Cold Noodles and Hot Soup Happily Marry at Koreatown’s MDK Noodles
Tomas K - News Writer and Moderator 
For more than two decades, MDK Noodles has sat along the busy corridor of Wilshire Boulevard that runs through Koreatown, where it churns out reams of knife-cut noodles and plump mandu. Chul Heay Shin first opened the restaurant as Myung Dong Kyoja in Koreatown in 2002; in 2019, Shin’s daughter, Stella, and her cousins, Leah and Kyojae Shin, took over the business, renaming it MDK Noodles. In the brightly lit, minimalist dining room, the restaurant serves steaming bowls of knife-cut noodles in long-simmered chicken broth along with delicate steamed mandu packed with pork. While the rapidly changing Koreatown neighborhood has lost a number of its old-school restaurants over the years, MDK remains a destination for classic, soul-warming cooking served every day of the week, from breakfast through dinner.
What to order
- Oblong rice cake coins and delicate-skinned mandu float in deeply savory chicken broth for tteok mandu-guk, a soup traditionally eaten around Seollal. Regular (read: tteok-less) mandu-guk is also available, along with a sinus-clearing, spicy version.
- Mandu get filled with pork and vegetables before being steamed until glistening or fried up to a crisp golden-brown. If you’re dining with a group, go for an order of each version to share with the table.
- Bouncy, semi-translucent noodles get tossed in a sweet-spicy sauce for jjolmyeon, a cold noodle dish that can temper even the hottest days outside. Shredded cucumbers and cabbage crown the stainless steel bowl, adding a welcome crunch.
- With “noodle” in the name, it’s imperative to try MDK’s kalguksu with knife-cut noodles bathing in broth. The soup comes with MDK’s chicken broth, simmered vegetables, ground chicken, and gim confetti.
Best for
Sick-day takeout, group meals when everyone wants something Korean but can’t decide on a single dish, dinners before catching a show at the Wiltern, and breakfast soup.
Insider tip
MDK Noodles sells sides of its chicken broth that keep well in the freezer for a rainy day.
