17 Feb 8th–Feb 14th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | karaoke and drinking lounge, Babo Jumak, next door. Then came the influencers. ‘Authentic’ to what? Anytime a great restaurant finds a new audience, that’s a win. But many of Ban Chan’s newfound evangelists favor super- latives over subtlety. “The most authentic Korean restaurant in Arizona” shout the titles on TikTok, the kind of breathless hyperbole that aims to keep you from swiping for just a few precious seconds. The thing is, “authentic” is a tricky chameleon of a word. It has a sneaky way of meaning whatever you want it to mean, and the implied “inauthenticity” of the alternative makes it a value judgment: This food is good. That other food isn’t. But like any cuisine, Korean food comes in a multitude of styles. And I know an awful lot of Korean restaurateurs around town who would rightly take umbrage with the implication that their style of food is somehow less “authentic.” A nation’s cuisine isn’t frozen in time, and Woo herself plainly states that popular South Korean foods of 2024 are in many ways unfamiliar to her. “Right now, over there is so different. I don’t know the new style. I stopped in ’74 over there,” Woo says. What it seems influencers are trying to get at, however clumsily, is that Ban Chan embodies a particular type of Korean food. “Country homestyle” is how Woo describes it. It’s neither fancy nor showy, both straightforward and humble and ulti- mately focused on comforting, satisfying flavor. Ban Chan serves grandma cuisine. Ban Chan feels like home Heck, it’s printed right there in the upper lefthand corner of the menu: “Grandma’s Home Cookin’!” When I ask around, the same phrase keeps bubbling to the surface. “This is like the food my grandma used to make.” What’s special about Ban Chan is that it doesn’t have to be your culture for that feeling to come through. Sit down at one of the peach melamine tabletops and lean over a giant steel bowl of duk mandu guk, a dumpling and rice cake soup. It’s too hot to eat. Korean soups always are, somehow, no matter how long you let them cool. But you dig in and scald your tongue anyway, because who can wait? You spear a thick, chewy rice cake and slurp a sip of simple beef broth that’s deep, meaty and cloudy, and it has a thick, luxu- rious texture that wraps around your tongue and refuses to let go. There are ribbons of scrambled egg and a whiff of garlic and scallion, but the only sharp edge comes from a heady blast of white pepper, a little punch in the nose to wake you up and keep you engaged. As your belly warms, you get a little woozy, lost in a soup-induced reverie set to the tune of Korean power ballads playing from a cheap stereo Top: Ban Chanfeatures hand-painted signs depicting menu items. Bottom: The kimchi fried rice is an unusually clean, delicate version. (Photos by Mary Berkstresser and Dominic Armato) Grandma’s on the ’Gram from p 14 >> p 19
