By RACHEL LEE HARRISFEB. 5, 2014  Roy Choi grew up navigating the back streets and alleyways of a dozen Los Angeles neighborhoods. After immigrating from Seoul with his parents at age 2, his childhood was spent exploring South Central, Crenshaw and West Hollywood with a house key tied around his neck, while his parents tried to establish a business.  Buckets of his mom’s homemade kimchi were the constant, he recalls in his memoir cum cookbook, “L.A. Son.” Chili spaghetti from Bob’s Big Boy and carne asada, grilled in parking lots by his street crew, helped round out his story, which, after several twists and turns, landed him in Kogi, the city’s hottest food truck, selling his now classic Korean taco.  His latest project — Pot, a veritable Korean market, at the Line hotel in Los Angeles’s Koreatown — has sent him tromping through his deepest roots in Seoul and other parts of South Korea to find the best hot pot or red bean bun. In a recent phone conversation, he talked about opening his heart to the country’s flavors, leading hotel executives through Seoul and his advice on how to feel at home in the country’s restaurants. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation.  Q. How do you approach travel?  A. I don’t have many hobbies or talents other than cooking, but I’ve always been good at figuring out a city. I wanted to be a topographer when I was young. I have a sort of innate instinct. I’m a street food vendor, so I kind of know how to feel the city. I like to look for what’s going on behind things a little bit; see what’s not seen.  What was it like going to South Korea?  I went back for the first time when I was 16. When you have parents that come from a country that you weren’t raised in, you feel this weird sense of familiarity, like you’ve returned to something. You step out and it’s like, wow, I’ve never been around this many Asians before. Everything I do at home, they do here as well. But then people come at you differently, expecting things from you. You can’t easily explain and say, “Yo, I’m not from here.”  How often do you visit South Korea?  I’ve been back maybe 12, 14 times since the late 1980s, to visit family and following my parents showing me the homeland. As a college student I went on these language and culture programs, 21, 22 years old, all alone. That was hellafun.  One of these last trips, I took executives from the hotel. It wasn’t like the tourism board type of trip, where I mashed the whole culture into a sound bite. I wanted to show them my microcosm of Korea. So it was about all the things I love: the underground food markets, the malls, the street stalls, the outdoor fish market, the little snacks and bread stands, the coffee shops; all the little things that I think are really special.  What was on your must-do itinerary?  The Shindang-dong neighborhood in Seoul. It’s famous for its spicy rice cakes, tteokbokki. There’s one college frat row bar-type street, but instead of bars, you stumble from one spicy rice cake to another. And the department stores, like Lotte. The bottom floor of the malls are like Eataly in New York, but more compressed. There are just piles and piles of food and all kinds of people working down there. Like an amusement park. And Korean bakeries. European pastries rule the world — the obligatory croissants and Danishes — but we never really acknowledge the Taiwanese and Korean bakeries: red bean buns, cream buns, mochi cakes, taro buns, peanut butter buns, sesame rice cakes, all these things. They’re baked just like in a French boulangerie, thrown on racks, people throwing elbows to get at them.  Where are your favorite places to eat?  Myeong-dong in Seoul is an area that is crazy at night, just packed. Young females go there because there are lots of cosmetics and street food. Also, Hongdae, a college area kind of like Washington Square Park near N.Y.U., known for fish cakes, grilled sausages, noodles, and youth and energy. Namdaemun, South Gate, is like an open-air market. And Tongdaemun, East Gate, is like a wholesale market. It really gets hopping around 2 a.m. That’s when everyone comes out, the streets are alive.  Where did you go to find hot pots?  That took me down a bunch of little rabbit holes. I went to Busan, because it’s right on the ocean, near Japan, and they are famous for their seafood. So I had a lot of fish there in an area called Haeundae Beach, famous for clear broth stews, and that was huge for me. I also went to Cheonan, an area famous for its walnuts and fruits. I went to check out the farmers’ markets and country-style foods.  It’s move, move, move. There’s no time for all that “Hi, my name is Stacy. Welcome to blah, blah. The specials are ...” In Korea, you order as you’re walking into the restaurant. You will get elbowed by grandmas. And they’re not being rude, it’s just a homogeneous culture where everyone is always together all the time. You’re burping in front of each other, pushing each other out of the way, grabbing the last bite before the other guy gets it. It’s really fun. Strangers will put food in your mouth with their fingers. Because you’re not a stranger, you’re family. That’s Korea.  A version of this article appears in print on February 9, 2014, on page TR3 of the New York edition with the headline: ROY CHOI cooks in California but takes plenty of big bites out of South Korea.. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
The chef, who grew up in Los Angeles after immigrating from Seoul as a child, talks about eating his way through South Korea’s street stalls, bread stands and food markets.