Why is rice so prevalent at our Bellevue Korean restaurant? Because rice is extraordinarily important to Korean dining. In Korea, rice is so synonymous with food that the common Korean parlance for “Have you eaten?” is “Bap mogeon nya?”, which literally translates to “Did you eat rice?”

This highlights one of the more fundamental differences between Korean and western dining sensibilities. While a meal generally centers around a meat course in America, Korea builds a meal entirely around rice. In Korean, a meal can be divided into “busik” and “jusik” components, the former referring to side dishes and the latter referring to the part of the meal that contains rice. Either category can be eaten entirely by itself, but, while jusik without busik is still a meal, busik without jusik doesn’t count as more than a snack.