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Chef Gordon Xiao of Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda making pulled noodles. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)

Among the more than 80 caterers, mobile and brick-and-mortar restaurants and food-related vendors at the second annual Eat Real Festival in the San Francisco Bay area were two Korean “taco trucks,” a nouveau hanshik restaurant, a ramen restaurant serving kimchi and a food-preservation specialist teaching how to pickle the popular version of it.

Did I mention the live demonstration of making Chinese pulled noodles (lai min)?

Intensely craving some Korean yumminess, I attended the festival, held Aug. 27 to 29 at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., to snack on selections from Santa Clara-based MoGo BBQ and Seoul on Wheels of Emeryville. Reviews of those rolling restaurants will be posted in coming days.

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Brothers Restaurant, located San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, is one of the few Korean restaurants in San Francisco that is Zagat-rated. It tied with Namu as Best Korean Restaurant in the 2010 Eat and Drink Reader’s Choice Awards by 7×7 magazine.

Brothers is not a fancy restaurant, but it has a 20-plus year reputation (since 1987) of serving up authentic “old school” Korean food. It has generous operating hours from 11 am. to midnight Sunday through Friday.

There is a second location a block east at 4014 Geary Blvd. It opened in 1993 but operates only Friday through Sunday 5 p.m. to midnight.

Warning: Do not wear “dry clean only” clothes to this restaurant. You will walk out smelling like a barbecue grill, particularly one that uses real wood instead of briquettes. It’s the first Korean restaurant I’ve visited in the Bay Area that has grills embedded in some tables with vent hoods above.

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