August 25, 2020 • 38 mins
Bobby Kwak is an entrepreneur, club owner, and pioneer of Koreatown in New York City. Bobby and his business partner Joe Ko opened K-Town's iconic Korean nightclub Circle, and its successor Mission, as well as the New York branch of the popular Korean barbecue Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong. Bobby and Esther discuss the Korean nightclub scene, the practice of "booking," or arranged socializing, at nightclubs, as well as keeping Korean hospitality culture alive in K-Town.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
That meal was life changing for me. It was delicious.
The experience was so different than what I experienced, you know,
in New York and New Jersey. And right then and there,
I called Joe, my business partner while he was in
New York and I said, Hey, I just had the
best meal and we need to open this restaurant in
(00:26):
New York City. This will be a game changer. And
he asked me, what's the name of the restaurant. I said,
it's Congo Doon pet Jun. I was like, have you
ever heard of it? He's like, I know, Congodon. Welcome
to get down with Kaytown. I'm your host esther Troy.
For me, when it comes to New York City's Kay
Town seen, the very first person that I think of
(00:48):
is Bobby. Bobby is like the king of kay Town.
Or do you prefer Mr Keaton? I prefer Bobby. You
just prefer Bobby. Okay. If you've ever been to a
Korean of in New York City, most likely it was
one of Bobby's clubs. Yes, like the very famous nightclubs Circle.
Bobby is the one that created that club. And I
(01:09):
must say I have my own set of very fond
memories there but also it's kind of like limited blackout memories.
I know y'all laughing at right now, but don't make
fun of me, because you all been there. Circle was
around at my prime years, and I'm sure many Asian
Americans can relate. It was like the hottest Korean club
for a very long time, and it gave birth to
(01:29):
many couples. But going back to Bobby's world, he's always
been someone that I really truly admired. He's known to
be one of the new pioneers of Koreatown. Basically one
of the people that is paving the way on what
the future of KA Town is and will be in
New York City. And now I'm talking the O G.
K Town, the iconic thirty two Street. Every few years,
(01:50):
the businesses that make up this street will turn over,
the Korean restaurants, the bars, the cafes, the karaoke lounges.
There will always be new players on the block. And
I aways depend on Bobby to give me the latest
scoop on who's coming in and who's going out. And
that's because Bobby is a serial entrepreneur. Not only did
(02:10):
he open the most supreme Korean club in Manhattan, twice.
He brought the most popular Caorean barbecue chain, Kano Don
Pi Jong to town and trust me, it's like one
of the best. He also has a string of businesses
from Pulse Karaoke Lounge, Roomy Events, Space, two m I Events,
third for Cafe, et cetera. Honestly, way too many to name.
(02:31):
And I feel like Bobby is not only a true visionary,
he's really able to identify what the next wave of
influence will be, especially when it comes to the Korean scene.
He's definitely someone that I go to for advice when
it comes to starting a new hospitality business, and I
had my fair share of ideas that he immediately dismissed. Bobby,
I can't wait to drill you with more questions today,
(02:54):
and I feel like I do that on a daily basis. Yeah. Sometimes.
First of all, can we talk about Circle, Yes, But
can I give a quick shout out to my business partner,
Joe Coom. Without him, Circle would not be around, you know,
all of my other businesses. He's been pretty much like
(03:14):
my other half, definitely my other better half. So Hi Joe, Yeah,
Hey Joe, Um, I wish you was here. Obviously, you
can't do this all on your own. Yeah, definitely not,
but we could still talk about it. So going back
to Circle, because it was crazy. Can you talk about
your experience how Circle even came about? Yeah, So, you know,
(03:34):
ever since college, you know, I went to Rutgers University.
I was heavily involved in the Korean Student Association and
we used to throw joint parties with Columbia's Korean Student
Association and y use Korean Student Association. And then we
also needed to get pretty girls, so we we reached
(03:55):
out to Parsons s v A, Pratt f I and
of course, you know, those girls loved the party, and
we would throw all these joint parties at smaller Korean
clubs and we would just pack it. And after college
and this was when sorry like time period wise, mid nineties, yeah,
(04:18):
mid nineties, and then after college I decided to continue
doing these parties, but instead of for college kids, it
was for young working professionals. Were these all Korean Korean
people or were they like Asians? What was that seen?
You know, we kept it as Korean as possible. Reason
(04:38):
for that or just like it was just like because
I was Korean, most most of my friends were Korean
and nobody was doing this. There were a couple of
people doing it, but I wouldn't say at the magnitude
that I was doing it at. They would host parties
and maybe get you know, fifty people. You know, my
parties were like five hundred to a thousand people. So
(05:00):
Korean clubs did exist then, Yeah, they did exist, but
after college they all kind of became extinct. So instead
I would rent out these really big lounges and then
rent out just American clubs and just pack it in there.
And they actually loved my parties because Koreans can drink.
(05:25):
I mean, hello, very heavy drinking culture. So whenever I
wanted to do a party at pretty much any club,
they were happy because the bar sales we're gonna be
probably double of a normal night for them. So, you know,
I did that, and I met my partner Joe, because
(05:47):
he was my main competitor. Oh really, Okay, so he
was doing his own parties, yes, but he grew up
in Queens, so he had all of the Queens and
Long Island Koreans. I'm a Jersey boy, so I had
all the Jersey and Manhattan Koreans. You know. Whenever we
(06:07):
would do parties against each other. You know, I would
say we probably had maybe a twenty overflow, but two
different crowds. He had more people. I would say I
had quite yeah, yeah, yeah, he could pull in seven people.
I can pull in maybe half a little bit more.
But my bar sales would be double of his. Why
(06:30):
you know, if you live in Manhattan, or if you
live in Northern Jersey, which is where most of my
crowd lived in Bergen County, I guess their income levels
higher than those who live in Queens. But any case,
we were competitors, and one day, you know, we decided, hey,
why do we have to compete? You know, why don't
(06:51):
we just join forces. I don't know you well, you
don't know me well, but you know I respect you
and I hope you respect me. I think you both
do a good job at what we do. It wasn't
a job. Actually, we were doing this for fun at
the time, and he said, you know what, let's try
it out. So we joined, and we essentially monopolized you know,
(07:14):
the entire scene. The scene we partnered in two thousand one,
and it wasn't until two thousand and eight February that
we opened circles. Oh, Wow. So you were throwing these
parties at other people's venues for like years before you
decided to do Circle. I was making a lot of
other club owners rich. And then you realize that after
(07:36):
like five years, well I didn't have the money, you know.
So you know, we had to wait until we felt
like the timing was right where we thought we had
money to even open up our own place. But everything
kind of worked out. So Circle opened in two and
you guys were very successful right off the bat. The
(08:00):
asked like mega Korean nightclub before Circle was Club MK,
and I think they closed in two thousands. So for
eight years there was nothing. Yeah, there really wasn't like
that mega club. You know. There was Camel, which was
like that smaller clubs, right, there was not clubs. It
(08:20):
was so tiny. Yeah, they're like little lounge clubby type
of venues, but you know, a hundred people, it's packed. Yeah,
And I feel like those clubs, I mean they used to.
Korean clubs are a very certain way, right, It's a
little bit different than like your normal standard American club
with the table service booking back in the day and
all that. Yeah, I think, you know, I think the
(08:41):
biggest difference is, you know, and this is back in
you know, back in the day. It's changed a lot now,
but you know, Koreans like to be served. They don't
like to stand around. They want to sit at a table,
they want their bottle of Johnny Walker. And the girls
(09:01):
don't want to stand so they want to sit at tables.
