"Growing up in Louisiana in the '90s, there was only one Korean grocery store in town, which my family drove to every few weeks to pick up staples like gochujang and kimchi."
"This was a different time: before people ate K-BBQ, used K-Beauty products and sang along to K-Pop songs."
"Japchae is a popular side dish that's served at pretty much every communal celebration you can think of - from birthdays to graduation parties to church gatherings and holiday dinners."
"I really didn't know what to expect from this dish, and boy was I surprised by it - as were my friends, whom I enlisted to test the last few items with me."
Growing up in Louisiana in the 1990s, there was only one Korean grocery store in town; family trips every few weeks supplied staples like gochujang and kimchi. K-food and K-culture were not mainstream then, before K-BBQ, K-beauty, and K-pop reached wide popularity. Groups such as BTS later appeared on national television and major retailers began stocking Korean food. Japchae is a ubiquitous side dish at communal celebrations including birthdays, graduations, church gatherings, and holiday dinners. Frequent exposure to japchae shaped expectations, and sampling TJ's japchae produced surprising reactions from me and friends.
Read at BuzzFeed
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