Founder Sammy Pak plops balls of fresh dough onto a flat-top grill, pressing them into golden-crisp discs with a special metal weight. Like any good bao, the sweet rice flour dough is chewy, tender and satisfying to rip with your teeth. The classic ($4.95) is vegan, made with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and sunflower seeds that melt into a sweet and earthy syrup on the grill. I also loved the Yee Katsu ($6.95), a gooey chicken and cheese version that gets a tangy snap from generous amounts of Japanese Worcestershire sauce in the mix. Opened by former Korean grocery-store owner Moon Young Yun in 2011, Manna has become a key presence in a neighborhood stacked with excellent immigrant-run restaurants and cafes.
The transition from fine-dining restaurant into retail, which many local restaurant owners have made to survive the pandemic, is challenging both operationally and financially, he said. Restaurateurs, most for the first time, are learning on the fly how to package and produce items and how much volume is needed to be sustainable. Given the difficulty of being a seasonal Korean restaurant, the menu also highlights California produce, such as summer tomatoes served with perilla and a vinegar-seaweed sauce. After a year of operating quietly as a private dining space in downtown Palo Alto, Korean restaurant Maum will open to the public three nights a week in July. The Kims describe the restaurant as a co-mingling of Korean and Tawianese flavors.
Often regarded as one of the most traditional dishes in Korea, kimchi has long been prepared with fermented vegetables. To get you the best from the Korean peninsula right here in Palo Alto we analyzed top review sites and expert opinions. If endless seafood options and great rice bowls sound good then visit the Korean eateries below. In the future, the Kims say, there’s also the possibility that they’ll offer meal kits and other prepared food items. They’ve also discussed using the kitchen as a kind of incubator to feature the products of up-and-coming pastry chefs, they say.
One of Don Blanc’s specialties is beef intestine, tender and chewy and available in three sizes. The latest update includes exciting second acts, like Corey Lee’s upscale San Ho Won and Hotline, a Korean Chinese restaurant by the folks behind Queens. It also includes some unexpected options, like a hotteok pop-up and a deli with a weekly banchan menu. Practice listening, improve your pronunciation, and learn to speak a foreign language with native speakers – no matter where you are. Currently growing at the farm is Napa cabbage, Korean daikon radish, perilla and chrysanthemum, among other produce. Meichih said they hope to provide a space where people from different generations can come together time and time again, and try different foods to suit the appetites of the day.
Everything will be sold on a pre-order basis, with customers ordering items to pick up via Tock, and no one will be allowed to come inside to shop. Founded by the team behind San Jose’s Danbi, Omogari is another excellent addition to the South spanish side dish Bay city’s nascent Korean food scene. The interior is modest, with muted decor, though the food adds plenty of character to the experience. If you’ve got a taste for over-the-top spectacles — and broiled cheese — Omogari’s got you covered.
Enormous mandu dumplings, wiggly acorn jelly salads and lettuce wraps cradling tender grilled pork belly have made Jang Su Jang a constant favorite of Korean cuisine lovers here. Recommend it to your friends who are skeptical that nothing in the Bay Area can match Los Angeles’ Korean food offerings. Jang Su Jang’s broad menu includes Korean barbecue classics, gigantic dumplings ($21) and a crustacean-heavy seafood soup ($23) with toothy hand-cut noodles.
“Thinking about our dining format and the landscape of fine dining — sitting there for long, extended amounts of time next to strangers — it’s just uncomfortable for people, and they won’t have a good experience,” Meichi Kim tells Eater SF. When diners arrive, they’ll stand for a 30-minute reception, during which the kitchen will serve canapés such as a corn tartlet — a riff on a low-brow Korean dish of corn and melted cheese — and “soondae,” Korean street-food blood sausage. The Maum kitchen is fueled by a small, private farm in Los Altos Hills that exclusively supplies the restaurant. Kim wanted to have a farm to ensure access to quality Korean produce, which is difficult to come by, even in the Bay Area. “The aim is to create a community gathering space where people will connect with friends, family and food,” Robert Hindman, managing director of State Street developer Los Altos Community Investment, stated in an email.
Tandem is a language exchange app where people teach each other their native language. Each month more than 500,000 people visit Tandem with 29 of them coming from Palo Alto. My main goal is to be able to comfortably understand native Spanish speakers in conversation. “One of the reasons I’ve struggled to stay engaged in practicing languages is a lack of being able to talk to native speakers, so this app is a lifesaver.”