“Like an Italian pasta sauce.”
That’s how Sungeun Naomi Park describes her simmered version of soy sauce, adapted from a recipe passed down to her from her mom and grandma, and a key reason why her Korean comfort food tastes so delicious.
“It’s a soy sauce, but what I would do is I will get fresh ingredients, like vegetables, and I will put like kelp and all kinds of natural ingredients,” said Park, who recently opened the restaurant Taylor Seoul Food in the former gymnasium of Old Taylor High, 407 W 9th St. “You kind of cook them, like a pasta sauce, and then with that sauce, I marinate the chicken. I marinate the beef.”
“It has like a deep flavor,” Park said. “The taste is kind of consistent; it’s easy even for my staff when I’m not there.”
Park opened the restaurant in July after nearly a year of visiting Taylor based on a tip from her dad that Samsung Austin Semiconductor was coming.
“I think it was last year, about September,” she recalled. “My dad, he lives in Seoul, he briefly mentioned that I heard Samsung might go into Taylor, so I was like, ‘Oh, OK. I didn’t know where Taylor was.”
Though Park grew up in Korea, she had lived in Leander during high school, and then later returned to Texas State University to study before settling in Austin with a job in market research.
With her son headed off to college and facing an empty nest, she had been wanting to try her hand at this kind of a business, and she fell in love with the historic architecture of Taylor and all the antique shops, she said.
After nearly a year of searching and figuring out how to get a permit, she opened in July, and had a ribbon cutting ceremony in early August.
Current menu items include classics, such as Korean bulgogi and bibim- bop, but also playful twists, such as kimchi fried rice gratin, which is topped
See SEOUL FOOD • page 16
“
I only have like five dishes. ... I just really want to make sure that these five dishes are going to be really good for people.”
- Sungeun Naomi Park of Taylor Seoul Food
Photos by Nicole Lessin with cheddar and Mozzarella cheese and baked in the oven.
“I only have like five dishes,” Park said. “When you go to a lot of Asian restaurants, they have a lot on the menu . . . But I just really want to make sure that these five dishes are going to be really good for people.’ Park said she changes the menu seasonally, and even weekly.
Surprisingly, Park said it took a few weeks before she had any Korean visitors from Samsung, or its ancillary businesses., “It takes time for people to come and taste the food, and it’s really word of mouth,” she said.
However, before long, Park did find an unexpected source of new fans.
“A really touching moment for me is that a lot of senior people who served in the Korean War or after the Korean War are coming,” she said.
“And they remember the food. They really like the food.”
“It touched my heart,” she added.
“It makes me cry because they really like the food.”
And all that makes the long hours and the uncertain future of a new restaurant business worth the effort.
“Food is not just food,” she said.
“Food is something that you share with other people. It makes memories. It’s creating memories with your families and friends.”
