By Susie Timm
There are a few things I believe as absolute food truths:
1) Innovation and creativity combined with delicious, consistent food will create revenue.
2) Figure out how to create a cult-like following of food connoisseurs and average Joes alike.
I attend the Fancy Food Show bi-annually to keep up on the trends, make new contacts and in general, to wander around for 3 days eating my face off.
The show always makes a big, big impression.
This year however, an innovative and unique concept caught my eye and kept my attention for the entire 3 days at the show.
Many nations across the world pay for large exhibit spaces and offer many of their native foodstuffs for importing and sampling.
You can stroll through Italy tasting olive oils that make you heart sing. Taste authentico empanadas in Spain or savor a bite of salty feta in Greece.
I’ve never spent a lot of time in the various food nations at the Fancy Food Show partially because there’s never been a major attraction to them for me and partially because the rest of the show is so incredibly gigantic, there’s really not enough time.
This year was different. This year the international section broke barriers and stood on its own.
All because of Hansik Pop-Up.
It was a couple of days before the show and I noticed a buzz in my twitter stream. The hashtag #HansikiPopUp was being thrown around by lucky foodiacs who had scored tickets to this mystery tasting experience.
What? A Pop-Up restaurant at the Fancy Food Show?? Put on by the nation of Korea no less? Be still my beating heart.
Hansik, the brainchild of marketing genius Wendy Chan out of NYC was described as:
“Hansik Pop-Up Restaurant is a unique experimental 10-seat full-service restaurant built for the first time inside the Korean Pavilion of the Summer Fancy Food Show in Washington D.C. Serving a 3-course “Prix Free” tasting prepared by talented star chef Akira Back, from the highly acclaimed Yellowtail restaurant in Las Vegas, to attending buyers of the food trade event during July 10-12, 2010. This is a “Meet + Eat” program and reservations are required. Buyers can enjoy this amazing dining experience after meeting with one or more of the Korean exhibitors at the Pavilion – based on availability.”
So simple, but so perfectly executed. Come to the Korean Food Pavilion. Check out the local products from the country. Enjoy a 3-course lunch featuring the flavors and products in the pavilion. Savor the experience. Buy Korean foodstuffs.
Pretty amazing marketing idea–I wish I had thought of it! I almost broke my keyboard in my frenzy to book an appointment with Korea and Hansik.
I started my Hansik adventure on Sunday promptly at 10 am. I was set to interview the delegation from Korea selling black garlic. A sweet, almost licorice-flavored garlic clove used to aid digestion and as a popular snack food in Korea.
After learning more than I could have imagined about that product, my colleague and I settled in for our lunch at Hansik.
The menu was pretty straightforward, a choice of 3 starters, 2 main courses and a dessert as well as cocktail choices.
For a cocktail, I tried the Kor Royal—the Korean version of the classic “Kir Royale” using famous Korean raspberry wine. It was effervescent delight in a glass.–a pretty cool plastic champagne glass at that.
I chose a kogi taco with Serrano perfume, micro cilantro and smoked tomato salsa as my starter. It was everything I had hoped it would be—rich, smoky with a hint of spice from the Serrano pepper “perfume.” Kogi style tacos are a staple in Korean cuisine all over the world. It was delish.
Next, I chose the Galbi Jjim, a prime beef dish with aged black garlic, potato and micro carrot.
It was a Korean take on a roast beef dinner and it was superb! I enjoyed the incorporation of the garlic (that I now know so much about!) and the meat was moist, tender and very flavorful.
For dessert they served raspberry delight with mocha and Korea “tea air.”
This was my first experience with “air” but I encountered it later at Jose Andres’ pop-up restaurant, America Eats Tavern.
I have decried for the world—Air is the new Foam. They are strangely similar I must say….but alas; I’m all about keeping up with the trends.
My dining experience at Hansik was exceptional for so many reasons but not withstanding my personal interview with athlete-turned-chef Akira Back.
Back took time to chat with me on Monday morning before Hansik started rolling into day 2.
The first thing Back asked me is about my relationship with Scottsdale Wunder-Chef Beau MacMillan. He was pleased to learn I was a friend of “his boy” and when I related that back to MacMillan—he was equally excited. I feel a mutual fist bump coming on.
I first had the opportunity to sample Back’s food at this year’s Scottsdale Culinary Festival back in April. Back and his crew came from Yellowtail at the Bellagio to treat Scottsdale foodsters to his insanely good Kobe beef Carpaccio. I think I went back for 5th’s and 6th’s. It was the very best thing I tasted at the Culinary Festival that day!
I pressed Back for his Carpaccio secrets and he told me it was available at the restaurant in Vegas and I should come visit.
Back has been at the helm at Yellowtail for 4 years after stints as a baseball player in Korea and a professional snowboarder in Aspen.
Injuries caused his sports career to end abruptly but his desire to cook led him to Kenichi Restaurant in Aspen.
“I showed up with blue hair and the owner made me go home and shave my head. He let me start by washing dishes,” said Back.
Eventually Back worked his way up to Executive Chef and after learning the ropes in the kitchen (and improving his English), he enrolled in and graduated from the Art Institute of Colorado with a degree in culinary arts.
After graduation Back took the time to travel and open restaurants around the USA. He landed back in Aspen and took the helm at Nobu’s namesake restaurant in 2003. After that he opened up Yellowtail at the Bellagio in 2008.
I am excited to see him in Vegas when I visit this month!
The menu at Hansik was inspired by Back’s “childhood favorites and Korean memories.”
I am more-than impressed. What an incredibly creative idea that brought a lot of attention to Korean food and one spectacular chef.
I wonder who will try to top this culinary feat at the next Fancy Food Show in January?