And guys don't want to be at tables by themselves,
so they want girls drinking with them. So you mentioned booking,
So this is how booking was born. Well, it was
born in Korea because that's the nightlife clubbing culture in Korea.
But we kind of adapted to it here and we
(09:23):
did that at Circle, but we didn't do it really aggressively.
We only did it, you know, when customers asked, can
we talk about booking? Because I feel like this is
the most interesting Korean cultural drinking atmosphere, and I feel
like you can't experience this anywhere else in the world
but at a Korean nightclub. And I still remember experiencing
(09:44):
it for the first time at Circle actually when you
were doing booking and I was doing booking myself, and
I loved it. I'm not gonna lie, you know, there's
no you know, I'm not. I'm not ashamed of it.
If you think of the concept, it's a win win,
win win for everybody. So everyone's curious what booking is.
So when you go to a nightclub, you know, usually
(10:06):
the bottle poppers are the guys. You don't see a
lot of girls getting tables and you know, throwing down
their credit cards and popping bottles, especially back in the
day exactly. So let's just say there was a group
of four guys. They would get a table, and they
would get a table for you know, maybe six to
eight people, and they would order their alcohol and they
(10:30):
would tell the waiter that they would like booking. So
the waiter automatically knows what that means. It means these
guys want to drink with pretty girls. So after they
get their alcohol, the waiters would kind of just like
roam through the dance floor and they would kind of
look for cute girls or little groups of girls, um
(10:53):
that they think would want to do booking, and they
would go up to them and say, hey, would you
like to drink at a table? Well, there's a you know,
there's a group of nice guys that want to invite you.
So these girls who are you know, decked out in there,
like high stiletto heels, dying to just have a seat,
(11:13):
dying exactly, wanting to drink for free, and on top
of that, potentially meeting a cute, nice guy. That's like,
that's like a winner for them. For the guys, it's
a winner because they don't have to go hunting on
the dance floor and get rejected by girls. And it
(11:35):
works for the waiters because the waiters get tipped on
the side or they'll get extra tip because you know,
their service was phenomenal. And it works for the club
because the girls end up drinking all of the guys
alcohol and they order more. So that's the concept of
(11:56):
booking and Circle was known for that. It's a great concept,
right if you think about it, But you can quickly
see where this is going. It could get very aggressive,
and I mean it could go either way. I mean
I had a lot of fun doing booking at times,
sometimes not because the waiters would get very aggressive. Sometimes,
like you said, oh, they will come up to you
(12:18):
nicely and ask, oh, there's this nice group of guys
that would love to meet you, But really what it
was was like they were pulling your arms. At one
point I mean it depended on the club and you
know the situation. But I remember getting like dragged around.
It was not a circle. I mean it was like
other clubs in like like l A l A, they'll
(12:40):
they'll grab girls that are fighting against you and they
drag you to the tables. That's I mean, it's sad,
but they do that in Korea. Honestly, you didn't really
have to drag me because I would be willingly just
like go and be like and you know what, as
a girl, it was great because you get into the
club for free and basically party and drink all night
(13:03):
for free, and you don't have to stay at the tables,
right can sit, They pour you a drink, You have
the drink, And my excuse was always I gotta go
to the bathroom and then I'll leave and then go
to the next table and get another free drink. So
it's just like for me, I like use my my brain.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, So I think it depends. No, then
there are certain guys who would come regularly and think
(13:26):
of strategies how not to let the girls out, So
you know, they would one guy would be in and
then one guy would stand up let the two girls
come in and then they would lock the kind of
corner them in them in exactly, or if they if
if if there was a girl that used your excuse,
I gotta go to the restroom, the guy would follow
her and wait until she came out of the bathroom. Wow,
(13:49):
this is not strategies that I don't do a booking,
but because I've owned the club that club for ten years,
I've seen it all. Sort of the scene, at least
in New York gets circle. It booking stuff stopped and
it gravitated towards more of like a traditional club scene.
(14:10):
It died. That booking scene died. It died because when
we first opened up, our clientele was like Korean, but
out of that Korean were Koreanized Koreans or like Korean internationals,
and then the Korean Americans. We didn't have as many. So,
(14:32):
you know, the Korean Koreans were so used to booking
because that's how they party in Korea. So you know,
as a businessman, I had to offer that, you know,
because that's what they wanted. The economy was changing too,
so a lot of these international students were going back
to Korea, and also even after college, they weren't able
(14:53):
to find jobs here. So that's when it started shifting
from you know, international in to Korean Americans Americans, and
then to Asian Americans, like and then it became a
little bit more diverse Chinese, Chinese Americans, Taiwanese, Taiwanese Americans.
I'm sorry to bring this up, but I think a
(15:14):
lot of people knew this, but Circle was pretty infamous
for not letting non Koreans in the club. I'm so
curious about it because there was like a huge scandal.
There's so many articles written about it, and to me,
it's like any press is good press. So I think
it was great, but it kind of like made it
seem that Koreans were like drinking the kool aid, you know,
(15:34):
like we you didn't let non Koreans in the club?
Was that? Is that true? Not true? If you came
to Circle any given night, you would see non Asians
in there, maybe you know, out of five people, you're
not going to see a hundred non Asians. Because you know,
(15:55):
Circle was known as a Korean nightclub. We didn't really
promote Circle. We kept Circle, you know, very kind of discreet.
We didn't have a sign, we didn't you know, pay
for any billboards or we didn't do any real marketing
ad campaigns. It was all word of mouth, just by
default living in America, Like you have non Asian friends,
(16:16):
I have non Asian friends. And if you look at Kaytown,
Kaytown has become so diverse now right, it's very gentrified.
So are Korean clientele would bring their non Asian friends,
and we had no problem with them. We had a
couple of incidences where, you know, and we have incidences
all the time, even with Koreans where they'll show up
(16:38):
intoxicated and cause a scene at the door, or they're
not dressed appropriately, or the club is at maximum capacity,
or they are treating our our our door people and
our security with disrespect. And it just so happened. A
(16:59):
couple of those it ins were non Koreans, and they
used the race saying that you were being discribed. Yeah,
and you know what, like I feel like that gets
thrown around, you know, very loosely. But I thought it
was a little strange because you know, we're in America,
We're the minority, and the majority is saying, wait a second,
you're discriminating against against us. Definitely not. I was born
(17:21):
I'm an American citizen. Every club has this thing where
it's like you can either get in or you can't
get in, and clubs, especially the hottest clubs, it's hard
to get in. It is an esther. Let's flip it around.
If you and I were waiting in line at the
hottest American club, we probably wouldn't even get in. I
could get in, maybe you. If I was with four
(17:44):
or five of my Asian friends, we would probably wait
in line for two hours. I'm just saying that's how
big Circle was. I mean, Circle was the club, especially
as Asian Americans, and because it was a Korean club,
and you know, Koreans do have this certain way of
carrying this tremendous amount of pride on their shoulders, So
(18:05):
I think that kind of got mixed into that whole, like, oh,
you're discriminating against us, thing right, It got blown out
of proportion. And my staff they know that everyone was welcome,
but we have, you know, rules and regulations. Of course,
like every club, you eventually closed. Circle we closed May
(18:27):
thirty one, two thousand eighteen, after a ten year run,
not because like Circle died. Actually it was because we
fulfilled our lease obligations and as you know, since you're
you know, a restaurant or yourself New York City rent,
it's insane. It's insane. So the landlord I thought that
(18:47):
they can get a heftier rent, and it just didn't
make sense for Joe and I to stay in that space.
