Nearly 20 small bowls filled with spiced side dishes were spread out before the diners, threatening to overtake not only the surface of the table but their taste buds as well.
Seaweed salad with purple onions offset sneakily spicy sprouts. Green beans, vegetable pancakes and gloriously starchy potatoes presented different tastes and textures, making each bite a new experience.
Kimchi — the fermented cabbage dish spiced with chili powder, garlic, spring onion and other ingredients that gives Korean cooking its unique taste — took its traditional place as the centerpiece of the meal.
“Before we had refrigerator, we had to keep the vegetables for a long time. We use salt and garlic and other spices, and it stays good,” said Sunghyon Lockhart, one of the owners of Sisters Korean Restaurant in Greenwood. “There is always kimchi. You have to have kimchi on the side — every meal has to have it.”
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryKorean cuisine is defined by its varied components coming together in culinary balance. Sweet and spicy and sour flavors flit across the tongue with every bite. Hearty noodles and rice counter the lightness of steamed vegetables and thin slices of beef, pork or other meats.
With an emphasis on steaming or roasting, rather than frying, the heart of Korean cooking is healthy food that nonetheless fills each meal with pleasantly unexpected tastes.
“It’s steamed or fresh, a little bit spicy. It’s a very healthy food compared to others,” Lockhart said.
In Korean culture, food and medicine consist of the same ingredients, and each plays an equal role in maintaining good health. Quality food is the best medicine, according to the Korean Culture and Information Service.
Thus, a traditional meal all revolves around high nutrition and healthy preparation, Lockhart said. Fermentation is central to Korean food culture, helping to improve taste and nutrition by aging it for weeks and months at a time.
Soybean paste called doenjang and fermented soy sauce called ganjang give foods a rich, full flavor. Fermented red chili paste called gochujang gives the food the hot yet flavorful taste combination.
Of course, kimchi has gained popularity even outside of Korean culture for its anti-carcinogenic properties and high nutrition.
From those core elements of Korean food, other dishes can be constructed mixing and matching vegetables, meats and other spices, giving cooks greater flexibility when creating meals, said Hai Lee, a co-owner of Sisters.
One of the most popular dishes in Korean food is bulgogi — thinly sliced beef marinated in sweet soy sauce mixed with other condiments, served with vegetables on rice.
Bibimbap is a dish of cooked rice mixed with fresh and seasoned vegetables, fried egg, minced raw beef and other ingredients before cooking.
Not only are the ingredients used in Korean food unique, but so are the preparation methods. Many dishes are cooked in clay or stone pots and served to the table.
“It tastes different. Even the same food, you cook it the same, between a regular dish and this, it tastes totally different. It’s an old-fashioned style of Korean cooking,” Lee said.
Lockhard, Lee and friend Hyun Bun Shin, the three owners of Sisters Korean Restaurant, have a lifelong love for this food. They have lived their entire lives eating the traditional recipes of the country. They have taken their experience and worked to spread the virtues of Korean cuisine locally.
The name of the restaurant is somewhat of a misnomer. Lee, Lockhart and Shin are not technically related — they call themselves “three sisters” because of the close friendship they’ve forged together.
They all attended the same church. Their families vacationed together. When they weren’t working, they were at each others’ homes.
“Our families became one family,” Lockhart said.
Shin was the owner of Kim’s Grocery, a Korean store with an attached restaurant that had operated in Indianapolis. They became friends, with Lee and Lockhart eventually getting jobs and working there as well.
When Kim’s Grocery went out of business, the three women vowed to one day reopen their own Korean restaurant together.
“When her store closed down, she was hurt. So we promised her because we’re so close,” Lee said. “Now the promise has come back up.”
Shin’s friends convinced her to keep much of the equipment that she had used in the restaurant. With Shin the chef of the operation — the restaurant’s recipes are all hers — the women had the knowledge of Korean cooking needed to open their eatery.
They found a vacant space that formerly housed another restaurant but had been empty for nearly 10 years. In September of 2017, they started work gutting the space and putting it together again with traditional Korean decor.
A small rock garden greets diners as they walk in. Delicate paintings, carved masks and other cultural artwork are hung with a backdrop of authentic Korean wallpaper.
K-pop, the immensely popular Korean music, plays on a video screen in the corner. People can do karaoke if they want to, Lee said.
The three women and their family put hours and hours of work into the new restaurant. Whenever they were not working other jobs, they were up at the space. All made sure that they had the same day off from their jobs so they could devote as much time together to fixing the restaurant as possible.
In mid-February, they opened to the public. The owners and their families have reveled in introducing people throughout the southside to the unique cuisine that they love.
“I’ve known this food for years, and it was always fun to cook this for our friends and seeing them realize how good it is,” said Don Lockhart, Sunghyon’s husband. “To be able to take it to the next level and bring it to a brand new market, you’re seeing people have that reaction every day.”
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<strong>Doenjang and ganjang</strong>
What are they? Soybean paste and soy sauce
About: These are two of the most important items of traditional fermented food in Korea. Soybeans are soaked in water and boiled, pounded and formed into bricks. The dried, fermented bricks are then placed in a large pot of salted water, with dried red chili for two or three months.
<strong>Gochujang</strong>
What is it? Red chili paste
About: This spicy traditional Korean condiment made by fermenting a mixture of soybean malt, salt and chili pepper powder with a blend of powdered rice, barley, flour, and malted barley.
<strong>Jeotgal</strong>
What is it? Salted seafood
About: An indispensable ingredient for kimchi and a very popular condiment used to enhance the taste of food, jeotgal is made by mixing one of a variety of seafood, such as anchovy, shrimp, oyster, or clam, with salt and fermenting it in a cool place.
<strong>Kimchi</strong>
What is it? Fermented white cabbage
About: One of the symbols of Korean cuisine, kimchi can be made in numerous variations that create excitingly diverse flavors and tastes. The most common type of kimchi is made by mixing salted white cabbage with kimchi paste made of chili powder, garlic, spring onion, Korean radish ginger, fish sauce and other ingredients.
<strong>Bulgogi</strong>
What is it? "Fire meat" made from grilled beef
About: Grilled beef is shredded or sliced, marinated in sweet soy sauce and mixed with a great variety of condiments. It is one of the rare meat dishes to have developed in Korea, where people were generally more accustomed to eating vegetable dishes.
<strong>Bibimbap</strong>
What is it? Mixed rice with a variety of other
About: This is essentially a dish of cooked rice served after mixing it with fresh and seasoned vegetables, fried egg, minced raw beef and other ingredients before cooking. It is now generally cited as one of the three most representative dishes of Korean cuisine along with kimchi and bulgogi.
— <em>Information from the Korean Culture and Information Service of Korea’s ministry of culture, sports and tourism</em>
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title="<strong>Sisters Korean Restaurant</strong>" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
<strong>Where</strong>: 916 E. Main St., Greenwood
<strong>Hours</strong>: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 10 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and holidays; 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday
<strong>Information</strong>: sisterskr.com
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