As a part of our series on spotlighting Asian-American owned businesses we sat down with Founder of Food by Sung, Sung Kim.
Tell us what your company does and why it’s noteworthy.
Share some of the challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them.
We are often given dietary restrictions. Being able to create a dish without compromising the lack of necessary ingredients, or anyone else noticing for that matter, is something we happily take as a challenge. Having non-serious food allergies myself, being able to eat without worrying about the consequences, especially something I enjoy, is a special experience.
Most recently, we were asked to create a Korean inspired Pan-Asian menu, and one of the hosts had soy intolerance. Soy is pretty much in everything, especially in seasonings like soy sauce and miso, which are an essential part of Korean cuisine. Even though there are products that claim to be a substitute for soy sauce, nothing can replace that. We had to come up with different combinations of seasonings that produced the flavors that really came close to having soy sauce in those dishes, such as bulgogi. In the end, the only one who noticed soy sauce wasn’t there was the host with soy intolerance. This was the first time he had no symptoms after eating the Korean dishes he loves so much.
Describe the moment you were proud of being Asian American since you began your entrepreneurial journey.
Sung Kim, Owner and Founder