Hunting down the new Korean restaurant

Jjam bbong is a spice noodle soup with shrimp, carrots, onions, calamari and mussel. Bibimbap is a rice bowl with mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, lettuce and beef with a half cook egg on the top and served with red pepper sauce on the side. They are traditional Korean food that you can find in the O Café.

The O Cafe

People who live in Lawrence usually had to drive to Overland Park, Kan., or other Kansas City areas to eat Korean food. There is now a new place called O Café on 6th St. Lawrence could become another stop for Korean food.
“The food is really great in there, it’s just like my mom’s cooking back home,” Laura Kim, a Korean and recent KU said. “No more 45 minutes driving to get good Korean food in KC.”

The O Café opened this May. For most customers the restaurant’s name is hard to associate with Asian food. According to Yunhi Cho Ediger, the head chef of O Café, her brother came out with the name, and actually it had good reason behind it.

“The symbol O in Korea means harmony and happiness,” Yunhi said. “I want people enjoy the food.”

The old restaurant 

Yunhi has been in the United States for more than seven years. She and her brother decided to open a Korean restaurant in Lawrence back in 2006. Then she met her husband Michael Ediger while working at the restaurant. Ediger is the Associate Director for International Students Services at KU.

“Lawrence did not have a Korean restaurant,” Yunhi said. “We enjoy restaurant work and having people like our food.”
The old Korean restaurant called Campus Hideaway was located on Massachusetts St. It closed in September 2007, because the building owner wanted to use the building for something else.

“We had a Korean restaurant five years ago,” Yunhi said. “Many of our customers from before asked us to open again.”

“We want to open again earlier, but could not find a building,” Yunhi said.

The new restaurant

It was a lot of work to open a restaurant again. Yunhi and her brother had to get a building permit and remodel the building to make it into a restaurant.

“Because before the building was just a store, we had to buy all of the kitchen equipment and dining room furniture,” Yunhi said.

The new location has more space than the old one. Before, people ordered and picked up their food at the counter but now the O Café have waitresses. The restaurant also has a variety of appetizers that change with seasons, compared to only serving kimchi in the past.

“We want to give better service to our customers, so they can enjoy their meal more,” Yunhi said.

            Entrees

The O Café serves six different entrees: Bulgogi, Bibimbap, Soon tofu, Jap-chae, Dumplings and Jjam bbong. All entrees come with three side dishes per table. They also let customers choose the level of spiciness. Most of the entrees come with rice, and people can choose beef, pork or chicken for the meat. According to Yunhi the restaurant will add another two entrees next month. 
“Bibimbap taste good and it is fun to mix up to eat,” Kim said.

“Yunhi is always trying to adapt the menu to suit the local’s taste,” Michael Ediger said. “The restaurant has a real homey feel to it.”

Korean food is actually very healthy. Korean dishes use lots of fresh vegetables as the main ingredients. According to the USDA Chose MyPlate.gov eating vegetables may reduce heart disease, including heart attacks and strokes. It may protect against certain types of cancers.      

“I have heard this may be true,” Michael said. “I’ve seen many people come back over and over again.”

                            

Audio

Script

(Soundbites of door’s ring)

WAITER: Hi, one today? Do you want follow me right over here? And go right over to sit the back table. We will get you stat up over there, ok? 

The O café waiter shows the customer where to set. There are not much of people working in the restaurant, so Yunhi Cho Ediger the head chef needs to help the customer decided what to order.

YUNHI EDIGER (the chef of the O Café): Today, what kind do you want for the lunch?

CUSTOMER: Na- I guess vegetarian.

YUNHI EDIGER: Oh- really? Ok a- we have choices of Bibimbap and Jap-chae and Dumpling and Soon Tofu and Jjam bbong.   

After cooking in the kitchen she also needs to explain the food to new customers.

(Soundbites of cooking)

YUNHI EDIGER: And this is a fishcake and two kinds of kimchi and this is a KBG and reddish kimchi.

(Soundbites of people eating and talking with the restaurant’s background music playing)  

The customers had finished eating with friends, and it is time for them to leave. 

WAITER: Great. We will see you next time ok? Have a good one. Thank you.

Reported by Hao Hsuan Niu in Lawrence Kansas.