- In center-city Philadelphia, a stone's throw away
from South Street lies a restaurant called South Gate.
They're bringing a Korean slant to some traditional
American brunch dishes.
Chicken and macha flavored waffles,
miso sesame slab bacon,
and even a bibimbap egg scramble.
All of this is spurred on by a bloody mary that combines
soju and kimchi.
We got vodka plus soju in a kimchi bloody mary?
- Yup, cheers man.
- That is dangerous.
I could finish this quickly.
(laughing)
- We started from the beginning using kimchi
that my halmoni makes
and she's 90 years old, so she's using
- Dude your grandma was making the kimchi for this place.
- She was making the kimchi for this restaurant.
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- [Matthew] Dude, where did you cook before this?
- I started cooking in New York about 10 years ago.
I started at a Japanese restaurant where I was the only
non-Japanese person in the entire place when I started.
- That's got to be challenging. (laughing)
- It was terrible.
I used to have to move sesame seeds one by one
with chopsticks, ended up at Jean Georges for a few years.
Peter and I had a talk and was,
why don't we come in on a Monday since we're closed
and my mother and mother-in-law can come in
and just teach you some stuff.
And I was like all right, and that day turned into a day
of me getting told I was doing things wrong that I'd been
doing for years.
A lot of stuff that I learned that day I either straight
up grabbed and converted spoonfuls and pinches
into grams and ounces and turned it into marinades
and dishes that we serve now,
but it also gave me a better understanding of how do you use
these ingredients.
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- [Matthew] We're gonna go for the Korean
fried chicken waffles.
- The chicken gets brined in pepper, onions, celery,
aromatics over night, ginger, garlic,
and we do it at 7 minute pre-fry before service.
Spread them out, let them cool down and then
to order, re-fry them until they're nice and crispy.
Drop them into the syrup or spicy or soy,
whichever is chosen.
Add it to the plate with the waffle, send it out.
(upbeat music)
(crunching)
- Wow, this crust is so good.
It's like engineered.
You know it's nice.
You don't really get too much of the chili,
like not too much heat but that glaze and the crust
coming together,
it is a wonderful,
it's not even just crispy, it's straight up just crunchy.
- It's a Belgian waffle that has some matcha powder in it
to give it a little bit of that green tea earthiness.
- This is a primo hangover cure.
A-plus, man.
(mellow music)
This seems very well-conceived for a number of reasons.
Koreans love cheese even though half of Korea
cannot eat it successfully (laughing)
because of lactose intolerance,
All right, tell me about it, what's going on here.
- I love poutine, I've always loved poutine.
- Everybody loves poutine.
- [David] Like how can you not?
- It is unhatable
and cheese goes amazingly well with kimchi.
What, dude this is - Is that not
- Evil.
Oh man look at that too, the crust.
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That's freaking stupid.
Like what am I eating?
- [David] And it's just kind of fun to do a dish that wasn't
overly like thought about, stupid simple,
and kind of over the top.
- This is diabolical.
(laughing)
- It's actually really fun. - What the hell
this freaking, that right there,
this is the best part of anything
and there's so much of it.
As fattylicious as this thing is,
you have the kimchi to just like counter that.
It makes it addictive because of the freaking
steaming-hot stone pot, it just like melts
into this crazy ooze and on the bottom it hardens
into this amazing crust, and then the bacon on top of it.
You're literally trying to kill me.
- Because, why not?
- This blew my mind.
(upbeat music)
- So it's just a par cooked egg, like you normally
would a devil egg.
Instead of using cayenne or paprika for the filling,
it gets made, toasted sesame oil to cook the kimchi in,
to kind of bring it out and mellow it out a little bit.
- It's nice, that kimchi really gives it a nice acidity
and yumminess.
- It's double smoked slab bacon
that is miso and sesame glazed so it's pretty rich,
little bit on the salty side but has some brown sugar
in there, some brown rice vinegar, and the smokiness
of the smoked bacon to cut through all of that.
- That miso is just savory-sweet.
That is good.
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This is a scramble, but you call it bibimbap.
- [David] Originally we were gonna do it
with the rice because
of bap being in the title and everything
but just in like the way it came out with the egg yolk,
it was kind of a little porridgy, so essentially,
- So you like soft scrambled eggs when you do it
- Soft scrambled eggs and butter, salt, a little gochugaru
- Mmm. - And then, all of the veg
that would normally, like a classic bibimbap,
a little black sesame seed and gochujang sauce,
it's the same sauce we use for bibimbaps for dinner service.
- I like it because you got all the chunkiness
of the different ingredients
but the earthiness of that mushroom really just binds
it together.
This is good recipe, you should save this one.
(upbeat music)
Oh man, I feel like my hangover is cured.
Thank you so much, chef,
and if you guys want to see more Ktown,
click right here.
Not just separately, but together.
What I love about silken tofu, which is very different
than like a firm tofu which you would generally
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