We decided that we would close Circle and try to
start something new, which you did bigger and better. We
were really really blessed and fortunate to find a bigger
(19:07):
space Forfordable. It's called Mission and I saw you there
than two weeks ago. All right, yeah, I mean Mission
is amazing. If I'm going clubbing, it's going to be
at a Korean club. I loved Circle. I was a regular.
I don't go clubbing that much anymore because I'm old.
Now how old are you now? Oh? Come on, stop it.
But Mission, Mission is amazing and it's doing really great
(19:30):
and you're still capturing that Asian American crowd. Actually we
opened a week after we closed Circle. We were very
strategic and like I said, all the cards were we're
aligned perfectly for us and knock on wood, you know,
things have been very good. So if you guys are
(19:51):
in New York City must check out mission. It's awesome.
It's really fun, and say hi to Bobby m Moving
on from mission to the food scene, because you were
(20:14):
in the night life scene for a long time, but
you also like had other businesses. Obviously you open Momoons,
full Offel, You've had other like small businesses. But I
feel like at one point you kind of pivoted to
opening like a huge cream barbecue restaurant, kind of like
out of nowhere. It was to like someone looking from
the outside because it was like the club owners and
(20:35):
all of a sudden they decided to open the biggest
crean barbecue restaurant in town. Well, the reason for that was,
you know, my partner and I most of our businesses
were very alcohol centric, which I still believe are the
best businesses to you know, to make money. But we
felt like we needed to kind of like diversify where
(20:59):
we were as a group. Being in hospitality and being
in the service industry, we couldn't just be beverage, you know,
we had to move over to food. And just to
give you like the quick story on how we were
able to open Peck Jung, I was traveling in l
A just for the weekend and one of my close
(21:20):
friends said Hey, I'm going to take you to the
best Korean barbecue you've ever eaten at. And to me,
I was just like, okay, how good can Korean barbecue be?
And he took me to this place where there was
a two and a half hour wait. I was just like,
who the heck waits two and a half hours? And
he said, trust me, and I said I'm not waiting.
(21:40):
I'm too hungry. And somehow, I don't know if he
slipped the manager money, but he said, all right, thirty
minutes for you. And you know, you know how this
world is like, it's all about who you know. So
I said, alright, thirty minutes, got got there, ordered ordered
our food and and I'm not even gonna exaggerate, but
(22:02):
you know that meal was life changing for me, and
just in many ways because it was delicious. The experience
was so different than what I experienced, you know, in
New York and New Jersey. And right then and there,
I called Joe, my business partner while he was in
New York, and I said, hey, I just had the
(22:24):
best meal and we need to open this restaurant in
New York City. This will be a game changer and
He asked me, what's the name of the restaurant. I said,
it's Congo Dong pet Chung. I was like, have you
ever heard of it? He's like, I know, Congo Dong.
Congo Dong is the name of the celebrity comedians slash
(22:46):
former kind of like Korean Greco Roman champion for I
don't know, twenty plus years. He's he's an icon in
many ways in Korea. But my partner, Joe, he was
a Greco Roman wrestling champion here in the States. Is
that how he knows him? Yes, for ten years. You
(23:08):
know Joe's but he Joe's like six ft two, you know,
used to be like three hundred and seventy five pounds.
Now he's like three. He shed so much weight and
he looks you know, he looks great, ladies. He's single.
But anyways, he was recruited by Kongo Doong when Joe
was in high school because he was that good of
a wrestler. So Joe flew to Korea to train with
(23:32):
Kongo Doong. That's crazy and that's how, Yeah, he got
in contact with Kodong himself to bring Kongodong pick Jong
the barbecue exactly. I'm on the phone with him and
I'm like, you got it. I was like, we have
to do this restaurant. He's like, oh, I know Kongo
Dong and I can just fly to Korea. And I
was like, this is so wild. And that's that's how
(23:53):
it happened. Two weeks later, Joe gets out on flight,
goes to Korea, meets with Kongo Doong and his manager
and boom, They're like, no problem, that's insane. And then
from there it's history. Obviously, like Open in Kaytown became
the hottest spot, like literally you cannot get a table here,
and it's one of the best meals ever is it's
(24:15):
it's the best Korean barbecue restaurant in Katown, hands down. Thanks,
I'll let you say that. Well, it is. I mean,
I'm not trying to exaggerate. It's certainly the most popular.
I mean we were really lucky with the press. You know,
I want to give another shout out to Anthony Bourdain
because you know, he he really helped put us on
(24:37):
the map. You know, I love the guy. I was
really lucky to you know, have spent some time with him,
but he was a regular and he endorsed us. He
blessed us. He put us on his Instagram, and once
that happened, it was like, you know, I mean even
before that, it was just really before that we were
(24:59):
we were popular. But he what he did was he
basically made all the celebrities start coming, and you know,
everyone's like, hey, if if Bourdaine loves this restaurant, you know,
then let's go check it out. And you know, then
we started getting all of these inquiries for like a
list celebrities. And not only in the sense of like
(25:24):
the Kanodong pick Jong being so popular, just even amongst
like New York City, etcetera. What it did for the
Korean food scene totally right. Like if you really think
about it, no Korean barbecue restaurant was like like that before.
I mean, obviously everyone knew cream barbecue, but there were
so many people that's never tried cream barbecue and they
(25:45):
know it because of some celebrity went to Kongordong pick
Jong and they're like, Oh, what's this like Koream barbecue thing?
What is Korean food anyway? And I feel like Kongodong
pick Jong definitely did that for the Korean food scene.
That was one of our goal. We felt confident that
we would fill our seats with with with Asian customers,
(26:06):
but we really wanted to to target mainstream America and
I think we did a pretty good job with that.
You did an amazing job with that. Okay, so, hottest
Crean club in Manhattan, Hottest Korean restaurant in Manhattan. There's
a pattern here. You want to be in the Korean scene,
like because you know the Korean scene. You you are
(26:27):
the Korean scene. So my curiosity because I know this
as like your friend, you're kind of like stepping away
from the Korean scene a little bit, or are you?
Are you not? Yes and no in a sense where
we want to be experimental and see what other things
we can do with food, but we're also sticking with
(26:49):
our roots, and you know, are you know one of
our next projects is another Crean restaurant. Yeah, one of
the big projects that you're doing. So you're still going
to remain very deeply rooted into kay Town. You know,
that's you have to. That's our hood, that's our culture,
that's our life. And you know, we have so much
love for you know, being Korean and being Korean American,
(27:12):
and I think that it's not just me and my partner.
You've done so much, you know, to spread the love
and just educate people on Korean culture and Korean food,
and I just feel, you know, there's there's so much
more we can do. Somebody needs to take over because
all of the generations are shifting now, and somebody needs
to really take care of Ka Town, and that's going
(27:34):
to be you and Joe. Hopefully, hopefully maybe you and
I will do something together. You know what, I really
did think about doing something in Kate Town because I
feel like I love traditional Korean food. You know that,
I'm like such a such a such an ad Aguma
is like older Korean lady that's like me. I've always
been that way, and I love like specialized Korean food
(27:56):
so much like hum, there's no like some get tongue
placed in Keytown. Toung get tongue is like a jin
sang Korean soup stuff with rice, and that's like literally
one of my favorite Korean dishes. Like ever, and in
l A or in Korea, there's tons of places that
specialized in just that, but there's not much of that
in New York City, Like specialized Korean food. Well, you know,
(28:16):
the reason is because how are you going to just
sell that's hum get tongue and pay thirty thou dollar
a month? Rend, I don't know. Can you figure that
out for me? And can we open us hunge tome
place together. We'll probably have to do it up in
Harlem or something where the rents are more affordable. It's hard.
