Sook Sundays: Thoughts on celebration
On becominging a place for celebration, more than a few digressions and the things I'm loving this week
Since it has been a while since I had a quiet Sunday morning to pen a Sook Sundays newsletter, I wanted to remind readers that I’m envisioning Sook Sundays to be a space for thoughts on what hospitality means, to me and for our restaurants specifically, and to others. I used to host Sook Sundays in Hong Kong at my home, where I cooked and invited my friends over endless brunches or dinners. Reveling in the role of hostess at my home throughout my life is the reason I’ve ended up in hospitality and restaurants. And now that my husband, Kwang, and I now are knee-deep in the business of restaurants, I’m always musing over what kind of hospitality we want to share with our guests. Like everything in my life, it’s a work in progress; and I imagine—am hoping—that writing about our hospitality viewpoint will help give it more shape.
Sook Sundays is also where I’ll mention things that I’m loving now that I’m starting to see glimmers of the world outside of baroo.
In the past six months since we’ve opened, every day we have service I am stunned by how many people come to new baroo to celebrate. Last night (Saturday), we had fourteen tables celebrating birthdays (FOURTEEN!) and another two tables celebrating anniversaries in our somewhat small space.
Side note: I don’t know if having 38 seats is small, but in the restaurant world, it apparently is? Last week, I read an industry-focused interview of the Director of Operations of our dear friends at Park Hospitality (no relation!) in Eater’s industry newsletter Pre-Shift, where she described their new hotspot Donna’s as small at 66 seats. 66 covers total is a reasonably busy night for us! And then I read somewhere that I can’t remember that Four Horsemen in Brooklyn has 38 seats which was then described as small. This is double the size of old baroo; and before we opened new baroo, we had a flash of panic where I worried that 38 seats was much too many and wondered how in the world we would find enough people who would want to come to our restaurants. These fears can always materialize at any time, so we just keep doing our best to keep those seats booked!
Anyway, back to birthdays. We have people who book large tables to celebrate with their loved ones, from families celebrating their matriarch’s 79th birthday to young friends fêting their queen bee in a sparkly nude mesh dress. Many guests have come in to dine once and then come back with their families to celebrate a birthday. We have had countless couples celebrating their first anniversaries, and last week, one couple celebrating 34 years. Two weeks ago, we had a couple celebrating that they were going to tie the knot at city hall the next morning. Perhaps one of my favourite celebrations was a young, very cool couple who came in right after we opened to celebrate their fifth anniversary who told me their first date was at old baroo. My heart spills over when I think of them. It’s an honour and a novelty for us to be part of these special celebrations.
So I pour bubbly for anniversaries, golden candles come out with dessert for birthdays. And for birthdays, anniversaries and graduations, Kwang and I give the celebrants a hand-written card. The birthday cards are a small token of celebration from us and describe the guest’s “sign” according to Korean saju palja, fortune-telling based on yin-yang and the five elements with references to Chinese astrology and the I-Ching. Kwang spent our pandemic lockdown and the years since immersed in studying saju palja. A few times, he has said he would rather be a fortune teller than a cook he’s enjoying his esoteric studies so much; and I imagine when we retire from this business whenever that may be, he will probably spend his days as a wizened old fortune teller from our farm in the Korean countryside.
For now, we found a way for him to share a glimpse of his passion at our restaurant — our saju palja birthday cards. We ask our guest when they arrive to share their birthdate with us (along with their birthplace so we have the right time zone for our calculations. Then Kwang looks up their sign. There are sixty different signs which are made up of two combinations of yin and yang energy and the five elements. We came across an artist in Korea who also studies saju palja with whom we created these beautiful cards for each sign that include a poetic description of the sign. Kwang and I spent many hours translating these cards into English before we opened, and there are some metaphorical concepts that are so rooted in traditional Confucian philosophy that the translation process was a delightful education for me. I think I’ll save more on saju palja for a later post because again I’ve digressed from hospitality.
I really wanted to focus today on the novelty of people coming to celebrate at baroo. We did not have people come to old baroo to celebrate their anniversaries or graduations or milestone birthdays. I joked on our Instagram that people didn’t come to old baroo to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and yet with new baroo, we were bombarded with calls and emails about Valentine’s Day and our Valentine’s Day service booked out in one day.
For our previous restaurants and old baroo, people came for the food. Full stop. As those of you who have been around have heard already, old baroo didn’t have the niceties of a traditional restaurant. No table service per se. No decor. No sign outside even.
