Erica Park was eager to bring St. Louis a taste of the Korean comfort dishes that helped form the foundation of her love for food. When she tells people this is the reason she and her husband, Sean Lee, opened Cafe Ganadara (6413 Hampton Avenue, 314-802-7044), the assumption is that she's talking about the food she grew up eating in South Korea, where she was born and lived until she was 15. Those assumptions then lead to mental pictures of aunties toiling over simmering pots of jjigae or hand-making sticky rice cakes for classic tteokbokki. The resulting image is that of a banchan-filled Korean table, somewhere in Seoul.
For Park, however, it means something entirely different. After immigrating with her family to New York City as a teenager, she took refuge in the dishes that were found in the metropolis' Koreatown and their distinct Korean-American inflection. Similar to Seoul's offerings but infused with the city's different Asian cultures — particularly Chinese — those New York dishes formed their own subgenre of Korean food, not unlike the way that New Jersey puts its stamp on traditional Italian cuisine. It was different. It was thrilling. It was delicious, and it's why she was so determined to share that experience with St. Louis.
Cafe Ganadara, which opened late March in St. Louis Hills, is not the first place Park and Lee have shared a bit of their Korean culinary heritage with area diners. For the past two and a half years, the husband and wife have been operating the popular Korean fried chicken spot Chicken Seven in the Carondelet neighborhood, where they have developed a cult following for both their delectable fried bird and whimsical street food offerings (if you've had their outrageously cheesy Korean corn dog, you understand why "whimsical" is the appropriate term). However beloved the restaurant has become to those who fill its dining room, though, the experience has been a struggle for the pair. From their inability to obtain a liquor license due to the city's maze-like bureaucracy to issues with a shared parking lot, Park and Lee have felt like they have been swimming upstream at Chicken Seven from the get-go. In this sense, Cafe Ganadara felt like more than an opportunity to expand their culinary repertoire; it felt like a fresh start.
You understand this feeling the moment you walk up to the small, Southampton storefront. There is a charm to the place that is palpable from the outside. Vibrant pink flowers grow up through the sidewalk in front of the building, and a quaint, raised patio with bistro tables invites diners to settle in for a relaxing meal. Inside, the space is tastefully adorned with deep teal velvet chairs, marble bistro tables and wallpaper trim at the top of the walls featuring the restaurant's name, which means "ABCD" in Korean.
Park originally envisioned Ganadara as a grab-and-go place, but she quickly realized that guests were looking for more of a full-service style of dining. The restaurant retains its counter-service ordering system, but food is delivered to the table by Park or sometimes Lee, who serves as the restaurant's chef. Tucking into Ganadara's japchae-bap, you understand why guests deemed a more formal way of dining necessary. The stir-fried dish, made with glass sweet potato noodles, is so stunning it should be served with all the pomp and circumstance of white tablecloth dining. Ground beef, infused with sweet-soy bulgogi marinade, is interspersed throughout, slicking the noodles with fiery meat and chile-laden cooking oil. White onion petals, too, soak up this delectable nectar, while bell peppers and red chiles give the dish enough snap to cut through the beefy decadence. Here, you understand what Park means when she notes the Chinese influence on New York-style Korean dishes, for there was something about the japchae bap so undeniably reminiscent of Mongolian beef.
Park's favorite dish, the donkatsu, features a pork cutlet pounded thin and coated in flaky breadcrumbs. The breaded meat is then fried to a golden brown and smothered in a rich, housemade sauce she and Lee simply call "Korean brown sauce" that is the slightly fruity, ketchup-y barbecue sauce she fell in love with in New York's Koreatown. One bite of this outstanding condiment and you understand being so enamored.
Ganadara's gimbap is an outstanding example of the form. Often referred to as "Korean sushi," the handheld snack consists of sticky rice wrapped in seaweed and filled with fried egg, julienne vegetables and, in this particular instance, spicy tuna. The dish has a distinct, delightful nutty taste to it thanks to a little gilding of sesame oil and seeds. On special request, Park and Lee will serve the dish with a side of instant noodles which, interestingly, go particularly well with the roll.
Park and Lee made their name with Korean fried chicken, and Ganadara builds upon that brand with chi-bap, a rice bowl topped with hunks of juicy, boneless meat coated in crispy breading and tossed in Chicken Seven's signature yum yum sauce. This mouthwatering nectar, a brown-sugar soy glaze amped up by red chiles, coats the chicken and soaks into the rice; even so, I found myself asking for a side of it so I could douse every bite individually.
As delicious as the chi-bap is, Ganadara's other fried chicken offering, the Rice Crispy Chicken, might be its showstopper. Indeed, as the name suggests, this is fried chicken covered in Rice Krispies — a breading choice so inspired, you wonder why it's not ubiquitous. The searing hot bird actually snaps, crackles and pops when bitten; it's such a crunchy, airy breading that you get the satisfaction of the crispness without it overtaking the succulent meat. Again, yum yum sauce proves to be a wonderful condiment choice, though rotating it with the earthy soy garlic is the real way to go.
Though it's hard to imagine wanting to end with anything other than that outrageous Rice Crispy Chicken, Ganadara's two dessert offerings make a strong case for finishing the meal on a sweet note. Bingsu, light-as-air Korean shaved ice milk, is a wonderful canvas for a variety of toppings. Our selection, mango, featured both chunks of the fruit and mango sauce, as well as sweetened condensed milk that wraps the entire concoction in sticky sweetness. Park is also excited about the restaurant's housemade croffles, a wonderful marriage of a croissant and a waffle that is accented with toppings such as Oreo cookie crumbs, berries and fresh cream. Thick and crispy like a waffle on the outside, but yeasty and buttery like a croissant on the inside, it's a magical sweet treat.
Originated in Ireland, popularized in South Korea and wildly popular in New York, the croffle embodies Park's insistence that there can be as much beauty in a dish that soaks up the influence of where it's at as one that fiercely adheres to tradition. If Ganadara is any indication, she makes a strong case.
Open Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. (Hours subject to change.)
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