New York City is hard. You know, you know you
have three you have three businesses of your own. Yeah, unfortunately,
but we do it because we love it. Yes, Obviously,
(28:39):
Korean culture is like a very big part, especially hospitality,
food to drinking culture. It's a big part of who
we are. But speaking of favorite Korean dishes, I have
a surprise for you. So I brought you kimchige. Awesome.
Kimche happens to be my death row meal. Actually it's
my favorite Korean dish, my favorite dish of you mean,
(29:03):
it's your favorite dish to eat or make you eat
my death row meal, so we share that. So I
was very happy to make you kim to chiga and
I made it myself, and you were telling me that
you're gonna compare it with your mom's, which that's that's
mad pressure. First of all, Well, let's see whip it out.
(29:23):
Let's take a try. Bobby, do you want to describe
what is my description of kim chiga and your description
will be very different? Why because you're more of a
like the culinary genius. Come on, Kimchi is kim is
the most homey, comforting crean dish. It's like a peasant dish,
(29:43):
it is, I mean, it's it's kim chi, which is
one of the you know, the staple foods of Korea,
which is it's like a it's a fermented cabbage with
spicy chili peppers and a bunch of kim chree is
basedly a fermented cabbage. Yeah, so it's like picklely it's spicy,
(30:05):
and kimchi is basically that like stewed made into a
stew and you can add any protein that you want.
And basically this dish came about because it was kind
of using whatever you had in your fridge. So like
you can use like cantuna, you can use like spam,
which is one of my favorites, and you can use pork,
which I used pork for you because you said that
you love pork. Kim chichi which is actually my favorite too.
(30:28):
So you're gonna taste it, right, So I said, my
favorite kimchia is my mom's, so I'm going to have
to you have to like kind of mix it up.
So my kimchi starts with a little bit of butter. Wow,
she uses butter too. She's doing ingredients. It is the
(30:49):
key ingredient. So butter is very important. That's what my
mom used to do. So I do that too. Butter.
You salted the kimchi a little bit, add the pork,
add water. It's very simple. It's just like that. I
do mine a little bit differently where I add tai
chili peppers because I like it really spicy, like with
(31:10):
a kick. I also like adding die kon kimchi to
my kimch together because it gives like a little bit
more of that funk. I also love when die kon
kimche gets like really like soft. Yeah. The smell, it's
got that funk, pungent smell. I mean, if you're not Korean,
you wouldn't think it's a pleasant smell. But the taste
is so different to me. My mouth is salivating right now. Alright.
(31:32):
I wish you guys can smell this. Sorry, it's very
buttery in a good way. But wow, what do you think?
How how old kimchee did you use? Um? This is
(31:53):
pretty fermented. Yeah, that's the best. It's the most portant
thing in kim chichie. So there's only like three ingredients
in this dish, right, So you have to make sure
the key element to good kimchichi get is really good kimchi.
Like hands down, if you have bad kim chi, your
kimchichi get is going to be bad. Mm hmm, I
(32:16):
see the is it the So one of the other
tips that I like to give when I make kimchichie,
I don't use regular water. I use bottled water. And
that's really really important for me because all three ingredients
has to be really good quality. So the kimchi has
to be amazing. It has to taste awesome by itself.
(32:37):
The pork has to be like great quality pork. And
then the water because it's a stew, so I used
I like using bottled water because it's like purified, it's
like good water. I use Fiji in this one. You're welcome, No,
thank you, I'm eating hold on, mhm. Kim Chi chicken
(32:57):
is my favorite dish on the planet. So like, if
I can't make the best kim to get ever, like,
can I even call myself a Korean chef? If I
can't even match like your mom's like that as a
chef like that, that would be pretty so. I mean,
I know that's that's hard to No, it's so it's spicy.
(33:19):
It's really spicy. And I'll be very honest with you,
as I always am so nervous right now. No, I
just don't want to I want to see the right word.
But it's so spicy, I can't even think straight. But
it is one of the best kim guys I've I've
eaten ever, but too spicy. No, I think you really,
(33:43):
really you probably took like five hours to prepare for this.
I really honestly looks like, you know what, there was
a lot of preparation. It was you know what it was.
You know why this kimchi is homemade? I made this
kimchi like two months ago for real, probably, but it
was it was kimchi that's been sitting my fridge that
I only use for kimchie to get, which I have
(34:06):
separate kimchi for kimchi. Stone serve doesn't serve this This
kim chika. Yeah, like this is really good. I'm talking
like what makes what makes kim chichi get really good,
in my opinion is when you taste it and you
think of your mother or your grandmother. That's what makes
(34:28):
kimchika like the bomb. This is exactly how my mom
made it, how my grandma made it. The methods are
the same, the ingredients are obviously a little bit like
I use purified water. Yeah, you know, so eating this,
it reminds me of my mother's kim chichika. Um a
little bit different because it's got more heat. I think
(34:50):
it's sorry, it's so. I know, it's spicy. I I
added the tie chilies and what makes it different and
some people think it's better or not her, But it's
it's more refined. It's more refined. You know, why is
it refined? But it's because no, I'm just saying, because
my mother uses tap water. You know, she doesn't use
really high quality pork. If anything, she probably uses low
(35:12):
quality pork. Um. You know the kimchi. You know, my
mother is old now, she doesn't make kimchi. So you know,
we use kimchi that we buy from like h Mar,
So you know, it's it's not. And I know you
you know, you're the type of chef that likes to
use really high quality ingredients, especially in your food, so
(35:34):
you know, you know this is like this is I
feel like this is kim chi chige that I would
probably be paying like fifty bucks for being serious, And
that's just me being a businessman. Because your food costs,
you know, you would have to charge you would have
to charge more than twenty bucks for this maybe, like
I don't know, know it's more like labor. Well, I
mean this portion because you know, it's like a kid
(35:56):
size portion that you're giving me. But if it was
a normal portion, I would you know, I would charge
like thirty bucks at least. Oh that's crazy, and you
can I think you can get away with it. This
is a peasant dish, you know. I would never charge
more than like, you know, fifteen for this. No, But
that's the reason why Korean restaurants, you know, especially in Koreatown,
(36:19):
have to stay within a certain price point. If you
go outside of Koreatown, there's certain Korean restaurants now where
you get a dish like this, you know, where they
charged twenty bucks in k Town. But they're charging and
people are paying for it. So I'm just saying, I
think you're onto something with this ka. He like, do
(36:43):
you know? And and as you know, in Korean culture,
if a dish is really really good, especially the stews,
if it's so good, you take your your rice and
you just kind of mix it in and you eat
it like you know, instead of two separate ishes, it's
one dish. And that's what I feel like doing right now.
(37:04):
Thank you. I'm going to take it home made with
Oh my gosh, there's this one thing that I was like, oh, Bobby,
what's your favorite protein in kim chi chiga? And he goes, love.
I taste the love. I do think you put a
lot of love into I did. Yeah, You're welcome, Thank you,
Thank you well, Bobby, Thank you so much for joining
(37:25):
me today and this candid conversation. Where can we find
you on socials, Facebook, Instagram. It's Bobby qwalk K W
A K. And that's our show. Thanks for listening. If
you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a five star review. Get Down with Kaytown is a
production of I Heart Radio and was created by our
(37:45):
executive producer, Christopher hasiotis and me as to Troy. Follow
me on all social media at toy Bites and I'd
also like to thank our producer, editor and mixer Marcy
to Pina. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. H
That meal was life changing for me. It was delicious.
