This NYT article is on the belief of some new Korean restauranteurs in the Big Apple that their time is nigh. But other Koreans wonder if their food is just to spicy to knock off the current Asian king: Japanese.

An excerpt:

KOREAN TEMPLE CUISINE is a sliver of an East Village restaurant appointed with colorful abstract photographs, art-quality shots of the New York skyline and jewel-toned cushions. The narrow space is filled with an endless array of items designed to catch the eye - garlands strung with mirrored tiles, table lamps suspended upside down from the ceiling - and yet on a recent Tuesday evening, several patrons gazed perplexedly at their plates.

These customers had been presented with an order of bibimbop, sliced mountain vegetables and a fried egg heaped atop a mound of rice and served in a stone bowl. As they contemplated the steaming dish, the restaurant's 23-year-old owner, Jennifer Maeng, hurried over to reassure them. "Bibimbop basically means mix it all together," she informed them, demonstrating with chopsticks. She then launched into a disquisition on the finer points of Korean cooking.

As she spoke in her polite, lightly accented voice, her customers watched intently, unaware that by being so attentive, Ms. Maeng had essentially bucked more than two decades of Korean dining tradition.

"We want people to understand what they are eating," she explained afterward, contrasting her style of service with that found in more traditional Korean restaurants, which she characterized as embodying the philosophy: " 'Let's put it on the table, and let them figure it out.' " By adopting new approaches like doting service, chic décor and creative food presentation, Ms. Maeng thinks, New York's Korean restaurants can do much to take their cuisine to the next level and perhaps help it become as popular as Japanese food, which has so powerfully captivated the New York palate in recent years.

"Right now there are many Japanese restaurants, almost as much as Italian food," Ms. Maeng said. "But as soon as people get friendly with Korean food, it's going to spread as much."

Ms. Maeng is part of a new wave of Korean-American restaurateurs whose goal is to put a modern spin on their traditional cuisine. Korean Temple Cuisine, on St. Marks Place near First Avenue, is one of at least 10 Korean restaurants that have opened in Manhattan in the past five years outside Koreatown, the group of old-style restaurants and other Korean businesses clustered on and near a single block of West 32nd Street. Another new-wave place is set to open in Midtown this month. Along with a handful of pioneering arrivals on 32nd Street, these new-wavers have combined to dispense with all manner of Koreatown traditions, from free side dishes and scorching spices to emergency room-style ambience.

A look at the success of Japanese food shows what is motivating many of these Korean restaurateurs. One of the city's highest-priced restaurant meals can be had at Masa, the extravagant sushi palace in the Time Warner Center, for more than $300 a person. In the 2005 online Zagat Survey, 20 Asian restaurants received an elite food ranking of 26 or above. One was Indian; one was Thai, another buzzworthy Asian cuisine; all the others were Japanese. And while a completely accurate count of the city's Japanese restaurants is hard to come by, the printed Zagat Survey listed 84 places, compared with 15 Korean.

The Koreans have an ambitious goal, and even among their ranks, there are skeptics. One is Kori Kim, the owner and chef of Kori, a six-year-old establishment in TriBeCa. Though Ms. Kim describes herself as a Korean homemaker, and at 53 is a generation older than most new-wave Korean restaurateurs, she offers new-wave essentials like subdued lighting and artfully arranged plates of food.

Still, she said she was not convinced that Korean food could rival Japanese cuisine in popularity anytime soon.

"Americans, especially New Yorkers, they can eat Japanese food twice, three times a week," she said. "But Korean food is a little bit too spicy. I think it will not be so easy."