Starting Oct. 14, customers at Korean favorite Queens will be able to eat spicy braised tofu and sip on a glass of natural wine or small-batch soju inside the Inner Sunset market.
Owners Clara Lee and Eddo Kim are opening a space in the back of the 9th Avenue store for in-person dining and drinking for the first time. The duo created a new menu that highlights their passion for celebrating small Korean producers through a playful California lens. There will be haemul buchu jeon, a crispy seafood pancake with local garlic chives, and golbaengi muchim, a cold salad of snails, quick-seared mortadella and scallions in homage to Korea’s love for snails and Spam (with mortadella subbing for the classic canned meat product). Bowls of chewy, fresh-milled rice cakes from Hayward’s J R Rice Bakery are served in a purposefully loose gochujang sauce, ideal for dipping kimbap and other snacks.
The new creations are “very much beloved classic heritage dishes ... foods that we frequently found as part of the tablescape at home as snacks after school or at dinner, and dishes meant for sharing,” Lee said.
Lee and Kim will also serve a rotating list of wines by the glass, plus craft beer and soju. Four brightly colored, geometric shape cafe tables and stools are set up in view of the open kitchen.
Geotjeori salad made with Napa cabbage, oyster, chives and citrus from Queens in San Francisco.
Brontë Wittpenn/The ChronicleIt’s a return to their original dream for Queens, where they source artisan products from Korea and make their own banchan, gochujang and sesame oil in house. Pre-pandemic, they hosted pop-up dinners featuring many of the pantry staples for sale at the market, like an umami-rich fermented tuna sauce and gochugaru made from heirloom hot peppers hand-harvested in Jirisan, South Korea.
“We want people to be able to see what kind of products are going into the food that they’re eating,” Kim said. “Indoor dining at a grocery (store) is awesome.”
Lee and Kim opened Queens in 2019, creating a curated, unique selection of special Korean products, like anchovies flown in from a renowned fisherman in Korea, plus Bay Area ingredients they love. Their banchan pulls from seasonal farmers’ market produce, like a hit tomato kimchi in the summer and a crisp fennel and Asian pear kimchi in the winter. A refrigerated section is stocked with the same daikon radishes, perilla leaves and Meji tofu that go into their dishes.
Queens owners Clara Lee, left, and Eddo Kim, are offering a dine-in menu for the first time at their market in hopes to further customers’ education on Korean food.
Brontë Wittpenn/The ChronicleFor the couple, whose parents both immigrated from Korea to America in the 1980s, the market aims to be nostalgic for those who grew up on ddeok bokki and educational for those who are newer to Korean cuisine. The new dine-in space reflects that goal as well.
“It’s a great opportunity for our staff to share how dishes are prepared and what we’re using and literally guide them to it and have them try to make it at home,” Lee said.
Queens’ dine-in menu will be available 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. People can also grab packaged banchan, snacks like honey butter chips and a beer from the fridge and hang out at the tables until the market closes at 6 p.m.
Lee and Kim have steadily grown Queens’ footprint beyond the Inner Sunset superette. You can now find their gochujang and other house-made products in specialty stores throughout the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. They’re also behind a snacky menu served at new natural wine bar Bar Part Time in the Mission.
Queens. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. 1235 Ninth Ave., San Francisco. queenssf.com/
Elena Kadvany is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany
"lively" - Google News
October 05, 2021 at 11:27PM
https://ift.tt/2YwmIrI
SF Korean market favorite Queens is adding a lively indoor dining area - San Francisco Chronicle
"lively" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35lls9S
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "SF Korean market favorite Queens is adding a lively indoor dining area - San Francisco Chronicle"
Post a Comment