- So I'm here in Chicago in the middle of winter,
and I'm freezing, but I'm super excited
to try this restaurant, that's from this
Korean-American chef and his two brothers,
who own the place, that are half Polish, half Korean.
Their mom's Korean, dad's Polish.
They grew up here in Chicago, and you have Polish dishes
influenced by Korean flavors.
I'm super excited to try it.
(upbeat music)
- So there's a huge Polish community here in Chicago.
- Yes, so what I found out growing up in Chicago,
in the Northwest side of the city, is that we have
the largest population of Polish people
outside of Warsaw, Poland.
The fusion here it really does stem from kind
of the ownership, you know?
They had Polish sausages laying around,
they had a jar of Kimchi laying around,
why not have that act as sauerkraut
and put it on your Polish sausage?
Just slather it on.
- Polish food has sauerkraut,
- Oh, absolutely!
- has red cabbage, that seems to be like a big tie,
like what are the similarities that you see
between Polish and--
- I mean, the similarities, again,
it's all about kind of like slowly rotting food
that's delicious, you know?
The foundation is still there, the dumplings,
the kimchi, the sauerkraut, the rice, the starches,
these things are dominant in both cultures
and the crossover is almost perfect.
Like, when you think of sour cream,
it's a little acidic, has a tart flavor,
you introduce really umami sesame seed oil to it,
it rounds it out.
- Maria's Standard.
This is like your signature dish.
- Yeah, so that's basically what started
this whole thing, honestly, with the food
and the concept of Korean Polish kielbasa kimchi, exactly.
- [Matthew] How did you like elevate
that very simple idea though?
- [Won] So basically did a lot of R&D,
ate a lot of Polish sausages, and then the kraut,
the krautchi is what we call it,
and we use all the traditional kimchi ingredients
into this traditional red cabbage.
- [Matthew] Totally different than Napa cabbage.
- [Won] Totally different than OG Korean cabbage.
That's our own creation hybrid right there,
and then our mustard, we use soju
to steep the mustard seeds.
- Oh wow, who, what is your clientele look like?
And what do they want?
- It's really been very, I can't,
it's really hard to pinpoint this neighborhood.
We have strictly Korean, 100% Korean people come in,
and expecting the Korean experience,
and we've had, I've sat Polish families here
looking for that 100% Polish, I'm like
again, look at this, this has nothing to do with Poland.
- But they like it?
- Yeah, y'know, I think so.
It's meant to be fun, it's meant to be relaxed and casual.
We're not, at the end of the day,
the most important thing is that we make good food.
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- What's really different is that you smell
immediately a lot of herbs, and the herbs are
dill and just dill, basically,
and that's really strange for me
'cause that is not a part of Korean food.
Maria's Standard.
That's really good, I mean this is just
a really really nice version of a Polish,
Polish dog, they're not like a Chicago style hot dog,
which I like, this one is more
just about the kielbasa itself.
I just want to like have the real fusion here, right?
'cause you have the krautchi and the soju mustard,
I'm gonna just go for that.
It's really good, that soju really comes through
when you just have the mustard--
I think I need my own side of mustard
to put over this and I love how you get
that hit of booziness that's very,
it's not really typical of mustard.
So I've had Korean-style poutine before,
but this, I mean, ohh.
This never gets old.
Oh, but I have not had it with this kimchi gravy,
and frickin' bulgogi in here.
I mean how can that be bad, it's so fantastic.
Kimchi, the gravy, it, I mean it's rich.
It legitimately feels like you're eating something Korean,
and then you get the bulgogi which is
sweet and tender, beefy.
This is a fantastic drunk food.
Now the chef was talking about how gravy
is the sort of condiment, the common condiment
that you would see in a lot of Polish foods,
and yet they've added kimchi,
which makes a lot of sense to me,
because gravy is awesome, but it's kinda one-note right?
It's just fatty and savory, but when you add the kimchi,
it adds a little more umami flavor,
it adds depth, it balances it in a really smart way.
Malört?
Oh, we are in Chicago, ahh.
It's actually not bad, I mean it's super weird,
Malört is one of the most bizarre boozes on earth.
I'm gonna try this 'Dduk bok ski',
which is very hard to say, but is kind of
an evil dish to me, because dduk bokk-is are fantastic
just comfort food, so I'm gonna go for this.
Let's got one thing clear, is that this is not dduk bok-ki.
In the way that you would expect,
because dduk bok-ki is usually boiled
so the rice cakes are very soft and chewy,
they're almost like well-cooked pasta.
When he takes this and he deep fries it,
then the chewiness of the rice cake
just goes up to next level, but the texture
of this deep fried rice cake is like nothing
that I've had in Korean food.
I don't know whether I like this or not,
but it's pretty evil in the idea of it, and the execution.
This is the scallion potato pancake,
and you know Koreans have a potato pancake,
Gamjajeon, but then at the same time he actually
grates the potato in here, to give it
that kind of latke feel that you would see
in a lot of Eastern European cuisines,
and he's taken pork belly, strewn it across the top,
and this more of this krautchi on here,
so definitely a very conceivable fusion
of Polish and Korean, so,
I actually think this might be the most clever
of the dishes that he's made in a really subtle way
because the texture of the grated potato,
I mean, it reminds me of latke,
and yet something residual from the krautchi
that feels like I'm having a Korean dish.
There's something about the balance
of how Polish it is and yet how
Korean it is that's super cool.
It's nice, I mean this krautchi is so good,
it's so different than Korean kimchi
because Korean kimchi is just how do we say it?
It's got this kind of lower punch,
and I think the sauerkraut is a little brighter,
it's a little fresher to me,
and I don't know if that's just because the cabbage leaves
are a little bit thinner, they're thinly shaved,
whereas a lot of times with kimchi,
you know with the Napa cabbage,
you have that nice chunk of the white,
the white cabbage that holds up.
There's no Korean dishes here,
and yet the chef is really smart
about incorporating Korean ingredients
and cooking techniques into this very familiar,
kind of bar-friendly food.
Thank you so much for watching,
and if you want 6to see more of K-Town in Chicago,
click right here.