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If you go to Korean Temple Cuisine in the East
Village, chances
are that owner Joohee Maeng will remember your name.
Maeng tends to all her customers with the same care and attention she gives her
cooking. She describes her restaurant as "homecooking
style made with love and with a beautiful presentation." Not only are her dishes homemade from
scratch, but Maeng also concentrates on creating healthy dishes.
She explains,
"I want my restaurant to be vegetarian friendly and
health conscious so that
people will come back 3 or 4 times a week because this style of food
is available."
As a result, customers keep coming back for more of her traditional as well as experimental
Korean dishes, all with a vegetarian option.
Having always loved to host and entertain, Maeng jumped at the chance
last year to open her own restaurant. In her last
semester at NYU's Food Studies and Management program, she got a loan
that gave her the chance to open Korean Temple Cuisine. Now she and her sister
run the restaurant together offering New Yorkers a fresh and healthy
option for Korean food.
AsiaFood spoke with Joohee Maeng about her distinctive
cooking style and the philosophy behind her restaurant.
When and how did you open your restaurant?
 I opened this restaurant a year and three months ago.
I was going to graduate school at NYU for Food Studies and
Management and I was always interested in opening a restaurant.
I think hosting and entertaining are in my blood. I love food and drinks.
I love that I can introduce good Korean food at
reasonable prices to people in New York City. So it was my last semester
and I was looking for a restaurant site. But I didn't have any money
so there was no reason for me to look for a site because I kept thinking, "How am I going to get
the money to do it?" But one of the classes I took at NYU was
called Entrepeneurship in Food Studies and Management. It teaches
you how to write
a business plan and supposedly if you do this right, you can bring it to
a bank and they will give you a loan.
After this class I brought my business plan and other required papers
to the bank and two weeks later they cut me a check! So I was
really lucky to have this opportunity to get me started.
Why did you focus on Korean Temple food?
 I think you have to understand the population and the trends. These days
people are so conscious of what they eat. They tend to stay away from
fried or fatty foods.
So I decided to serve traditional Korean food but at the same time
I really wanted to give a choice
for vegetarian style. I want my restaurant to be vegetarian friendly and
health conscious so that
people will come back 3 or 4 times a week because this style of food
is available.
What is the philosophy behind your restaurant?
 Our philosophy is that we truly believe that homecooking is
the best food. My father
is the best cook in the family and I think he left that
impression because he used to go shopping
and prepare everything from scratch. So our philosophy here is
that we don't make anything in advance.
A lot of restaurants have high volume so they use peeled
garlic and prepared foods. But in my restaurant
we believe that peeling garlic ourselves gives a totally different taste.
Especially since garlic is
an important ingredient in Korean cooking. So
if someone orders tofu kimchi stew we make if from scratch
using the freshest ingredients. It's homecooking
style made with love and with a beautiful presentation.
How did you get interested in cooking?
I have always loved cooking. I think it started when I was young.
I grew up with a single father and so I had to
take the role of cooking. As I got older I really loved hosting and
entertaining. So in order for me to do that
I had to really learn how to cook. So I bought a lot of cooking books
and took cooking classes and I studied
hospitality as an undergraduate.
Was your father in the restaurant business?
No he was not, but our family situation made him cook because we
were so young and didn't know what to do. He did a really great
job and now if I want to come up with a seasonal menu the first
person I talk to is my father. I can call him and ask him how to
make Kalbi Jim and if he has time he comes down and shows
me in the back of the kitchen. Even if he doesn't have time he will
write me an email with suggestions.
What are the distinguishing characteristics of your cuisine?
 If you are looking for something traditional such as kimchi stew,
miso stew, seafood casserole, haemul tang, or pajun,
we have it. But if you want to try something a little different
with a fun new twist, we also have it here. For instance,
if you order our dish Ku jol pan you can make your own
pancakes with nine different fillings presented at your table. Autumn
rolls are also a popular dish. People love it and we have so
many regulars who come and order the same thing. So
when we see
them we know what they want.
What are some of your customers' favorites?
 The appetizer Bulgogi Duk-bo-ki is traditional rice cake
with thinly sliced beef in a sweet soy sauce. Traditionally in Korea
Duk-bo-ki is served with a spicy sauce but I wanted to differentiate
my cooking from general Korean food. Temple vegetarian autumn
rolls are also very popular. It is baby lettuce leaves with
shitake mushrooms, bean sprout
salad, carrots with slices of avocados and sauteed tofu dipped in
teriyaki sauce. It is served with a miso dipping sauce and is really
beautiful. We also have a traditional Korean pancake with kimchi,
calamari, shrimp, and squash. And we serve the Korean meatball called
Wanja. Our entrees cover most traditional Korean foods but
we also have dishes like miso glazed salmon and tofu with mixed vegetables
and ginger soy sauce. We can pretty much make everything vegetarian,
including Dol sot bibimbop, which is traditionally served
with beef but we can make it with tofu.
How do you come up with new dishes?
We do try a lot of different things. I love going to the green market
at 14th Street and Union Square. We go there in the morning and get
the freshest ingredients and you can really tell the difference. For
instance, when you make bibim guk soo, which is an Asian
noodle in a spicy sauce, you can definitely taste the difference when
you use vegetables from the green market. Cucumbers smell like cucumbers.
When you mix all the vegetables together it is so fresh and fragrant.
We also try to go to different restaurants to see what is going on. We
read books and talk to my father. But the green market is the biggest
inspiration for me. You can find the fresh seasonal vegetables and
it helps determine what we do here.
 AsiaFood's
online
exhibition on Korean temple food focuses on the relationship
between Buddhism and food. Are there any Buddhist influences in
your approach?
I cannot say our restaurant is strictly temple cuisine since
Buddhists are vegetarians and we serve meat dishes. But the reason I have
a picture of Buddha in here is more cultural than religious.
Buddhists put a lot of thought into their food experience.
For instance, they might chew their food more than fifty
times to think about where the food came from. The way we serve
and present food has that element of
meditation. It's about taking your time to relax and
enjoy the food. But we are not purists because we do serve bulgogi!
When you were living in Korea, did you have temple food?
Yes, my mom used to take me to temple. After bowing and praying,
we would go into a big kitchen and they served us bibimbop
made with only mountain grown vegetables. I think it is called
San Chae Bibimbop and it was so clean and fresh.
I was
young and they gave me this huge bowl but I had no problem finishing
all of it.
It was a local temple. There are still a
lot of temples in Korea that are open to the public.
Do you know of any specific health benefits of this type of food?
Kimchi stew is really good for hangovers. We have an article that talks
about how kimchi was served in Oslo for the Nobel Prize
reception because it had been scientifically proven that kimchi cures
hangovers, headaches and nausea. It seems to have also helped with SARS!
Korean people were not as widely affected by SARS and it
was written up in the
Financial Times that kimchi has certain elements
that might have helped fight the virus.
But I think in the long run if you eat Korean
food it has a lot of garlic and ginger
that could help against certain cancers. We also eat a lot of tofu,
which is high in protein.
Korean Temple Cuisine
81 St. Marks Place
New York, NY 10003
tel: 212-979-9300
http://www.ktcnyc.com
Interview conducted by Cindy Yoon of AsiaFood
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