Excerpts below, but the Full interview can heard on the podcast, LISTEN HERE, and available anywhere podcasts are found “Let Me Tell You Why…with Jeremy Jacobowitz”! In the full interview we dive deeper into what Sam learned from opening and running Golden Diner, and their success, plus more about the Korean eating culture and bringing that to the restaurants.

Tell us about your restaurant?

So we're located right across the street from Rockefeller Center. It's my second project. It's a fairly large step up, I would say, from Golden Diner, which is a 30-seat restaurant. This is a dual-concept project that spans over two floors, 200 seats.

We're capable of serving 200 guests at a time. There's two private dining rooms. And the first floor concept is a Korean pub (Golden HOF), something that I used to go to a lot when I lived in Korea for a bit. And it's our take on what that is. So it's very Korean American. And there's also a very synergistically appropriate concept on the lower level, which is NY Kimchi. That was the name of my family's restaurant that was in the space prior to my taking it over this year. And I kept the name, but we revamped the concept instead of like a classic like Koreatown barbecue spot, it’s slightly elevated Korean raw bar and steakhouse.

Is there extra pressure since this is not only a new business, but a cotinuatuion of your family’s legacy?

Absolutely. Like, there's so much riding on this project that I can't lose, we can't fail kind of thing. We've been trying to listen to a lot of guest feedback where we should, but also stick to our guns where we believe, you know, we've made the right choices.

What was the idea behind splitting the top floor and bottom floor into two different concepts?

There's a lot of reasons for it, but the space is sort of divided in a way where sort of is like a front area that sort of needs to be activated. And then you walk through a hallway and then there's a back area with a large dining room. And we also inherited 16 barbecue tables that already had the infrastructure in them. So it was weird to make the whole concept a barbecue restaurant, which I think it could have sustained, but there were no barbecue tables upstairs. So how could we make the upstairs area, still a fun, vibey concept and space and feeling. How can we create a vibey feeling?While still making it not two such separate concepts where it's like one's like omakase and the one's like a steakhouse, which actually also might work. But I'm thinking more like, you know, it's a pub people are drinking, they're having a good time having a drink upstairs. And then if they want to settle down for a proper dinner, they can go downstairs kind of thing. Or vice versa, people have a solid dinner and they want to end with a nightcap, then they go upstairs.

Tell me about the research that went into creating the new menu? You went to Korea right?

I signed onto this project two and a half years ago. So I've been working on it for quite a bit, but last January I went to Korea and Japan for the first time. Korea I haven't been to since 15 years ago, but I was fortunate to take about a month off and rigorously road trip throughout the countryside of Korea, which I loved so much more than being in Seoul or Busan, just because I think I'm a country kid at heart. And my family's also from the countryside. So I spent a bunch of time in the Jeollanam-do province, which they're known for having really amazing cooks and food. It's similar to like the Emilia Romagna of Italy kind of thing where it's like that's where Parma comes from, Tortellini and Brodo, like prosciutto. So yeah, that's also where my mother, my grandmother is from. And so I made sure to hit up those spaces, not only for a culinary growth, just cultural and like understanding what where I where my where my heritage and my background comes from. And it was really, really touching, moving experience.

What about Korean food do you think a typical American doesnt understand?

Well, I think the beauty of what you're asking me is that New York City specifically is being so much more receptive to not just a barbecue and bibimbap and kimchi, which has been sort of like the the main standing dishes over the past, I would say, two decades. And now they're open to other dishes like naengmyeon and jjajangmyeon is being written about and like all these other dishes that make Koreans so varied and eclectic, which I really appreciate. And a lot of it has to do with the fine dining Korean chefs that are out there pushing the envelope in terms of offering things that wouldn't have been appropriate 10 years ago. For example, Moono, I think they might have one Michelin star. I know their sister restaurant, Jua, does. Their chef offers sundae, which is the Korean blood sausage, which is one of my favorite dishes. And they do a damn good one. And so I'm really happy to see that they're doing it and then doing the dish and the cuisine right.

What are your favorite things on the menu upstairs and downstairs?

I really think our rose rigatoni is really awesome and special and it doesn't just taste like a tomato sauce rigatoni kind of thing because we make it with dashi and so you have that like element of smoke and umami in there, but it balances out really nicely with the tomato gochujang sauce and then obviously HOFs are known for wings and our wings are I think very special flavors, but the one that's like different and extra special is our cumin and green szechuan wing. And then I think to round it out, there should always be like a crudite that we offer with ssamjang aioli, or we have a really delicious Korean version of a cilantro cucumber salad.

And then downstairs, I really love the idea of our tuna tartare and flavor as well. It's based off a Chinese Korean dish called tangsuyuk and jjajangmyeon, is like sweet and sour pork. Jjajangmyeon is the black bean noodle. So we flavor the tuna tartare with pineapple, bell peppers, soy, a little bit of plum syrup for sweetness. And that is sort of like the sweet and sour pork flavors.

And then we also add a little bit of fish sauce to give a little bit umami. And then for the jjajangmyeon aspect of the dish, and the reason why this makes sense is because both dishes are eaten together. We make rice crackers and we dust them with jjajang dust, so we dehydrate fermented black beans.

What is the most iconic NYC restaurant in your eyes?

It would be Torissi. That's very New York to me, but that's sort of like New World. And then Old World, Peter Luger. When I think classic New York, it's that.

YOUTUBE

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GAMING

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