A feast of Korean cuisine was held in the heart of Beverly Hills. At the Hyundai Motor Company’s new car launch event held at the Goldstein House on November 20, Korean cuisine with the theme of “Jang (Korean sauces)” and “fermentation recipes” attracted great attention.
The Korean food non-profit organization NANRO was in charge of the overall planning and operation of the food and beverage services for the “IONIQ 9 World Premiere” on November 20, which was the world’s first public unveiling of Hyundai Motor’s new model.
The Nanro explained that it combined the excellence of the IONIQ 9 with the charm of Korean food in line with the theme of the event, “Built to Belong: Space, Beyond Empathy.” To do so, Nanro invited Kwang Uh, the owner-chef of Baroo, a modern Korean dining restaurant located in the Los Angeles Arts District, as the main chef for the event. Baroo is an innovative Korean restaurant recently selected as the “2024 LA Times Restaurant of the Year”.
Uh said in an interview with the Korea Daily, “I was asked to participated in the event at the request of Nanro’ CEO, Jung Yoon Choi.”
“I wanted to show what Baroo does, so I presented a menu based on Jang and fermented recipes at this event,“ he said, adding, “I tried to highlight the elements of Korean cuisine along with the ‘Korean beauty’ of the IONIQ 9.”
At the event, participants were served grilled Makgeolli bread with lemon balm, fried mushrooms and tofu sauce, pickled vegetables in soy sauce, rice with wild greens fried Ecklonia cava, seasoned chicken with sesame leaf, stir-fried white kimchi with perilla, soy sauce-braised black cod, Korean melon Dongchimi, grilled lotus root and tofu with malt sauce. “It wasn’t a food-specialized event, and I tried to approach it with as many popular foods as possible,” said Uh.
Nanro plans to use this event as an opportunity to make Korean food a part of everyday life for people. “We will continue to work with various industries and brands to help Korean food become a part of the daily diet of people around the world,” said Nanro’s CEO Choi, who oversaw the event. ”We are committed to developing and expanding Korean food into a global business.”
Nanro is a non-profit organization that aims to promote Korean food culture and Korean food culture education. It is engaged in the industrialization, research, and cultivation of future talent for Korean cuisine and is considered to be the outpost for the globalization of Korean cuisine. The organization was launched based on the custom of “Nanrohoe,” which refers to the custom of grilling meat that was enjoyed by the practical scholars of the Joseon Dynasty, such as Yeonam Park Ji-won and Dasan Jeong Yak-yong. Led by Jung Yoon Choi, the head chef of the Sampio’s Center for Korean Flavor Research and the vice-chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Korea-China, the Nanro is joined by renowned members of the food and beverage industry, including Junghyun Park, the owner-chef of Atomix, a two-star Michelin restaurant in New York, Hee-sook Cho, the CEO of Hansikgonggan, and Su-kyoung Park, the CEO of Geumdwaeji Sikdang.
BY KYEONGJUN KIM, HOONSIK WOO [woo.hoonsik@koreadaily.com]
