When the city that never sleeps shuts down, its residentswill find a way to keep the party going. Such was the caseduring Hurricane Irene, a tropical storm anticipated to be sodestructive that the New York City mayor closed all businessesand transportation for the entirety of that sweaty Augustweekend.With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I decided tothrow a “Hurricane Me” party at my apartment (the storm and Ishared the same name) and invited the friends who could reachme on foot or by bike to hunker down and weather the stormtogether.

On the menu were my favorite things to eat and drink,a perfect opportunity to share my personal Korean American-stylecomfort foods. While we watched live news updates (theWeather Channel had never been so popular), I first rolled outkimchi-slaw fish tacos and beers, and then fired up my portablegas stove and threw shingles of frozen pork belly and beefbrisket on top of a metal Korean BBQ plate.

Everyone gatheredaround to help flip the meat, stuffing wads of lettuce wraps intotheir cheeks and washing it down with soju. As the storm peteredout and passed without much ado, I plonked down a Dutchoven of budae jjigae-style ddukbokki, which we forked into ourmouths even as our eyes grew heavy with sleep.

A sool party is literally just a party with alcohol, but the bestKorean sool parties are hosted at home like this—more of anever-ending friend hang than a packed blowout party. The goalis to share time together, catch up on life, and ultimately justbond over good food and drink. I like to plan mine around a funinteractive theme or dish: hosting a mini-kimjang where we makekimchi for people to take home and eat alongside freshly boiledbossam and shots of soju; a makgeolli tasting party comparingdifferent brands from the supermarket; or Korean fried chickenfrom our favorite local takeout spot (hi, Peeps Kitchen!). But itdoesn’t always need to be so elaborate—you can also just grab acouple bottles of your favorite booze and some snacks. If you’vegot good company, you’ve got yourself a sool party.

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Some tips & ideas for hosting your own sool party:

Stock up on frozen Korean BBQ meats and accoutrements.

Plan for one bottle of soju per person (more if your group consists ofheavy drinkers) and grab a case of beer and some sodas to supplement.

Create a captivating centerpiece to wow your guests, like alarge-format punch served in a whole watermelonor a big pot of Budae Jjigaebrimming with Spam morsels and bricks of ramyun noodles. This isdefinitely the time to try that viral dish or drink you saw online.

Or enlist your friends to bring an alcohol and an anju each,potluck-style (and take some of the pressure off yourself).

Course it out to keep the night going instead of serving everything allat once; it will prevent people from getting full and sleepy too soon.

Always keep a stash of instant ramyun or late-nightsnacks; you’re bound to get hungry again later.

When you run out of food and conversation, wind down the nightby firing up the karaoke machine, dancing along to K-pop videos, orturning on an episode of the latest hot drama or a good movie.

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**Samgyeopsal **삼겹살

We can’t talk about drinking soju without talking samgyeopsal(pork belly), the ultimate pairing. I can smell it now: the smoky airhanging thick with porky grease, my eyes stinging a bit throughthe charcoal. Pork fat crackling as it hits the grill, glasses clinkingand sloshing and slamming on the table, the din of tableschattering away broken by the occasional “Ajumma!” “Jeogiyo!”

Waiters flit by with watercolor-red curlicues of marbled pork,baskets stacked with lettuce leaves. The tables are covered edgeto edge with banchan: bright pungent kimchi, bubbling soybeanstews, maybe a little ice cream scoop of mac salad. I smell grilledpork and immediately start salivating for soju.

Korean BBQ has long been a mainstay of Korean food culture:a way for friends and family to gather and celebrate birthdaysor job promotions, or just to have a good time. It’s a prettystraightforward concept: Cook razor-thin cuts or bite-sizedpieces of meat tableside to minimize both cooking time and thedistance from cooktop to plate—something that’s key for peoplewho love to eat their food piping hot. The spread of banchan—sidedishes that fill out a traditional Korean meal—that surroundsthe central grill serves as a choose-your-own-adventure mapfor perfectly embellishing your meats of choice. This inherentlycommunal nature makes the whole experience fun and lowstakes, and therefore easy to set up at home.

**What to prep: **You can cook samgyeopsal in a cast-iron or nonstick skillet, orany similar griddle, on your stovetop. Or upgrade your tablesidesetup with a portable camp stove and butane cans. Fire it up witha Korean-style grill pan—its special grooves keep the meat fromsticking and help drain grease. It’s also worth sourcing KoreanBBQ tongs—I love them not only for grilling but for cooking ingeneral.

**What to buy: **Most Asian grocery stores will have everything you need: short- ormedium-grain white rice, fresh red-leaf lettuce and perillaleaves (my personal favorite!), and premade banchan.

**The Pork Belly **Korean BBQ at home is made easy by the availability of preslicedmeats at Asian grocery stores. Pork belly comes in two options:thinly sliced or thickly sliced. The thinly sliced pork belly isshaved into curlicues and cooks up super quickly and crisply, soit’s great for an impatient group or as a first round. Thick slicesare more akin to what you’d find at Korean BBQ restaurantsnowadays; they’ll cook and sizzle in their own fat as you sip yoursoju and gab with your table, resulting in juicy, unctuous bites.

When picking your pork belly, look for good marbling: wherethe white fat is distributed beautifully through the pink-redmuscle. The more white speckles the better, and a few striationsor strips of white are good, but I would avoid pieces that are a lotmore than half fat or feature stringy, tough-looking streaks of fat.

Pork belly will classically have three or five stripes of fat—you’llwant these to be tightly layered with the stripes of meat.

Plan for one-quarter to one-half pound of meat per person,adjusting for people’s appetites and the amount of other dishesyou plan to have to fill out the table. A smaller portion can go along way when wrapped with spoonfuls of rice in filling lettucewraps, but leftover meat can easily be thrown into stews orramyun as a round two.

**Sides & sauces **This is where the fun begins! The rich, meaty samgyeopsal holds up well to bold flavors, seasonings, and textures like:

Pa-muchim파무침—shaved scallion salad Buchu-muchim부추무침— seasoned garlic chives Saengchae무생채— spicy or sweet-and-sour radish salad Ssamjang쌈장— a salty, savory paste made with doenjang, gochujang, garlic, sesame oil, and other aromatics, used for dipping meats and making ssam (wraps) Kimchi Raw garlic cloves Red- or green-leaf lettuce or perilla leaves, washed and dried Rice Doenjang jjigae or kimchi jjigae

**How to cook: **Once your table is ready, heat up your grill on the burner—use asmall piece of fat to oil the grill, or a paper towel lightly soakedin vegetable or sesame oil.

Keep sliced meat frozen until cook time—you can take it out5 to 10 minutes beforehand to help separate the pieces. Lay outeach piece on the grill so they don’t overlap, and cook on oneside until the edges start to curl. Flip and cook until your desireddoneness (floppy or extra crispy). Since it’s your BBQ, it’s yourcall!

**Build your ssam: **As the cooked meats get plucked off the grill, prepare yourlettuce wrap in one hand (you can rip large leaves in half ) andplace the meat in the leaf’s center. Dollop on a bit of ssamjangand whatever other accoutrements float your boat, like aspoonful of rice to fill out your bite, some pa-muchim to addcrunch and acid, or any banchan or kimchi. Then just fold theleaf over your stack and pop the whole thing into your mouth!

Repeat and repeat until your heart is content and your bellyis full.

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FromSoju Party How to Drink (and Eat!) Like a Korean: A Cookbook by Irene Yoo. Copyright © 2025 by Irene Yoo. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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