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Excellent beef quesadillas [corrected from enchiladas, a dumb mistake...] at Los Amigos. The owner/chef is actualy a Kuwaiti-American from Los Angeles, 50-year-old Ahmad "Oscar" Mansour. Oscar's wife is a Sakhalin Korean, and they met in Seattle, where she studied.

A hundred fifty thousand Koreans were brought to Sakhalin by the Japanese. Nearly a third were stuck there when Soviet Russia took the island at the end of World War II. Their plight was an enormous tragedy lasting decades. By 1960, only a quarter had been granted Soviet citizenship. Those stateless had many rights denied in addition to living in a Communist country. Though two-thirds acquired North Korean citizenship, only a fraction managed to move there. In the late 80’s, Sakhalin Koreans were finally allowed to emigrate to South Korea, but not many have done so. Emigration is always a huge challenge. Counting their descendants, 35,000 Sakhalin Koreans remain in Russia.

Sitting inside Los Amigos, I looked out its large window at the uncluttered sidewalk, sun splashed boulevard and flowered median strip. "Man, this is almost like California!" I said to Oscar.

Oscar has been in South Korea for 11 years and loves it, "When I go visit my family in California, it's OK for a week or two, then I start to think, 'I want to go home!' It's enough. I've had my In-N-Out burgers."

Near Christmas each year, there's a benefit dinner in Busan, for which Oscar cooks Mexican and Middle Eastern dishes. The proceeds go to orphans and lonely old folks, living in group homes.



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