About Timothy Choi
Welcome to Timothy Choi’s Korean food blog — a spot for the recipes, restaurant guides, and travel notes I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago, back when I first packed my bags and left Korea.
I was born in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, a region known for some of Korea’s strongest home-cooking traditions, even if most people abroad have never heard of it. I left at nineteen and didn’t really come back until my late thirties. In between, I lived and worked in Japan, the United States, the Philippines, China, and Madagascar, more than two decades altogether, long enough that “explaining Korean food to someone who’s never had it” became a skill I practiced constantly, not occasionally.
That’s the gap this blog is built for. Not the distance between Korea and the rest of the world — the distance between the Korean food that gets exported and the Korean food I grew up eating. One travels well. The other doesn’t, and it’s usually the better version.
How Timothy Choi’s Korean Food Blog Started
Every country’s cuisine gets flattened a little when it crosses a border. Sauces get sweeter, spice gets dialed back, dishes get simplified into something a menu can explain in one line. Korean food has gone through the same thing over the last decade, and I don’t think that version is wrong exactly — it’s just not the one I’d cook for a friend.
I started this blog because I kept having the same conversation with people I met abroad: they’d tell me they loved Korean food, then describe something that barely resembled what my mother made. I wanted a place to write down the actual recipes, the actual restaurants, and the actual routes and neighborhoods — the version I’d hand to someone visiting Korea for the first time, not the version built for a tourist menu.
What began as a handful of recipe notes turned into something closer to a running record — every dish, every neighborhood spot, every route I’d tell a friend about over the phone, written down properly instead of half-remembered the next time someone asked.
This isn’t a blog written by someone discovering Korea. It’s written by someone who left it, and spent twenty years figuring out what was actually worth bringing back to explain.
What You’ll Actually Find Here
Recipes tested the way they’re made at home
Every recipe on this site is one I’ve cooked myself, usually more than once, adjusted until it matched what I remember from Jeollabuk-do kitchens rather than what photographs well. No shortcuts that quietly change the flavor, and no ingredient swapped out just because it’s easier to find abroad.
Restaurant guides with no sponsored placements
If a restaurant shows up in a guide here, it’s because I’d genuinely take a visiting friend there — not because anyone paid for the mention. I’d rather have a shorter list I trust than a longer one I don’t, and I say so plainly when a once-good place has gone downhill.
Travel and routes beyond the guidebook circuit
Cycling paths, neighborhoods, temple stays, the kind of everyday detail that doesn’t make it into a top-ten list but changes how a trip actually feels. A lot of it comes from routes I’ve ridden or walked myself, not ones I read about secondhand.
Who Timothy Choi’s Korean Food Blog Is For
Mostly, this is for people who’ve already had the “airport version” of Korean food and want to know what’s underneath it — travelers planning a real trip, people cooking Korean food at home who want it to taste right, and anyone who’s tired of listicles written by someone who visited once. If that’s you, you’re in the right place.
Get In Touch
If you’ve got a question about a recipe, want a restaurant recommendation for a specific neighborhood, or just want to tell me I got something wrong — reach out here. I read everything.
Warmly,
Timothy Choi
No Compromises
Every recipe here is tested the way it’s actually made at home — not simplified for a foreign kitchen.
Not From a Search Result
These are dishes and places I grew up with, not ones I found by researching what’s popular.
A Place, Not Just a Cuisine
Food, routes, and neighborhoods — the parts of Korea that don’t fit in a recipe card.
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