The experience was so different than what I experienced, you know,
in New York and New Jersey. And right then and there,
I called Joe, my business partner while he was in
New York and I said, Hey, I just had the
best meal and we need to open this restaurant in
(00:26):
New York City. This will be a game changer. And
he asked me, what's the name of the restaurant. I said,
it's Congo Doon pet Jun. I was like, have you
ever heard of it? He's like, I know, Congodon. Welcome
to get down with Kaytown. I'm your host esther Troy.
For me, when it comes to New York City's Kay
Town seen, the very first person that I think of
(00:48):
is Bobby. Bobby is like the king of kay Town.
Or do you prefer Mr Keaton? I prefer Bobby. You
just prefer Bobby. Okay. If you've ever been to a
Korean of in New York City, most likely it was
one of Bobby's clubs. Yes, like the very famous nightclubs Circle.
Bobby is the one that created that club. And I
(01:09):
must say I have my own set of very fond
memories there but also it's kind of like limited blackout memories.
I know y'all laughing at right now, but don't make
fun of me, because you all been there. Circle was
around at my prime years, and I'm sure many Asian
Americans can relate. It was like the hottest Korean club
for a very long time, and it gave birth to
(01:29):
many couples. But going back to Bobby's world, he's always
been someone that I really truly admired. He's known to
be one of the new pioneers of Koreatown. Basically one
of the people that is paving the way on what
the future of KA Town is and will be in
New York City. And now I'm talking the O G.
K Town, the iconic thirty two Street. Every few years,
(01:50):
the businesses that make up this street will turn over,
the Korean restaurants, the bars, the cafes, the karaoke lounges.
There will always be new players on the block. And
I aways depend on Bobby to give me the latest
scoop on who's coming in and who's going out. And
that's because Bobby is a serial entrepreneur. Not only did
(02:10):
he open the most supreme Korean club in Manhattan, twice.
He brought the most popular Caorean barbecue chain, Kano Don
Pi Jong to town and trust me, it's like one
of the best. He also has a string of businesses
from Pulse Karaoke Lounge, Roomy Events, Space, two m I Events,
third for Cafe, et cetera. Honestly, way too many to name.
(02:31):
And I feel like Bobby is not only a true visionary,
he's really able to identify what the next wave of
influence will be, especially when it comes to the Korean scene.
He's definitely someone that I go to for advice when
it comes to starting a new hospitality business, and I
had my fair share of ideas that he immediately dismissed. Bobby,
I can't wait to drill you with more questions today,
(02:54):
and I feel like I do that on a daily basis. Yeah. Sometimes.
First of all, can we talk about Circle, Yes, But
can I give a quick shout out to my business partner,
Joe Coom. Without him, Circle would not be around, you know,
all of my other businesses. He's been pretty much like
(03:14):
my other half, definitely my other better half. So Hi Joe, Yeah,
Hey Joe, Um, I wish you was here. Obviously, you
can't do this all on your own. Yeah, definitely not,
but we could still talk about it. So going back
to Circle, because it was crazy. Can you talk about
your experience how Circle even came about? Yeah, So, you know,
(03:34):
ever since college, you know, I went to Rutgers University.
I was heavily involved in the Korean Student Association and
we used to throw joint parties with Columbia's Korean Student
Association and y use Korean Student Association. And then we
also needed to get pretty girls, so we we reached
(03:55):
out to Parsons s v A, Pratt f I and
of course, you know, those girls loved the party, and
we would throw all these joint parties at smaller Korean
clubs and we would just pack it. And after college
and this was when sorry like time period wise, mid nineties, yeah,
(04:18):
mid nineties, and then after college I decided to continue
doing these parties, but instead of for college kids, it
was for young working professionals. Were these all Korean Korean
people or were they like Asians? What was that seen?
You know, we kept it as Korean as possible. Reason
(04:38):
for that or just like it was just like because
I was Korean, most most of my friends were Korean
and nobody was doing this. There were a couple of
people doing it, but I wouldn't say at the magnitude
that I was doing it at. They would host parties
and maybe get you know, fifty people. You know, my
parties were like five hundred to a thousand people. So
(05:00):
Korean clubs did exist then, Yeah, they did exist, but
after college they all kind of became extinct. So instead
I would rent out these really big lounges and then
rent out just American clubs and just pack it in there.
And they actually loved my parties because Koreans can drink.
(05:25):
I mean, hello, very heavy drinking culture. So whenever I
wanted to do a party at pretty much any club,
they were happy because the bar sales we're gonna be
probably double of a normal night for them. So, you know,
I did that, and I met my partner Joe, because
(05:47):
he was my main competitor. Oh really, Okay, so he
was doing his own parties, yes, but he grew up
in Queens, so he had all of the Queens and
Long Island Koreans. I'm a Jersey boy, so I had
all the Jersey and Manhattan Koreans. You know. Whenever we
(06:07):
would do parties against each other. You know, I would
say we probably had maybe a twenty overflow, but two
different crowds. He had more people. I would say I
had quite yeah, yeah, yeah, he could pull in seven people.
I can pull in maybe half a little bit more.
But my bar sales would be double of his. Why
(06:30):
you know, if you live in Manhattan, or if you
live in Northern Jersey, which is where most of my
crowd lived in Bergen County, I guess their income levels
higher than those who live in Queens. But any case,
we were competitors, and one day, you know, we decided, hey,
why do we have to compete? You know, why don't
(06:51):
we just join forces. I don't know you well, you
don't know me well, but you know I respect you
and I hope you respect me. I think you both
do a good job at what we do. It wasn't
a job. Actually, we were doing this for fun at
the time, and he said, you know what, let's try
it out. So we joined, and we essentially monopolized you know,
(07:14):
the entire scene. The scene we partnered in two thousand one,
and it wasn't until two thousand and eight February that
we opened circles. Oh, Wow. So you were throwing these
parties at other people's venues for like years before you
decided to do Circle. I was making a lot of
other club owners rich. And then you realize that after
(07:36):
like five years, well I didn't have the money, you know.
So you know, we had to wait until we felt
like the timing was right where we thought we had
money to even open up our own place. But everything
kind of worked out. So Circle opened in two and
you guys were very successful right off the bat. The
(08:00):
asked like mega Korean nightclub before Circle was Club MK,
and I think they closed in two thousands. So for
eight years there was nothing. Yeah, there really wasn't like
that mega club. You know. There was Camel, which was
like that smaller clubs, right, there was not clubs. It
(08:20):
was so tiny. Yeah, they're like little lounge clubby type
of venues, but you know, a hundred people, it's packed. Yeah,
And I feel like those clubs, I mean they used to.
Korean clubs are a very certain way, right, It's a
little bit different than like your normal standard American club
with the table service booking back in the day and
all that. Yeah, I think, you know, I think the
(08:41):
biggest difference is, you know, and this is back in
you know, back in the day. It's changed a lot now,
but you know, Koreans like to be served. They don't
like to stand around. They want to sit at a table,
they want their bottle of Johnny Walker. And the girls
(09:01):
don't want to stand so they want to sit at tables.
And guys don't want to be at tables by themselves,
so they want girls drinking with them. So you mentioned booking,
So this is how booking was born. Well, it was
born in Korea because that's the nightlife clubbing culture in Korea.
