Today we’d like to introduce you to Judy Han.
A career changer, Judy was fortunate to find her first kitchen job with Suzanne Goin (Lucques, A.O.C., Tavern, The Larder), whose passion for local, sustainably raised food had a huge impact on shaping Judy’s culinary philosophy. She continued to cultivate her commitment to using responsibly raised food throughout her tenure in other respected chef’s kitchens, including Neal Fraser (Grace, Redbird), David Myers (Sona), Chris Kidder (Literati II), and Bryant Ng (Cassia, Spice Table).
In 2007, Judy joined Mendocino Farms when it was only operating out of an 800-square foot space in Bunker Hill of downtown Los Angeles. She was instrumental in helping it grow into a successful and much beloved multi-unit concept by the time she left her position as Corporate Executive Chef in December of 2014.
Eko Eats is a passion project for Judy, who is thrilled by the opportunity to cook a different style of Korean food, to show that there is more to Korean food than just barbecue. She embraces the chance to offer food to vegans and others who may have dietary restrictions so that they too can enjoy a cuisine that she loves and grew up with. Her goal is to offer delicious, healthy and approachable Korean food using the kind of ingredients that she proudly serves to her own children for everyone to enjoy.
Eko Eats offers chef-designed, Korean inspired meals using the highest quality, organic, non-GMO ingredients whenever possible. They are proudly partnering with GoneStraw Farms, a small, family run Southern Californian poultry farmer, who directly delivers fresh, humanely raised chicken and eggs. They are committed to trying to be as sustainable as possible by using the entire chicken throughout their menu. They breakdown these chickens in-house, serving both white and dark meat, and use the bones to offer a hearty chicken bone broth. They have invested in a separate vegan-friendly fryer to assure that plant-based alternatives can be conscientiously developed for much of the menu.
They are committed to serving the kind of real food that nourish their children and try to support their food philosophies.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
After the first 6 months, we finally started gaining our stride and started building our clientele and business. I thought the business would continue to grow and build. But then, suddenly, without notice, there was a street closure on our block to make room for construction of the subway line, which lasted from June to November of 2017. Our sales plummeted by 30%, which, for a new business could be devastating.
Fortunately, we hung on and tried to focus on growing our catering sales and online delivery sales, to help supplement the business and we managed to survive for another year.
With the streets re-opened, and more knowledge about our clients and time to work on other revenue streams, we are posed to become a healthy business once again for this new year.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Eko Eats story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a healthy, Korean inspired fast casual concept that emphasizes good quality ingredients. Our chicken and eggs come from a local, small poultry farmer who deliver to us directly three times a week. Our rice is organic rice from Koda farms, a Northern Californian 3rd generation rice grower, who grows amazing heritage grain rice that is more delicious and nutritious than other rice available.
We make our sauces in-house, including our vegan kimchi, our house-fermented chili (sambal) sauce, our vegan yaki-soba sauce, etc. We specialize in our rice bowls, but have recently expanded our menu to include noodle dishes as well. We are most proud that we can offer vegan and gluten free Korean inspired food, which is quite a niche market!
I believe that life is full of opportunity, which can lead to both good and bad experiences. But, an experience is never truly bad, if you can learn and grow from it.
Life is a journey, as is this business. We are constantly growing and evolving. We just hope to improve all the time and be able to feed people good food that not only tastes good, but can play a small part in helping one’s health as well as the environment.
Pricing:
- Korean Fried Chicken & Bibimbap (or Fried Tofu) $11.95
- Kimchi Fried Rice (can be made vegan and is gluten free) $8.95/$10.95
- Chosun Beef Bowl $11.55
- Japchae (can be made vegan and is gluten free) $8.95/10.95
- Chicken Jook (gluten free) $7.25/$9.25
- Vegan Ramyun (vegan) $9.95
- Korean Fried Chicken Salad or Fried Tofu Salad (can be made vegan) $11.95
- Yaki “Soba” Lunchbox $12.55
Contact Info:
- Address: 630 W. 6th St. #110B
Los Angeles, CA 90017 - Website: www.ekoeats.com
- Phone: 213.622.1616
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: judy.ekoeats
- Facebook: ekoeats
- Twitter: judy_ekoeats
- Yelp: Eko Eats
Image Credit:
Judy Han
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