At the Capitol Center for the Arts, Sue’s Kimbap House brings taste of Korea to Concord

With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Susan Chung hopes to introduce kimbap, a Korean cultural staple, to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw.

With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Susan Chung hopes to introduce kimbap, a Korean cultural staple, to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw. GEOFF FORESTER photos / Monitor staff

Susan Chung will fill the kitchens at the Center’s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll. With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Chung hopes to introduce a cultural staple to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw.

Susan Chung will fill the kitchens at the Center’s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll. With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Chung hopes to introduce a cultural staple to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Susan Chung will fill the kitchens at the Center’s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll. With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Chung hopes to introduce a cultural staple to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw.

Susan Chung will fill the kitchens at the Center’s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll. With her husband, Hyun Chung, and their two teenage sons, Chung hopes to introduce a cultural staple to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Chung will fill the kitchens at the Capitol Center’€™s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll.

Chung will fill the kitchens at the Capitol Center’€™s two venues with kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll.

Batulo Mohamed has opened an independent food truck and catering business.

Batulo Mohamed has opened an independent food truck and catering business. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

By SOPHIE LEVENSON

Monitor staff

Published: 07-24-2024 5:49 PM

Batulo Mohamed’s Somali food opened Concord’s culinary horizons. Susan Chung hopes her Korean kimbap will widen them a little more.

Next week, Chung, the second chef in the Capitol Center for the Arts Culinary Artist in Residence program will start selling kimbap, a traditional Korean rice roll, to the masses.

For Salvatore Prizio, executive director at the center, the test kitchen concept touches on the heart of his mission to benefit both the community and artists of all sorts.

“The best way to break down boundaries between communities is with food and arts,” said Prizio.

Prizio instituted the center’s Culinary Artist in Residence program at the tail end of 2022 with inaugural chef Mohamed, whose Somali food drew a following in Concord. In just over 18 months, Mohamed’s sambusas — traditional Somali meat pies — earned her enough money to turn Batulo’s Kitchen into an independent food truck and catering business, which opened the kitchens at the center’s two venues to another cuisine.

With her husband and their two teenage sons, Chung hopes that Sue’s Kimbap House will introduce a Korean cultural staple to Concord with the same success that Batulo’s Kitchen saw.

Kimbap is quite self-explanatory – “kim” in Korean means “seaweed,” and “bap” means “rice.” The soft seaweed encases white rice, which Chung presses around a variety of Korean ingredients. Her signature dish features a spiced beef called bulgogi, with carrots, spinach, pickled radish, egg and imitation crab. She uses the same ingredients — except the bulgogi — in her spam roll, which has been supremely popular among friends and family as she tests her recipes. Kimbap is meant to be eaten in one bite, like a piece of sushi, so all the flavors arrive together, though that’s a tall task for Chung’s thick pieces.

Chung sources her food from H Mart, the American-owned Asian supermarket chain with locations in Massachusetts. She said she prioritizes organic ingredients and uses quality grass-fed beef. For the moment, Chung doesn’t have time to pickle her own radish since her operation is small and her top priority is selling healthy, tasty, portable and affordable food to the public. She plans to sell her kimbap rolls for $9 or $10 apiece and expects them to be hit with hungry diners on a tight schedule.

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“Normally, kimbap was only made for royalty … it’s very tedious, very time consuming,” Chung said. “That’s why I definitely think people will love buying this because it takes hours to make.”

Chung learned about kimbap from her husband, Hyun. Though she was born in Korea and is ethnically Korean, she grew up with adopted parents in the small town of Lee, Mass., where the Asian community was close to nonexistent. Hyun grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, but with Korean parents who taught him to cook their traditional foods.

When she was younger, Chung worked in restaurants as a hostess and server but never in the kitchen. She built a career in fashion design: She and Hyun owned an embroidery company in California and manufactured women’s clothes when they lived together in São Paulo. Hyun would manage business and production while Chung took the lead on creativity and design.

The shift from fashion to food happened naturally when Chung realized that the parents of her sons’ wrestling teammates loved her cooking, and that Korean food can be hard to find on the East Coast. Friends in New Jersey always appreciated her kimbap, but the idea for a restaurant only germinated when Chung’s family moved to Concord last June. Once again, it was her sons’ wrestling teammates who loved the food and inspired Chung to ask for a booth at the Concord Multicultural Festival. There, Jessica Livingston, a former Capitol Center employee, discovered Chung’s kimbap and pitched her as the next culinary artist in residence.

Sue’s Kimbap House can operate out of the Bank of New Hampshire Stage for 12 to 18 months once it opens in August.

“Food has always been very important to our family,” Chung said. “We’re very conscious about nutrition … I just wanted to build and give that opportunity to other people as well.”

She and Hyun have their heads bent together over this project, with Chung as the cook while her husband focuses on management. He’ll help in the kitchen, too, as will their two high-school-aged boys, since Chung needs all hands on deck.

“We’ve always worked together,” she said of her family.

Even with the help provided by the center, Chung knows that keeping this restaurant afloat will take effort and generosity. She hand-rolls her kimbap now, but would like to purchase a pair of machines that can spin and cut 600 rolls in an hour in perfect uniform style. The $22,000 that they would cost, however, will not be feasible until she can find another investor.

Still, Chung sees success for her business and hopes to franchise eventually, largely because there’s such little competition. Korean grab-n-go service has yet to make its way around New England like it has started to do on the West Coast (she says “it’s a race”), giving Chung’s product the potential to be a hot commodity.

“It just depends on if people are willing to try something new,” she said. “So far, people have seemed excited about it.”

Prizio looks at the center’s space — of which it has a lot — wondering how best to fill it in ways that create new opportunities for artists. In founding this program, he figured out how to fulfill everyone’s needs: He helps Chung start a business, introduces a new type of cuisine to Concord and also feeds ticket holders looking for concessions at concerts. By collecting a small percentage of the restaurant’s net profits, the Capitol Center is able to cover its costs and ensure longevity for a program that fills Concord with flavor.

Sue’s Kimbap House will be open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and later when there are performances at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage. The restaurant will host a grand opening Sept. 5.