But we kind of adapted to it here and we
(09:23):
did that at Circle, but we didn't do it really aggressively.
We only did it, you know, when customers asked, can
we talk about booking? Because I feel like this is
the most interesting Korean cultural drinking atmosphere, and I feel
like you can't experience this anywhere else in the world
but at a Korean nightclub. And I still remember experiencing
(09:44):
it for the first time at Circle actually when you
were doing booking and I was doing booking myself, and
I loved it. I'm not gonna lie, you know, there's
no you know, I'm not. I'm not ashamed of it.
If you think of the concept, it's a win win,
win win for everybody. So everyone's curious what booking is.
So when you go to a nightclub, you know, usually
(10:06):
the bottle poppers are the guys. You don't see a
lot of girls getting tables and you know, throwing down
their credit cards and popping bottles, especially back in the
day exactly. So let's just say there was a group
of four guys. They would get a table, and they
would get a table for you know, maybe six to
eight people, and they would order their alcohol and they
(10:30):
would tell the waiter that they would like booking. So
the waiter automatically knows what that means. It means these
guys want to drink with pretty girls. So after they
get their alcohol, the waiters would kind of just like
roam through the dance floor and they would kind of
look for cute girls or little groups of girls, um
(10:53):
that they think would want to do booking, and they
would go up to them and say, hey, would you
like to drink at a table? Well, there's a you know,
there's a group of nice guys that want to invite you.
So these girls who are you know, decked out in there,
like high stiletto heels, dying to just have a seat,
(11:13):
dying exactly, wanting to drink for free, and on top
of that, potentially meeting a cute, nice guy. That's like,
that's like a winner for them. For the guys, it's
a winner because they don't have to go hunting on
the dance floor and get rejected by girls. And it
(11:35):
works for the waiters because the waiters get tipped on
the side or they'll get extra tip because you know,
their service was phenomenal. And it works for the club
because the girls end up drinking all of the guys
alcohol and they order more. So that's the concept of
(11:56):
booking and Circle was known for that. It's a great concept,
right if you think about it, But you can quickly
see where this is going. It could get very aggressive,
and I mean it could go either way. I mean
I had a lot of fun doing booking at times,
sometimes not because the waiters would get very aggressive. Sometimes,
like you said, oh, they will come up to you
(12:18):
nicely and ask, oh, there's this nice group of guys
that would love to meet you, But really what it
was was like they were pulling your arms. At one
point I mean it depended on the club and you
know the situation. But I remember getting like dragged around.
It was not a circle. I mean it was like
other clubs in like like l A l A, they'll
(12:40):
they'll grab girls that are fighting against you and they
drag you to the tables. That's I mean, it's sad,
but they do that in Korea. Honestly, you didn't really
have to drag me because I would be willingly just
like go and be like and you know what, as
a girl, it was great because you get into the
club for free and basically party and drink all night
(13:03):
for free, and you don't have to stay at the tables,
right can sit, They pour you a drink, You have
the drink, And my excuse was always I gotta go
to the bathroom and then I'll leave and then go
to the next table and get another free drink. So
it's just like for me, I like use my my brain.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, So I think it depends. No, then
there are certain guys who would come regularly and think
(13:26):
of strategies how not to let the girls out, So
you know, they would one guy would be in and
then one guy would stand up let the two girls
come in and then they would lock the kind of
corner them in them in exactly, or if they if
if if there was a girl that used your excuse,
I gotta go to the restroom, the guy would follow
her and wait until she came out of the bathroom. Wow,
(13:49):
this is not strategies that I don't do a booking,
but because I've owned the club that club for ten years,
I've seen it all. Sort of the scene, at least
in New York gets circle. It booking stuff stopped and
it gravitated towards more of like a traditional club scene.
(14:10):
It died. That booking scene died. It died because when
we first opened up, our clientele was like Korean, but
out of that Korean were Koreanized Koreans or like Korean internationals,
and then the Korean Americans. We didn't have as many. So,
(14:32):
you know, the Korean Koreans were so used to booking
because that's how they party in Korea. So you know,
as a businessman, I had to offer that, you know,
because that's what they wanted. The economy was changing too,
so a lot of these international students were going back
to Korea, and also even after college, they weren't able
(14:53):
to find jobs here. So that's when it started shifting
from you know, international in to Korean Americans Americans, and
then to Asian Americans, like and then it became a
little bit more diverse Chinese, Chinese Americans, Taiwanese, Taiwanese Americans.
I'm sorry to bring this up, but I think a
(15:14):
lot of people knew this, but Circle was pretty infamous
for not letting non Koreans in the club. I'm so
curious about it because there was like a huge scandal.
There's so many articles written about it, and to me,
it's like any press is good press. So I think
it was great, but it kind of like made it
seem that Koreans were like drinking the kool aid, you know,
(15:34):
like we you didn't let non Koreans in the club?
Was that? Is that true? Not true? If you came
to Circle any given night, you would see non Asians
in there, maybe you know, out of five people, you're
not going to see a hundred non Asians. Because you know,
(15:55):
Circle was known as a Korean nightclub. We didn't really
promote Circle. We kept Circle, you know, very kind of discreet.
We didn't have a sign, we didn't you know, pay
for any billboards or we didn't do any real marketing
ad campaigns. It was all word of mouth, just by
default living in America, Like you have non Asian friends,
(16:16):
I have non Asian friends. And if you look at Kaytown,
Kaytown has become so diverse now right, it's very gentrified.
So are Korean clientele would bring their non Asian friends,
and we had no problem with them. We had a
couple of incidences where, you know, and we have incidences
all the time, even with Koreans where they'll show up
(16:38):
intoxicated and cause a scene at the door, or they're
not dressed appropriately, or the club is at maximum capacity,
or they are treating our our our door people and
our security with disrespect. And it just so happened. A
(16:59):
couple of those it ins were non Koreans, and they
used the race saying that you were being discribed. Yeah,
and you know what, like I feel like that gets
thrown around, you know, very loosely. But I thought it
was a little strange because you know, we're in America,
We're the minority, and the majority is saying, wait a second,
you're discriminating against against us. Definitely not. I was born
(17:21):
I'm an American citizen. Every club has this thing where
it's like you can either get in or you can't
get in, and clubs, especially the hottest clubs, it's hard
to get in. It is an esther. Let's flip it around.
If you and I were waiting in line at the
hottest American club, we probably wouldn't even get in. I
could get in, maybe you. If I was with four
(17:44):
or five of my Asian friends, we would probably wait
in line for two hours. I'm just saying that's how
big Circle was. I mean, Circle was the club, especially
as Asian Americans, and because it was a Korean club,
and you know, Koreans do have this certain way of
carrying this tremendous amount of pride on their shoulders, So
(18:05):
I think that kind of got mixed into that whole, like, oh,
you're discriminating against us, thing right, It got blown out
of proportion. And my staff they know that everyone was welcome,
but we have, you know, rules and regulations. Of course,
like every club, you eventually closed. Circle we closed May
(18:27):
thirty one, two thousand eighteen, after a ten year run,
not because like Circle died. Actually it was because we
fulfilled our lease obligations and as you know, since you're
you know, a restaurant or yourself New York City rent,
it's insane. It's insane. So the landlord I thought that
(18:47):
they can get a heftier rent, and it just didn't
make sense for Joe and I to stay in that space.
