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About Me

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  Illustration: cooking banchan, as I did every morning Hello, I’m Mihwa. For 35 years, I ran a Korean side dish shop called Hong’s Food in Bucheon, a city in Gyeonggi Province, next to Seoul. Every day I made more than 30 different banchan, from kimchi to rolled omelets, stir-fried fish cake, seaweed stems, and quail eggs braised in soy sauce. My customers were mostly busy neighbors: office workers and working mothers who stopped by in the evening on their way home. They didn’t have time to cook ten dishes, so they came to me to put a home-style dinner on the table. Over the years, I learned what a family needs from a bowl of rice and a few good side dishes. Because of my age, I closed the shop. But I didn’t want to stop sharing what I know. That’s why I started this blog. What You’ll Find Here Korean food culture. What Koreans eat every day, why a meal is built the way it is, and how to eat each dish. Recipes and home cooking. How I made my dishes, with the small details...
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What Is Banchan? A Korean Side Dish Shop Owner Explains After 35 Years

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Illustration: a Korean banchan table, rice in the center For 35 years, I ran a banchan shop in Bucheon, a city in Gyeonggi Province, right next to Seoul. Every day I made more than 30 different side dishes.  My customers were mostly busy people,  office workers and working mothers who stopped by in the evening on their way home.  And every so often, someone asked me a version of the same question:  “What exactly is banchan?” Koreans rarely need to ask, because they grew up with it.  But visitors from abroad, and even young Koreans who have never cooked for themselves,  wonder about it.  So let me answer the way I would if you were standing at my counter. Illustration of a neighborhood banchan shop like mine in Bucheon The Short Answer Banchan (반찬) means the side dishes served with rice in a Korean meal. In Korea, rice is the center of the table, and banchan is everything that makes the rice delicious. You don’t eat banchan alone the way you might eat a...
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