Soup rice eases as it goes down. My friend Matt Rodbard, who was a writer of the cookbooks “Koreaworld” and “Koreatown,” calls gukbap a “utility player,” because it can be served in the morning, “for fortifying a hangover or just getting you a solid foundation for the day,” or in the evening with soju, to catch (or extend) the night’s excesses. My father, Ki, who grew up in Seoul and visits there regularly, associates gukbap restaurants with the smell of alcohol emanating from the other diners. If some people have a second stomach for dessert, Koreans have one for gukbap, as reliable as it is ubiquitous, a foundation of daily life. If you grew up in a Korean household as I did, you might not have paused to appreciate gukbap, because it’s just always there, right alongside the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers.