Georgia Trend. April 2025.
One of the best ways to learn about international cuisine is knowing someone from another country. Just let him or her pick the place, order their favorite dishes, and possibly even converse with the staff in their native language. When it comes to Korean food, culture, and shopping, Sarah Park can be that someone.
Park is a first-generation South Korean immigrant who moved to Georgia when she was 12 years old. She grew up learning about both Southern and Korean culture, and was always passionate about her community.
She hosts a segment on Atlanta Radio Korean and serves on various advisory committees including the Korean Food Global Association Southeast and the Atlanta International Night Market. About 10 years ago, she helped Explore Gwinnett, the county’s official destination marketing organization, on a new marketing campaign to raise awareness of the Korean restaurants and businesses in the area. Today, she consults them and leads Seoul of The South Food Tours each May through September. The tours accommodates up to 25 people, and cost $69 a person, but is sold out almost a year in advance.
The tour starts at the Explore Gwinnett office in Duluth, where you board a trolley with Park. She began by telling us that Gwinnett County is home to the largest population of South Koreans in the state and pointed out Korean restaurants, bakeries, photo booths, grocery stores, bookstores, spas, and karaoke spots along the route.
Our first food stop was Jang Su Jang(meaning live long) a family-style traditional Korean restaurant with wooden interiors and booths. Jenny, our waitress, who has been at the restaurant since it first opened 20 years ago, offered us boricha (hot barley tea). Park ordered for the group, altering menus for dietary restrictions, and within minutes, dozens of small bowls covered the entire table. In Korean cuisine, meals are family-style and not coursed out. The side dishes, often fermented vegetables, including three kinds of homemade kimchi – cucumber, radish, and cabbage, are complimentary. Alongside bowls of rice, sundubu (tofu) soup, japchae(noodles with vegetables), seafood pancakes, and bibimbap (mixed rice bowl), we altered each bite between mains and veggies.
Next at a lively Korean BBQ restaurant – Honey Pig, we grilled tableside. The chef there uses scissors to shred heaps of kimchi. You won’t find knives at traditional Korean restaurants, but the waitstaff would be happy to hand you scissors if you need to slice, rip or cut. The menu includes shrimp, chicken, beef and pork, alongside bean sprouts, rice paper, soup, rice and more. We picked the ready protein with chopsticks and dipped it in salt and ssamjang (spicy sauce).
Next we headed to Yogi, where we were served chicken, grilled beef, loaded fried shrimp toast, and sweet Korean iced coffee. The husband-and-wife team there has opened other food concepts around town, and their latest is the Korean comfort food spot where you can get fresh, hearty and affordable meals within minutes.
During the tour, Park told us that in Seoul, she and her brother made a dash to the snack shop after school every day to eat fried foods that they weren’t allowed to have at home.
At the next stop, Tree Story Bakery & Café in Duluth, our mouths watered just looking at the colorful sweet potato mousse, chestnut manju (cookies) and red bean bread. Park suggested we try bingsu – a humungous bowl of milk-based shaved ice topped with fruits, red beans and ice cream. It is refreshing on a warm day but a meal in itself!
Park was happy to take guests next door on a stroll through H Mart, one of the largest Asian grocery stores in Georgia, pointing out her favorite instant Ramen, sauces, and other supplies.
Too full to move after all the food I had sampled, I spent the next several hours sweating out the calories at the Korean day spa – Spa Land & Sauna.
The Seoul of the South Food Tour is part feeding-frenzy, part-education. Expect to learn Korean dining etiquette. For example, you always pour a drink for each other, and not for yourself. And it’s impolite to lift a bowl off the table and bring it close to your mouth. We also learned that chopsticks pointing straight up in rice means there’s a funeral. And the eldest at the table respectfully takes the first bite before everyone else eats.