So people who came to old baroo almost exclusively were coming because they sought out Kwang’s food. Our customers were mostly hardcore foodies. Once in a long while, someone wandered in unsuspectingly because they saw baroo’s name on a list, were instantly dismayed when they looked around and left confused and utterly unsatisfied by the food. One such lady at old baroo told me very slowly and emphatically after taking one bite of our signature Noorook dish that she “did not enjoy that at all”. I had tried to steer her towards our fried chicken bowl when she ordered but alas. Another family came into our swap meet pop-up, Baroo Canteen, after a traffic-snarled drive from Santa Monica, sat at a table next to a display of belts sold by our neighbouring vendor for just a few minutes and then left in audible disgust.
So it’s quite new for us for guests to come in to new baroo and start taking photos of our still-not-that-luxurious interior exclaiming “how pretty!” and to come bearing bags of gifts for their loved ones for the celebrations. I mean, it’s new for us to be able even to serve champagne or deliciously effervescent makgeolli for people to toast with.
I absolutely adore that people choose to come to baroo to celebrate. Our hope is that we can make the evening celebratory for them and that they leave feeling cared for. Ironically, Kwang doesn’t believe in birthdays and special occasions really. His principle is that every day is special. And yes yes, I subscribe to the belief that every day is special too. But I love celebrations too! I am a firm believer in birthday months, huge parties with friends, intimate fancy dinners with family, lots of cake and candles and gifts. I want to sing along when tables start singing the Happy Birthday song.
There are so many reasons why people dine out at restaurants and I’m just now seeing the joy of being a place that people seek out for one very important reason restaurants exist—celebration. Now, our hospitality is still grounded by the food, but since we are seeing some guests come in knowing very little about our food and just wanting to gather and celebrate, I’m spending more time thinking about why people dine out, why people are coming to us and what they want from us, in very basic terms, and what we want to share that goes beyond the food. So Sook Sundays will be the space for me to continue articulating, mostly to myself, all of this.
When I have a question or problem I need to answer, I read. So I’ve read the Danny Meyer and Will Guidara books of course. I really enjoyed Priya Basil’s book, Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community and Generosity which I learned about from Alicia Kennedy’s post on hospitality (and hostility!). If there are other books on hospitality that I should read as I noodle on baroo’s hospitality, please share!
Meanwhile, here are a few things that I’ll share in return:
READING:
As a former babysitter (from ages 11-16), I enjoyed reading the Atlantic piece on the disappearance of the American teen babysitter. As a mother without a full-time nanny who has been pining for a reliable and affordable neighbourhood teen to watch our son from time to time, I did not enjoy reading it. After a quick skim over morning coffee, I’ll definitely be sitting down tonight (or sometime in the coming weeks realistically) to read this follow-up piece in more depth that was published today by
.WATCHING:
I am in another phase of sneaking in time to watch K-dramas when I can. Since K-drama episodes tend to run over an hour-long each, I rarely get to watch an entire episode at once. But I’m enjoying this kind of savouring of an episode over days and weeks and prolonging the draaaaama.
I have two very specific favourite sub-genres of Korean dramas that I love that are dominating right now, lucky for me: (1) dramas about reincarnation or the afterlife. I love a good, winding, romantic story about reincarnation. My latest very guilty pleasure has been See You in My 19th Life 이번 생도 잘 부탁해. But there are countless K-dramas on reincarnation and the afterlife which underline lessons on how to live a good life here on earth that I am determined to get through in this lifetime. (2) My other favourite K-drama trope is the big-shot in Seoul who has to move to the countryside (usually their hometown) and comes to appreciate the beauty of being part of a true village, and of course gets back together with their first love. There’s the one about the dentist who moves to the countryside, the fashion photographer who moves back to her hometown, you get the idea, and then there’s the more substantial Our Blues 우리들의 블루스. As someone who is planning on moving to the Korean countryside, my expectation is that the restaurant we open there will be the talk of the town and not in a good way but we will ultimately realize that all our future neighbors will be nosy but adorably caring underneath it all when they band together to support our restaurant with an outdoor festival where a local child sings sweetly on stage.
EATING:
My favourite thing I ate last week was a grilled pork banh mi from Banh Mi My Dung in Chinatown. The thin shell of the Vietnamese baguette shattered perfectly with each bite and the taste was very homey. Excellent value and close enough to our restaurants to be a regular treat. Speaking of hospitality, I loved how the man who helped me with my order thoughtfully put Kwang’s Diet Coke in a refrigerator by the door, not handing it to me until everything was ready so the drink stayed cold. It’s these little moments of hospitality that I want to hone in on!
See you Thursday,
mina xx
I’ve just discovered you and I love your stories and now I’m convinced I must visit your restaurant(s) 🍽️
I believe in all celebrations big and small and the rituals that come along with celebrating! I loved reading these thoughtful words about how you’re considering the experience of celebration for guests at your restaurant. How lucky these guests are to have their celebratory moments honored in such a way. Thank you for sharing 🤍