though they also serve pork and noodle dishes like japchae and bibimnaengmyeon, the cow is king here. Over the course of their meal, diners can experience most of the main cuts of beef, from tongue to tail. Jay has joined forces with Chef Han Sungil to make OLHSO shine. Long a fan of Han’s culinary prowess, Jay explains that Han is well-known in Korea and has run 19 restaurants from Seoul to Jeju Island. He’s made more than 20 TV appearances and his Ushiya was identified as a “must-visit Korean beef BBQ restaurant” on Wednesday Food Talk. “I was a watcher of that show many years ago,” Jay explains. “That was the only TV program you couldn’t bribe. You couldn’t throw money to be on that show. They were very strict on that.” As a teen, a conversation Han had with his mother was pivotal {food coloring}
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