K-Town, Los Angeles vs Flushing, Queens

[LINative]

Originally Posted by Hollywood Inquirer

I would think so. A lot of people don't really know anything about LA's suburbs are hardly care. People just know LA for it's Hollywood image (not to say I am painting a better picture) and LA has some really neat suburbs too, it's just a matter of discovery. I like Koreatown for it's good Korean BBQ and it's very urban enviorment and closeness to the subway. I also like it for it's cultured parades.

Pic's of Koreatown, Los Angeles

Koreatown, Los Angeles, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hey Hollywood, unlike many people on this forum I admit when I have not been somewhere or I am not sure about something. And why do you say I hardly care about LA suburbs? I happen to now live in a suburb myself.

And anyhow, I thought Koreatown was part of the city of Los Angeles and not a suburb?

[john_starks]

i've visited LA many times. however, i'm not sure i've ever hit koreatown. i think i'd know lol..that's what i get for having family who live in OC

but flushing & queens as a whole is freakin awesome!

[Boston14]

Flushing

[OyCrumbler]

People should indicate if they've spent time in either or both.

[john_starks]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

People should indicate if they've spent time in either or both.

i've been to flushing many times. and as i mention, i don't think i've been to koreatown. not that i know of...

[jman650]

Koreatown all the way!

I've been to each one only once and I spent more time in Flushing, but the food I had in K-Town was 1000x better than what I had in Flushing (I need to give Flushing another shot) and there was way more to the neighborhood that interested me. I couldn't believe the size of K-Town! I had no idea it was that big. Next time I'm in LA I'm gonna explore it more.

[polo89]

K-Town.

[Bunjee]

I voted K-Town because to my mind the two are equal and K-Town had fewer votes. For food and nightlife K-Town is superior, though, although I do like Chinatown well enough and it's true there are more landmarks in Flushing, especially that the US Open (tennis) is played there. I will say that in the one area where NY usually wins, public transportation, it's kind of a wash in this comparison. I didn't find that the buses come and go any faster. Both are walkable, and I've walked from Downtown Flushing to Queens College and all over K-Town, finding one no more vibrant than the other. The fact that K-Town is central LA is also a vote-getter.

[Hollywood Inquirer]

Originally Posted by missionhome

Koreatown isn't a Los Angeles suburb, it is virtually the center of the city geographically and is one of the most crowded, urban, and dense areas of the city with 115,000 people living at a density of 42,000 people per square mile.

Really? Wow I guess LA proper has some good sides then.

[pbergen]

i know both neighborhoods well, and for me, LA koreatown wins easily. my opinions on this matter are based on extensive firsthand experience in both areas, as opposed to the blind city homerism that is all too common on these boards .

i lived in flushing as a kid and continued to hang out there all the time even after my family moved to the suburbs, as our family had many reasons to frequent that neighborhood - to meet up with friends, enjoy the ethnic restaurants, shop at the ethnic supermarkets, catch baseball games at shea stadium, etc.

by the 1990s, my parents stopped going to flushing as often due to the fact that our neck of the woods had developed a pretty sizable korean supermarket and restaurant presence of its own, meaning that weekend family trips to queens were no longer necessary. but by that time, i was a teenager and eager to explore the city without my parents, so i continued to take the train out to flushing whenever possible to meet up with friends and/or to catch a mets game.

once i graduated from college and was back in nyc, i resumed hanging out in the neighborhood on a frequent basis - only now, my focus was to try as many of its chinese and korean restaurants as possible. flushing is unquestionably the epicenter of the chinese and korean restaurant scene in nyc.

so when i first visited LA in the late '90s, i thought koreatown was going to be more or less the same as flushing, perhaps slightly bigger. to my surprise, ktown was massive and had a much greater selection, variety, quality, and scope of korean businesses, including korean restaurants and nightlife. so in that regard, flushing cannot compare, particularly with regard to "specialty" restaurants that focus on preparing a single dish really well - something that's extremely common in korea - as opposed to a large, diverse menu of so-so eats, which is the norm at most korean restaurants in the rest of the country.

LA ktown, along with the other major korean ethnic enclaves in LA and orange counties, is really on the cutting edge of the country's korean food scene. if there's any trend that has sprouted up in seoul, the first place it'll show up in the states is LA. the second place will be flushing/northern nj (usually after a considerable amount of time), then northern virginia, then the rest of the country's korean enclaves.

while flushing is a big deal in nyc's asian community, it almost feels minor league compared with LA ktown. don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to snub the neighborhood. it's just that LA ktown offers so much more for those who are interested in the korean restaurant/shopping/social scene (like me).

i still love flushing, though. and for what it's worth, its population is much more heavily korean/asian than LA ktown, which by comparison is only around 20-25% korean (latinos represent the majority of the neighborhood's residents). while korean owned and operated businesses constitute the bulk of LA ktown's commercial presence, its residential population is far more diverse.