Kangbokoong, the number 1 gourmet restaurant in Changwon.

CEOs Boknyeo Kang/ Shinjae Lee

Located in Sangnam-dong, Sungsan district, Changwon, Kangbokoong is the representative gourmet restaurant in the city specialized in Chimgalbi (beef rib stew). Their Chimgalbi boasts its spicy taste that captures the gentle texture of the meat and appetite. There is a saying "there are customers who have not visited Kangbokoong but there are no customers who have visited one once." Kangbokoong showed outstanding sales figures among the many restaurants in Sangnam-dong and they are about to start franchising and are currently recruiting start-ups. Power Korea has met the CEOs of Kangbokoong and heard about their passion in Chimgalbi.

From trimming to cooking, Korea's first patented Chimgalbi.

Opening throughout the year, Kang prepares the food from early morning to midnight. Although she gets tired sometimes, she keeps her spirits up to maintain her culinary philosophy. Her doctrine number one is never leave the taste of the restaurant to other's hands no matter how busy she is. If the cook is changed, the taste gets changed, thus the customers get unimpressed because the taste they expect has been changed. The doctrine number two is to be kind to the customers until they finish their meal and leave the restaurant. She sees the customers out to the elevator, bows deeply at the waist, and repeats thank you. The doctrine number three is to remove the fat and oil of the meat at the trimming stage. Of course the weight of its expensive beef meat gets reduced by removing them, however, the fat and oil are not dissolved when accumulated in the internal organs, and it make the shape of the food bad when the food get cold. "There are many family business restaurants in Japan. And they have things in common: they are very kind and the taste never changes. It is the same reason we achieved our success in such a short period."

Kangbokoong obtained a patent for the recipe of Chimgalbi last June. It was the result of their strenuous efforts for the last 5 years. Lee said "it is not merely about the recipe we obtained a patent but the whole process from preparing spices to cooking. Unavoidably, there was a drawback of exposing our recipe, but we are happy to obtain the patent." Lee sometimes gets scolded for his not being tactful from the people in the same field because he manually crushes garlic himself and choose the freshest ingredients even if it is a cucumber while most of them use cheap Chinese or mass produced ingredients in order to maximize their profit. Nevertheless, Lee believes that the taste gets different even by the freshness and groundwork of the ingredients and he does not want stop his efforts.

Retired people pay attention to the franchise of Kangbokoong.

Currently, Kangbokoong moved and expand their flagship store and the both CEOs' daughter Gyongsook Lee is taking chare of franchising business. Lee targeted baby boom generation for their franchising and is focusing on retired people. "The head office will take the responsibility for the ingredients and meat and we will also pass the recipe of not only the main dish but also the side dishes. We will regularly visit branches and check things out so that start-ups can easily start their business with us." Each branch can prepare food and buy their own culinary utensils except the ingredients and meat. This is because that the head office can make more profit if they distribute even the side dishes in frozen, but the burden among the branches will increase and also the freshness of the food is not guaranteed. "I have heard and seen many franchise stores whose taste of the food get changed as time goes by, and as a result, even the flagship store gets closed down. Therefore, we will introduce 'three strikes law' to maintain the original taste."

Kangbokoong declared to take over the whole nation over Changwon.

And we will expect to see the day coming so that people can have the different level of Chimgalbi everywhere.