We decided that we would close Circle and try to
start something new, which you did bigger and better. We
were really really blessed and fortunate to find a bigger
(19:07):
space Forfordable. It's called Mission and I saw you there
than two weeks ago. All right, yeah, I mean Mission
is amazing. If I'm going clubbing, it's going to be
at a Korean club. I loved Circle. I was a regular.
I don't go clubbing that much anymore because I'm old.
Now how old are you now? Oh? Come on, stop it.
But Mission, Mission is amazing and it's doing really great
(19:30):
and you're still capturing that Asian American crowd. Actually we
opened a week after we closed Circle. We were very
strategic and like I said, all the cards were we're
aligned perfectly for us and knock on wood, you know,
things have been very good. So if you guys are
(19:51):
in New York City must check out mission. It's awesome.
It's really fun, and say hi to Bobby m Moving
on from mission to the food scene, because you were
(20:14):
in the night life scene for a long time, but
you also like had other businesses. Obviously you open Momoons,
full Offel, You've had other like small businesses. But I
feel like at one point you kind of pivoted to
opening like a huge cream barbecue restaurant, kind of like
out of nowhere. It was to like someone looking from
the outside because it was like the club owners and
(20:35):
all of a sudden they decided to open the biggest
crean barbecue restaurant in town. Well, the reason for that was,
you know, my partner and I most of our businesses
were very alcohol centric, which I still believe are the
best businesses to you know, to make money. But we
felt like we needed to kind of like diversify where
(20:59):
we were as a group. Being in hospitality and being
in the service industry, we couldn't just be beverage, you know,
we had to move over to food. And just to
give you like the quick story on how we were
able to open Peck Jung, I was traveling in l
A just for the weekend and one of my close
(21:20):
friends said Hey, I'm going to take you to the
best Korean barbecue you've ever eaten at. And to me,
I was just like, okay, how good can Korean barbecue be?
And he took me to this place where there was
a two and a half hour wait. I was just like,
who the heck waits two and a half hours? And
he said, trust me, and I said I'm not waiting.
(21:40):
I'm too hungry. And somehow, I don't know if he
slipped the manager money, but he said, all right, thirty
minutes for you. And you know, you know how this
world is like, it's all about who you know. So
I said, alright, thirty minutes, got got there, ordered ordered
our food and and I'm not even gonna exaggerate, but
(22:02):
you know that meal was life changing for me, and
just in many ways because it was delicious. The experience
was so different than what I experienced, you know, in
New York and New Jersey. And right then and there,
I called Joe, my business partner while he was in
New York, and I said, hey, I just had the
(22:24):
best meal and we need to open this restaurant in
New York City. This will be a game changer and
He asked me, what's the name of the restaurant. I said,
it's Congo Dong pet Chung. I was like, have you
ever heard of it? He's like, I know, Congo Dong.
Congo Dong is the name of the celebrity comedians slash
(22:46):
former kind of like Korean Greco Roman champion for I
don't know, twenty plus years. He's he's an icon in
many ways in Korea. But my partner, Joe, he was
a Greco Roman wrestling champion here in the States. Is
that how he knows him? Yes, for ten years. You
(23:08):
know Joe's but he Joe's like six ft two, you know,
used to be like three hundred and seventy five pounds.
Now he's like three. He shed so much weight and
he looks you know, he looks great, ladies. He's single.
But anyways, he was recruited by Kongo Doong when Joe
was in high school because he was that good of
a wrestler. So Joe flew to Korea to train with
(23:32):
Kongo Doong. That's crazy and that's how, Yeah, he got
in contact with Kodong himself to bring Kongodong pick Jong
the barbecue exactly. I'm on the phone with him and
I'm like, you got it. I was like, we have
to do this restaurant. He's like, oh, I know Kongo
Dong and I can just fly to Korea. And I
was like, this is so wild. And that's that's how
(23:53):
it happened. Two weeks later, Joe gets out on flight,
goes to Korea, meets with Kongo Doong and his manager
and boom, They're like, no problem, that's insane. And then
from there it's history. Obviously, like Open in Kaytown became
the hottest spot, like literally you cannot get a table here,
and it's one of the best meals ever is it's
(24:15):
it's the best Korean barbecue restaurant in Katown, hands down. Thanks,
I'll let you say that. Well, it is. I mean,
I'm not trying to exaggerate. It's certainly the most popular.
I mean we were really lucky with the press. You know,
I want to give another shout out to Anthony Bourdain
because you know, he he really helped put us on
(24:37):
the map. You know, I love the guy. I was
really lucky to you know, have spent some time with him,
but he was a regular and he endorsed us. He
blessed us. He put us on his Instagram, and once
that happened, it was like, you know, I mean even
before that, it was just really before that we were
(24:59):
we were popular. But he what he did was he
basically made all the celebrities start coming, and you know,
everyone's like, hey, if if Bourdaine loves this restaurant, you know,
then let's go check it out. And you know, then
we started getting all of these inquiries for like a
list celebrities. And not only in the sense of like
(25:24):
the Kanodong pick Jong being so popular, just even amongst
like New York City, etcetera. What it did for the
Korean food scene totally right. Like if you really think
about it, no Korean barbecue restaurant was like like that before.
I mean, obviously everyone knew cream barbecue, but there were
so many people that's never tried cream barbecue and they
(25:45):
know it because of some celebrity went to Kongordong pick
Jong and they're like, Oh, what's this like Koream barbecue thing?
What is Korean food anyway? And I feel like Kongodong
pick Jong definitely did that for the Korean food scene.
That was one of our goal. We felt confident that
we would fill our seats with with with Asian customers,
(26:06):
but we really wanted to to target mainstream America and
I think we did a pretty good job with that.
You did an amazing job with that. Okay, so, hottest
Crean club in Manhattan, Hottest Korean restaurant in Manhattan. There's
a pattern here. You want to be in the Korean scene,
like because you know the Korean scene. You you are
(26:27):
the Korean scene. So my curiosity because I know this
as like your friend, you're kind of like stepping away
from the Korean scene a little bit, or are you?
Are you not? Yes and no in a sense where
we want to be experimental and see what other things
we can do with food, but we're also sticking with
(26:49):
our roots, and you know, are you know one of
our next projects is another Crean restaurant. Yeah, one of
the big projects that you're doing. So you're still going
to remain very deeply rooted into kay Town. You know,
that's you have to. That's our hood, that's our culture,
that's our life. And you know, we have so much
love for you know, being Korean and being Korean American,
(27:12):
and I think that it's not just me and my partner.
You've done so much, you know, to spread the love
and just educate people on Korean culture and Korean food,
and I just feel, you know, there's there's so much
more we can do. Somebody needs to take over because
all of the generations are shifting now, and somebody needs
to really take care of Ka Town, and that's going
(27:34):
to be you and Joe. Hopefully, hopefully maybe you and
I will do something together. You know what, I really
did think about doing something in Kate Town because I
feel like I love traditional Korean food. You know that,
I'm like such a such a such an ad Aguma
is like older Korean lady that's like me. I've always
been that way, and I love like specialized Korean food
(27:56):
so much like hum, there's no like some get tongue
placed in Keytown. Toung get tongue is like a jin
sang Korean soup stuff with rice, and that's like literally
one of my favorite Korean dishes. Like ever, and in
l A or in Korea, there's tons of places that
specialized in just that, but there's not much of that
in New York City, Like specialized Korean food. Well, you know,
(28:16):
the reason is because how are you going to just
sell that's hum get tongue and pay thirty thou dollar
a month? Rend, I don't know. Can you figure that
out for me? And can we open us hunge tome
place together. We'll probably have to do it up in
Harlem or something where the rents are more affordable. It's hard.
