She bought about 500 pounds of Napa cabbage and salted them in two different bathtubs. My grandmother was not making a 40-pound batch she was preparing enough to last half the year and share with the entire neighborhood. Making kimchi left a big impression on me. My grandmother and mom made lots of nice authentic Korean dishes at home. When I was young, our family didn’t go out to eat that much-maybe two or three times a month. Photo by Kevin Kramer What’s one of your earliest food memories? Jamie Yoo is bringing memories of home to the Market at Malcolm Yards In the following interview, Yoo discusses everything from speed skating and his formative years in South Korea to the tireless culinary arts training and breakthrough job opportunity that brought him to Minnesota. As for what people can expect from the space itself, there’s never a dull moment in Malcolm Yards in fact, at press time about a month ago, Abang Yoli had been going through up to 1,500 pounds of chicken a week. Namely: the savory mung bean pancakes his grandmother would fry for his family. (A grocery store and hundreds of apartments are also part of the couple’s long-term plan.) One of Yoo’s favorite items from a fellow vendor, the vegetable-centric Advellum, also brings him back to the good old days. Abang Yoli is one of 10 vendors within Malcolm Yards’ sprawling food hall, which takes up more than half of the 32,500 square feet that owners Patricia and John Wall set aside for commercial businesses. “Making kimchi required lots of patience,” Yoo says, “but it the absolute beauty of cooking.” While the kimchi reflects the 500-pound batches of cabbage his family would ferment for the entire neighborhood twice a year, the battered beauties that land on platters and inside sublime milk bun sandwiches are a nod to the crispy treats his grandmother would make him for being such a helpful prep cook. Its breakthrough hit has been Korean fried chicken served with house-made pickles, kimchi slaw, and a spicy gochujang or sesame ginger garlic sauce. A passion project that’s lingered in the back of Yoo’s head for years, it’s built around childhood memories and the many ways food brought his family together when he was growing up in Seoul and Seattle. Yoo’s menu was tested and tweaked at a couple pop-ups ( Meteor, Nighthawks ) before Malcolm Yards’ August opening. “So I started brainstorming with and we decided to open Abang Yoli.” “ I thought it would be a good step towards the next journey for me,” Yoo explains. He didn’t hang up his chef’s coat however, partly because pastry boss/close friend Diane Moua had pointed out a potential backup: a big ol’ booth in Minneapolis’ long-awaited Market at Malcolm Yards. Bellecour, Yoo’s primary employer for the past three years, became the restaurant scene’s latest COVID-19 casualty last July. Like many of us, chef Jamie Yoo began questioning his entire career during the pandemic.
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