- I'm always a little skeptical about
Korean restaurants that are a little bit trendier
and they're hip and they don't necessarily adhere
to like more of a traditional format.
And we're here at Gaja which is in the village
of East Atlanta.
It's a fun part of town!
It's loud, there's a lotta bars,
there's live music, there's a biker bar.
The sister and two brothers are making
Korean food that's legit.
And they are servin' it to anybody,
Koreans, non-Koreans.
(fun, happy music)
What're you guys showin' tonight?
- Oldboy.
- Oh, dude!
- Yeah. - People gonna be eating
with Oldboy on?
- These people are expecting of that.
(laughs heartily)
(funky, uptown music)
- Let's get some drinks!
- Well, this is our Pressure Drop.
So, the ingredients are dark rum,
we also use persimmons here,
that we make in-house.
And since persimmons are so Korean.
- Oh man!
- C'mon by right, - That's good!
- Red Fashioned Leather.
It's our take on an Old Fashioned.
We took red beans, sweet red beans.
We made a syrup outta that,
and we made a tincture.
of gochugaru
It gives it that quality of meat, like kinda
just like when you first taste it of,
kinda like fireball, like cinnamon.
- 'Cause it has that, the heat with cinnamon.
But it's much more elegant.
How'd you get into this?
- Over a drunk conversation at a bar,
brother and sister, it's all about the music
for us, we played music growing up,
our whole lives.
And when we came up with this place, it was like,
oh what do we really like, it was like,
we love punk rock, we love rock-and-roll.
It was like, well we also love Korean food,
and us bein' in town, made it real hard to,
get Korean food unless you drive over
the Beeper highway about 45 minutes up.
So, you know we figured, why not just
bring it a little closer to home.
We didn't wanna stray too far from,
this traditional Korean food,
but, I mean us all bein' from the South,
I mean we all sorta have that sorta influence,
like, Southern food, comfort food,
Korean in large sense, is comfort food.
(lively, adventurous music)
I always loved Mexican corn.
You know what I mean.
- I love that.
- I like shrimp chips with everything.
- You guys, - So we actually sprinkle,
- Cracked (in foreign language) on here?
- Mmm hmm. - Oh my god!
- And then off just a little
gochugaru for spice,
and then we actually make a Kewpie mayo in house.
- And what's the cheese on here?
- This is just Parmesan,
we wanted a milder cheese.
- It's nice, 'cause you got like a,
gentle grillmarks to give it a little bit of,
that kinda base note.
And the, the cheese doesn't overwhelm the corn.
- That's ideal.
(electronic music)
This is our version of a gimbap.
We took Kim Pop, put a lil' nori
and put a hot dog in it.
'Cause you know.
- Hot dog gimbap, - Hot dog,
is just something that my mom put in everything.
Every Korean dish.
We had Po gimbap,
we had anything, hot dogs were in there.
So it's a little bitta mayo,
gochujang
we roll a little kimchi in there.
- That's awesome!
It's gimbap but then, you got this nice chunk
of hot dog in there,
that gives it a meatiness.
The rice itself just kinda soaks up that oil,
this is evil man!
Wait, so you guys put the Popon on the side?
of the danmuji?
- We put it on the side.
- You know growing up I would always,
- Always push 'em out.
- I did that too!
- Always push them out.
- Oh my gosh, are you serious?
- I did not appreciate it until I got
to be maybe 18 or 19. - Totally!
Oh my god!
I would always be the weird dude at church,
yeah, you just use your finger like a chopstick
and you're like,
is that a Daikon radish and I would, dude.
Oh my god, I've literally never met
anyone else that does that.
Tell me about the hush puppies.
- Uh, (in foreign language)
is the big thing.
- (in foreign language) is like a,
- A mung bean sort of pancake. - A mung bean pancake, yeah.
Everyone loves hush puppies,
like deep-fried balls, you know,
they're delicious.
But, - Balls of?
- I guess, well this is mung bean.
- Yeah,
- And one thing we found, - It's a formula, right?
- Yeah, it's a formula, something we've
really loved about the texture is like,
it almost has like a Mochi texture.
This is really soft, stringy texture.
(energetic, upbeat music)
- Is there cheese in there?
What??
It tastes like fried cheese.
Well, I mean just in terms of texture.
- Everyone thinks it's cheese,
but it's just mung beans.
Oh yeah, I'm gonna hop back, in the kitchen,
help them out, and actually let my sister explain
some of the last coupla dishes.
- We wanna thank you.
- Hey man, thank you.
- Super good.
Hi!
- Hey, how's it goin'?
The three of us grew up very American.
They sent me to culinary school,
- Wait, so they, just for you to open this place,
- My parents sent me, - They're like,
well, you can't open a restaurant, you gotta
go to culinary school first.
- Exactly!
My parents came when they were like 15,
to New York, then we moved to Georgia
and that's where Danny and I were born,
here in Georgia.
But we really grew up,
in a predominantly white area.
And we went to private school for
about half of our school career.
It's been really difficult for us to
relate to, like the Korean community
here in Atlanta.
- I understand.
- I have like some Korean friends that I even
tried to get to come see our restaurant
when we first opened, and it's just so hard
for them to get out, but I definitely
feel like now, it's changing.
And now, like a Korean community
is venturing out.
We do see a lot more Korean kids comin' by,
which is a really nice change.
(serious, intense music)
- And this is your version of
bossam
called braised pork belly on the menu.
- We brine the pork.
Then we sear the pork.
Then we braise the pork.
And then we cook it off, you know, to order.
And then we garnish it with Korean
pear with the pit and microgreens on top.
- I like how it wobbles.
(laughs heartily)
Oh, no!
That was definitely the most insane
bossam I've ever had in my life.
You know usually bossam
does have an element of meatiness to it,
this whole thing is just like a gelatinous,
like, flab of fat!
Wonderful, it's nice.
You've taken bossam
to a new place.
Everyone has like fantasies of like,
"Oh, if I were to open a restaurant,
"like what would it be?"
But like, maybe 10 years ago, like outta school,
and I told my friend who was a cook,
like a mock menu out,
and it's basically this menu.
Korean bar food that's, you know just made
a little bit more special,
and it's familiar for non-Koreans,
with good technique,
you guys totally copied my idea from 10 years ago
and I'm really, really upset right now.
No!!! (cackles)
Well, it looks like movie night's
just about to start,
thank you so much for watching,
and if you love K-town and you wanna see more,
click right here.
There was this American barbecue place
with like a true Korean influence,
I was like, I must go there.