We put our hearts and souls into our food at our Bellevue Korean restaurant because Korean food demands heart and soul from its chefs. It’s a part of Korean cuisine that is more important than the chili, more important than the soy, and almost as important as the rice. Just as Korean food without rice can hardly be called a meal, so can Korean food without love hardly be called Korean food. It is for this reason that the country has had such a notable history of cooking rice with peerless skill.

Indeed, Korea’s skill with rice is famous even among its fellow rice-loving countries. The housewives of the Joseon Dynasty could even produce rice dishes of different textures at the same time, in the same pot. They would do this by piling the grains up in varying depths so that the rice would be exposed to different moisture levels within the vessel. The Korean rice-cooking art was such that it was mentioned in the writing of a famed scholar and courtier named Jang Young, who described Korean rice as “…very shiny and soft, and very fragrant. Throughout the pot, the rice is evenly cooked and glossy.”