Each prison term I return to Macon, I drive this way. For the longest clock, the old Len Berg ’ s stood evacuate. More than once, faithlessly hope bloomed. In 2012 a couple with the last name Lee opened Lee Berg ’ second in the same position. They didn ’ thymine last long, in part because they pulled out the erstwhile counter and put in a buffet. Fried chicken dies a boggy death on a steam postpone .
This meter, impression pays off. Below the big blank arrow, calm embossed with the old Len Berg ’ sulfur logo, a smaller sign reads, GRAND OPENING. Atop the build, a larger arrow points down, heralding KIMCHI FACTORY .
Things didn ’ t begin well for the restaurant. On opening day last summer, Miyang Kim fed a probation military officer who walked across the street from his position and a repairman who came to fix the walk-in and went home with an rate of bibimbap. good two customers, and only one paid. But word of Kimchi Factory spread quickly. By workweek two, Kim and her daughters Grace and Sunny, who wait tables and run the cash register, struggled to keep up with the customers who arrived to see what had become of Len Berg ’ s, stayed to eat the restaurant ’ s namesake cup of tea, and pushed the modern translation of that buzzer, lighting up social media. “ Teenagers who dated here come back with the families they made, ” Miyang Kim tells me when I introduce myself. Head wrapped in a bright red bandanna, she leans in to say, “ People show me pictures. This is a big responsibility, to open a new restaurant here. ”
Reading: A New Taste of Macon
photo: Jacqueline Stofsick The Kims have retained some of the Len Berg ’ randomness touchstones. The vintage color-block front windows that looked discordant on a meat-and-three now appear like mod flourishes installed by a hip architect. once dim and jammed with portraits of Confederate generals, the warren of small dining rooms now glows a aglow crimson. Tiny mud sculptures, shaped by Kim ’ s youngest daughters, Meju and Yeju, stare back .
true to her restaurant name, Kim is very good at kimchi, the hot fermented vegetable assortment often made with cabbage. Dumplings stuffed with kimchi and glass noodles come in a bright dough that turns translucent in the soft-shell clam. Dipped in a mix of soy sauce and vinegar, they taste abstemious and bright. Kimchijeon, pancakes stirred with kimchi and fleeceable onion, arrive crunchy at the rim and creamy at the core. Dunked in that soy and vinegar mix and enjoyed with a brown-bagged bottle of white wine, those pancakes might be the best thing on a menu packed with good stuff .
Kim ’ south skill with kimchi dishes was born in Gwangju, her hometown at the foot of the Sobaek Mountains in the southwestern corner of South Korea. Long a free-base for the best kimchi makers in the nation, the city immediately hosts the World Institute of Kimchi, where researchers study agitation and kimchi ’ s possible benefits for everything from brain function to hair loss .
At Kimchi Factory, the roll of main dishes goes deeply. After two lunches and a dinner, here ’ s what I know : rather of galbi, pork ribs served here on a sizzle platter like fajitas, try one of the soups or stews, like sundubu-jjigae, made with easy tofu and pork. Or knife-cut noodles, served in a subtle sprout that bob with black mussels and pink prawn.
I default twice to bibimbap. A jumble of rice and squid and vegetables, seasoned with sesame oil, my favorite interpretation here arrives in a heated pit bowl, capped with a fried egg. Pierce the yolk, jet chile glue from an outsize bottle, and a rich sauce coalesces, ideal for soaking up that rice .
After Kim immigrated in 1994, she cooked the foods of her birthplace to center herself, inaugural in Mississippi, then in Georgia. As she fell asleep each night, she tasted through her mother ’ mho recipes, searching memories for ingredients and techniques. Cooking at the family hall of a korean presbyterian church in suburban Atlanta, she befriended women from other parts of her home area. In a board full of estimable cooks, her kimchi stood out. merely as it did when she late worked in the cafeteria of the Kia plant in West Point, Georgia .
photo: Jacqueline Stofsick In America, Kim has faced down bad challenges, including two divorces and a car bust up that closely killed her and required a hep replacement. Driving the first base time to Macon, to take a job cook and houseclean for korean workers at the Kumho Tire adeptness, she saw modern possibilities in this once-beleaguered city, now in the midst of a business district renaissance.
Kim brings big dreams to her small restaurant. She wants to grow it into a franchise and build a mission to give back to this city that has given so much to her. “ This place is a big tree, ” she says of Macon. “ And now I live here under that tree, safe and happy. ” As I reach to pour cups of chrysanthemum tea, she reaches for another metaphor that speaks to the possibilities of this city in this here and now. “ Macon looked messy when I got here, ” she tells me, her big smile pressing against her small mask. “ now it ’ mho breathe again. ”