Seattle food blogger to open Korean banchan shop

When Seattle's Sara Upshaw started her food blog, Kimchi Halfie, seven years ago, she knew she wanted to be in food, and to share her passion for cooking her family’s Korean cuisine, but she hadn’t figured out exactly what that would look like.

Then, like so many people did, during the pandemic she had a bit of a revelation and figured out exactly what she needed to do. Now, the professional photo retoucher and food blogger turned pop-up chef and cookbook author is finalizing plans to open a brick and mortar shop in Seattle devoted to her take on Korean food and focused on banchan.

While she’s still looking for locations for Ohsun Banchan Deli and Cafe, with hopes to open it next year, by late spring or early summer, Upshaw finishes out a big year.

Upshaw’s first cookbook, "Korean Barbecue at Home" came out in November, supplementing the unique recipes collected on her blog over the last many years. And earlier in the year she teamed up with a friend to form the pop-up Jinjja — a fun, one-night thing to try something new during the pandemic. Customers raced to try their salmon bibimbap and shrimp salad with gojuchang and apricot dressing, often buying out all of the preorders within hours of them getting posted.

Jinjja’s success led to more pop-ups and Upshaw got inspired. “It was really fun to see,” and she found herself reaching people she couldn’t before just on her blog. “It was so successful that I was like, ‘I would just like to do this full-time.’”

While her book focused on Korean barbecue, Ohsun will center on a less flashy side of the cuisine: the side dishes served with rice as part of Korean meals. “Think of banchan like punctuations,” suggests Ohsun’s Instagram. “They move the conversation of a meal forward.” She plans to offer a wide variety of the traditional dishes as well as her own tweaked versions, all made in small batches and including gluten-free and vegan banchan.

Upshaw named Ohsun for her Korean grandmother, who raised five kids of her own and took in her sister and four nieces and nephews, teaching Upshaw the flavors of her cuisine. “She’s the reason I grew up knowing how to feed a crowd. Though Upshaw grew up loving the comforting dishes her halmoni served, she never considered it as something she could do professionally. But seeing the reaction to the pop-up, she says something clicked in her mind. “I’m supposed to be doing this.”

At Ohsun, in addition to selling her banchan for people to take home and supplement their own Korean meals, Upshaw aims to make sure people can see the potential ways to incorporate them into meals, so the café will offer a small menu of prepared Korean soups, stews and dishes. “Food that I recognize growing up, that makes me feel at home,” she describes. Beyond the deli and café, the third component to Ohsun will be a curated pantry area, including some of the Korean-specific versions of ingredients that people like Upshaw didn’t always get to grow up with, like Korean soy sauce.

Upshaw calls her style of cooking her own interpretation of Korean food, not necessarily strictly traditional, but not fusion, either. “I respect each dish as what it wants to be, then alter things how I would want to eat it myself.” The menu from Jinjja offers a peek at her style: a Korean-ified version of the Seattle dog, kimchi mac and cheese with spam, short rib bucatini, and “mandu tots” with dumplings and gojuchang aioli.

Seeing the enthusiastic reaction to her food and getting to interact with people eating her food showed Upshaw what she wanted to do, the dream she had never really been able to figure out, and the outlet for her ongoing passion. “It feels like my purpose,” a feeling strong enough to make her committed to finding a location and making Ohsun happen.