New York City is hard. You know, you know you
have three you have three businesses of your own. Yeah, unfortunately,
but we do it because we love it. Yes, Obviously,
(28:39):
Korean culture is like a very big part, especially hospitality,
food to drinking culture. It's a big part of who
we are. But speaking of favorite Korean dishes, I have
a surprise for you. So I brought you kimchige. Awesome.
Kimche happens to be my death row meal. Actually it's
my favorite Korean dish, my favorite dish of you mean,
(29:03):
it's your favorite dish to eat or make you eat
my death row meal, so we share that. So I
was very happy to make you kim to chiga and
I made it myself, and you were telling me that
you're gonna compare it with your mom's, which that's that's
mad pressure. First of all, Well, let's see whip it out.
(29:23):
Let's take a try. Bobby, do you want to describe
what is my description of kim chiga and your description
will be very different? Why because you're more of a
like the culinary genius. Come on, Kimchi is kim is
the most homey, comforting crean dish. It's like a peasant dish,
(29:43):
it is, I mean, it's it's kim chi, which is
one of the you know, the staple foods of Korea,
which is it's like a it's a fermented cabbage with
spicy chili peppers and a bunch of kim chree is
basedly a fermented cabbage. Yeah, so it's like picklely it's spicy,
(30:05):
and kimchi is basically that like stewed made into a
stew and you can add any protein that you want.
And basically this dish came about because it was kind
of using whatever you had in your fridge. So like
you can use like cantuna, you can use like spam,
which is one of my favorites, and you can use pork,
which I used pork for you because you said that
you love pork. Kim chichi which is actually my favorite too.
(30:28):
So you're gonna taste it, right, So I said, my
favorite kimchia is my mom's, so I'm going to have
to you have to like kind of mix it up.
So my kimchi starts with a little bit of butter. Wow,
she uses butter too. She's doing ingredients. It is the
(30:49):
key ingredient. So butter is very important. That's what my
mom used to do. So I do that too. Butter.
You salted the kimchi a little bit, add the pork,
add water. It's very simple. It's just like that. I
do mine a little bit differently where I add tai
chili peppers because I like it really spicy, like with
(31:10):
a kick. I also like adding die kon kimchi to
my kimch together because it gives like a little bit
more of that funk. I also love when die kon
kimche gets like really like soft. Yeah. The smell, it's
got that funk, pungent smell. I mean, if you're not Korean,
you wouldn't think it's a pleasant smell. But the taste
is so different to me. My mouth is salivating right now. Alright.
(31:32):
I wish you guys can smell this. Sorry, it's very
buttery in a good way. But wow, what do you think?
How how old kimchee did you use? Um? This is
(31:53):
pretty fermented. Yeah, that's the best. It's the most portant
thing in kim chichie. So there's only like three ingredients
in this dish, right, So you have to make sure
the key element to good kimchichi get is really good kimchi.
Like hands down, if you have bad kim chi, your
kimchichi get is going to be bad. Mm hmm, I
(32:16):
see the is it the So one of the other
tips that I like to give when I make kimchichie,
I don't use regular water. I use bottled water. And
that's really really important for me because all three ingredients
has to be really good quality. So the kimchi has
to be amazing. It has to taste awesome by itself.
(32:37):
The pork has to be like great quality pork. And
then the water because it's a stew, so I used
I like using bottled water because it's like purified, it's
like good water. I use Fiji in this one. You're welcome, No,
thank you, I'm eating hold on, mhm. Kim Chi chicken
(32:57):
is my favorite dish on the planet. So like, if
I can't make the best kim to get ever, like,
can I even call myself a Korean chef? If I
can't even match like your mom's like that as a
chef like that, that would be pretty so. I mean,
I know that's that's hard to No, it's so it's spicy.
(33:19):
It's really spicy. And I'll be very honest with you,
as I always am so nervous right now. No, I
just don't want to I want to see the right word.
But it's so spicy, I can't even think straight. But
it is one of the best kim guys I've I've
eaten ever, but too spicy. No, I think you really,
(33:43):
really you probably took like five hours to prepare for this.
I really honestly looks like, you know what, there was
a lot of preparation. It was you know what it was.
You know why this kimchi is homemade? I made this
kimchi like two months ago for real, probably, but it
was it was kimchi that's been sitting my fridge that
I only use for kimchie to get, which I have
(34:06):
separate kimchi for kimchi. Stone serve doesn't serve this This
kim chika. Yeah, like this is really good. I'm talking
like what makes what makes kim chichi get really good,
in my opinion is when you taste it and you
think of your mother or your grandmother. That's what makes
(34:28):
kimchika like the bomb. This is exactly how my mom
made it, how my grandma made it. The methods are
the same, the ingredients are obviously a little bit like
I use purified water. Yeah, you know, so eating this,
it reminds me of my mother's kim chichika. Um a
little bit different because it's got more heat. I think
(34:50):
it's sorry, it's so. I know, it's spicy. I I
added the tie chilies and what makes it different and
some people think it's better or not her, But it's
it's more refined. It's more refined. You know, why is
it refined? But it's because no, I'm just saying, because
my mother uses tap water. You know, she doesn't use
really high quality pork. If anything, she probably uses low
(35:12):
quality pork. Um. You know the kimchi. You know, my
mother is old now, she doesn't make kimchi. So you know,
we use kimchi that we buy from like h Mar,
So you know, it's it's not. And I know you
you know, you're the type of chef that likes to
use really high quality ingredients, especially in your food, so
(35:34):
you know, you know this is like this is I
feel like this is kim chi chige that I would
probably be paying like fifty bucks for being serious, And
that's just me being a businessman. Because your food costs,
you know, you would have to charge you would have
to charge more than twenty bucks for this maybe, like
I don't know, know it's more like labor. Well, I
mean this portion because you know, it's like a kid
(35:56):
size portion that you're giving me. But if it was
a normal portion, I would you know, I would charge
like thirty bucks at least. Oh that's crazy, and you
can I think you can get away with it. This
is a peasant dish, you know. I would never charge
more than like, you know, fifteen for this. No, But
that's the reason why Korean restaurants, you know, especially in Koreatown,
(36:19):
have to stay within a certain price point. If you
go outside of Koreatown, there's certain Korean restaurants now where
you get a dish like this, you know, where they
charged twenty bucks in k Town. But they're charging and
people are paying for it. So I'm just saying, I
think you're onto something with this ka. He like, do
(36:43):
you know? And and as you know, in Korean culture,
if a dish is really really good, especially the stews,
if it's so good, you take your your rice and
you just kind of mix it in and you eat
it like you know, instead of two separate ishes, it's
one dish. And that's what I feel like doing right now.
(37:04):
Thank you. I'm going to take it home made with
Oh my gosh, there's this one thing that I was like, oh, Bobby,
what's your favorite protein in kim chi chiga? And he goes, love.
I taste the love. I do think you put a
lot of love into I did. Yeah, You're welcome, Thank you,
Thank you well, Bobby, Thank you so much for joining
(37:25):
me today and this candid conversation. Where can we find
you on socials, Facebook, Instagram. It's Bobby qwalk K W
A K. And that's our show. Thanks for listening. If
you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a five star review. Get Down with Kaytown is a
production of I Heart Radio and was created by our
(37:45):
executive producer, Christopher hasiotis and me as to Troy. Follow
me on all social media at toy Bites and I'd
also like to thank our producer, editor and mixer Marcy
to Pina. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
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