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

Batulo Mohamed’s Somali cooking has expanded Concord’s culinary horizons. Susan Chung hopes her Korean kimbap will expand them even further.

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

For Salvatore Prizio, the center’s executive director, the test kitchen concept strikes at the heart of its mission to benefit both the community and artists of all kinds.

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

The Prizio Center launched the Culinary Artist in Residence program in late 2022 with the first chef Mohamed, whose Somali cuisine has attracted a large following in Concord. In just over 18 months, Mohamed’s sambusas — traditional Somali meat pies — have earned him enough money to turn Batulo’s Kitchen into an independent food truck and catering business, opening the kitchens at both of the center’s locations to another kitchen.

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

Kimbap is pretty self-explanatory: “kim” is Korean for “seaweed,” and “bap” is Korean for “rice.” The tender seaweed wraps around white rice, which Chung presses around a variety of Korean ingredients. Her signature dish is a spicy beef roll called bulgogi, with carrots, spinach, pickled radishes, eggs, and faux crab. She uses the same ingredients—minus the bulgogi—in her Spam roll, which has been wildly popular with friends and family when she’s tested her recipes. Kimbap is meant to be eaten in one bite, like a piece of sushi, so all the flavors come together, though that’s a tall order for Chung’s thick cuts.

Chung gets her supplies from H Mart, an American-owned Asian supermarket chain based in Massachusetts. She says she favors organic ingredients and uses quality grass-fed beef. Right now, Chung doesn’t have time to pickle her own radishes because her operation is small and her top priority is selling the public healthy, tasty, easy-to-grab and affordable food. She plans to sell her kimbap rolls for $9 or $10 each and expects them to be a hit with hungry diners.

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

Chung was introduced to kimbap by her husband, Hyun. Although she was born in Korea and is ethnically Korean, she grew up with adoptive parents in the small town of Lee, Massachusetts, where the Asian community was virtually nonexistent. Hyun grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, but with Korean parents who taught her how to cook their traditional dishes.

As a young girl, Chung worked in restaurants as a hostess and waitress, but never in the kitchen. She made a career in fashion design: she and Hyun owned an embroidery business in California and made women’s clothing when they lived together in São Paulo. Hyun managed business and production while Chung took charge of creativity and design.

The transition from fashion to food came naturally when Chung realized that the parents of her sons’ wrestling teammates loved her cooking and that Korean food could be hard to find on the East Coast. Her friends in New Jersey had always enjoyed her kimbap, but the idea to open a restaurant didn’t come until Chung’s family moved to Concord last June. Once again, it was her sons’ wrestling teammates who loved the food and inspired Chung to request a booth at the Concord Multicultural Festival. There, Jessica Livingston, a former Capitol Center employee, discovered Chung’s kimbap and introduced her as the next culinary artist in residence.

Sue’s Kimbap House will be able to operate on the Bank of New Hampshire stage for 12 to 18 months after it opens in August.

“Food has always been very important to our family,” Chung said. “We are very conscious about our food… I just wanted to create and provide that opportunity for other people as well.”

She and Hyun have been working on the project together, with Chung being the cook while her husband focuses on management. He will also help in the kitchen, as will their two high school-aged boys, because Chung needs all hands on deck.

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

Even with the center’s help, Chung knows that keeping her restaurant afloat will take effort and generosity. She currently rolls her kimbap by hand, but she would like to purchase a pair of machines that can spin and cut 600 rolls in an hour in a perfectly uniform way. The $22,000 it would cost, however, won’t be feasible until she finds another investor.

Still, Chung sees success in her business and hopes to eventually open a franchise, largely because there is little competition. The Korean takeout service has yet to make its way across New England the way it has started on the West Coast (she says “it’s a race”), which gives Chung’s product the potential to become a hot commodity.

“It just depends on people’s willingness to try something new,” she said. “So far, people seem enthusiastic.”

Prizio looks at the center’s vast space and wonders how best to use it to create new opportunities for artists. In founding the program, he’s figured out how to meet everyone’s needs: He helps Chung start a business, introduces a new kind 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 sustain 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 live entertainment takes place on the Bank of New Hampshire stage. The restaurant will hold a grand opening on September 5.