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[title]If you like the sound of crispy kimchi pancakes, Korean fried chicken drizzled in honey-butter sauce, or shaved ice topped with sweetened red bean paste, you’ll never go hungry in New Malden.
When I first moved to the UK with my family in 2005, we were only a 15-minute drive away from this south-west London suburb. It’s thought to have the largest Korean community in Europe, having previously been home to the Korean Embassy in the 1970s and the offices of global electronics company Samsung in the early 2000s. Nowadays, New Malden Village Ward is represented by a Korean councillor and has a whole host of Korean restaurants, shops, and hairdressers alongside high-street regulars Greggs, M&S and Nando’s. Last year, King Charles visited the buzzy Cake & Bingsoo dessert parlour, while locals understand a proper ‘noraebang’ (Korean-style karaoke) is on its way.
For me, New Malden is synonymous with simpler times: swimming lessons in the Malden Centre, going to the Korean supermarket to buy packets of Jolly Pong (a glazed puffed-wheat snack that tastes like Cheerios) and – my favourite – getting dinner at Genghis Khan. Pronounced Jin-giss-khan, the restaurant takes its name from the founder of the Mongol Empire, who is well-known among Koreans – and Asians, for that matter – for his lasting influence.
It’s still the only restaurant I’ve been to in London that serves actual ‘jajangmyeon’: plump wheat noodles (imagine a texture between spaghetti and udon) coated in a generous portion of an ever-so-slightly sweet and savoury black bean sauce, which is mixed with diced pork, caramelised onions and fresh cucumber. The dish originated from Chinese migrant workers from Shandong province who settled in Korea in the late 1800s (also known as the ‘Hwagyo’ community). The first ‘jajangmyeon’, which takes its inspiration from the Chinese ‘zhajiangmian’ (noodles served with fried bean sauce), was believed to have been served in a restaurant in Incheon’s Chinatown, near Seoul.
In recent years, there has been a boom in restaurants offering Korean staples across the UK, most notably Korean BBQ, bibimbap (rice bowl with meat and vegetables), tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and corn dogs (just look at the queues at Bunsik in Leicester Square). But I’ve also always wondered why ‘Korean-ised’ Chinese dishes haven’t yet had their moment.
So if you want to get ahead of the curve, I would thoroughly recommend Kanghoon Bae’s Genghis Khan, which is a 10-minute walk from New Malden train station. Countless Koreans (myself included) have had casual lunches and family gatherings there, and despite all these years, it retains its rotating K-Pop playlist, modest interiors and warm hospitality. It’s probably one of the most authentic places you can try deliciously inauthentic Korean food, and one of the very few restaurants where Koreans can genuinely unleash their craving for ‘jajangmyeon’.
Time Out popped into the kitchen of Genghis Khan to speak to Kanghoon Bae, chef-owner, to find out more.
‘When I was growing up, my father owned a Korean-Chinese restaurant in the port city of Busan, which is the second-largest city in South Korea. Surrounded by food, I naturally developed an interest in cooking. By the time I was in middle school, my father had informally recruited me into his [restaurant’s] kitchen, and when I was old enough for compulsory military service, I joined the air forces as an army chef. After I was discharged, I attended culinary school for two years before landing my first chef job at a Korean-Chinese restaurant in a hotel in Seoul. I learnt from some of the best during my five years there, but I also felt as though I had hit a bit of a wall.
‘At the time, all the prestigious Korean-Chinese restaurants were run by migrant workers from Shandong province in China, who are called ‘Hwagyo’. Ethnically, I wasn’t part of that close-knit community, so I didn’t feel like I could progress to positions like executive chef. I was also only 28, so my seniors weren’t taking my progression prospects very seriously. It was at this point that I decided to apply for a chef job abroad. I was looking at either Australia or London, but the London job offer came first. So, in 2005, I moved to New Malden, joined Genghis Khan, which was a fresh opening back then, and slowly moved up the ranks to head chef. In 2011, the previous owners sold the restaurant to me, and I’ve been chef-owner here ever since.
‘We’ve been around for almost two decades now, but our best-sellers haven’t changed: ‘jajangmyeon’ (noodles with pork in black bean sauce), ‘jjamppong’ (noodles in red hot seafood soup), and ‘tangsuyuk’ (deep fried pork in sweet and sour sauce) – the classic trio of dishes that represent Korean soul food. The biggest compliment we get from the Korean locals is that our dishes taste better than what you can normally get in Korea.
‘I’m especially proud of our ‘jajangmyeon’, because it’s based on the techniques I learnt while cooking with Hwagyo. Typical Korean-Chinese restaurants in Korea tend to pour meat stock to liquify the black bean sauce, but I’ve always been taught to use sliced onions to create a natural moisture in the mixture, which adds a mellow sweetness to the dish. We also make our noodles from scratch every morning, and that makes all the difference.
‘Over the years, I’ve found that Korean-Chinese cuisine isn’t particularly suited to traditional recipes, because you have to cook things over fire and it’s all about the sauces. You need what Koreans call son-mat (translated literally as ‘hand-taste’) – that natural ability to make something taste delicious and comforting. I guess it’s a bit like cooking a good steak – it really depends on who is searing it.
‘In recent years, the hospitality industry has faced lots of challenges due to staff shortages, and when you work in quite a niche cuisine, you can feel them even more. Firstly, there are only three Korean-Chinese restaurants in all of New Malden – Genghis Khan, You Me Restaurant, and one in Seoul Plaza supermarket – and even fewer across central London, which means the hiring pool for chefs is already very small. While it’s not easy to train UK-based chefs who have never even tried the food they are cooking, it’s equally hard to recruit chefs directly from Korea. Logistics and visa restrictions aside, people can get lonely when settling into a new country.
‘But there are also many reasons to stay optimistic. After all, Genghis Khan is constantly adapting to a changing New Malden. There are so many more places to eat now than when we first started, and as the Korean community has also become more affluent, the restaurants are busy throughout the week, not just the weekends. From 2017 onwards, K-Pop sensation BTS has boosted the number of non-Korean customers we get through the door (though I would say 80 percent of our diners are still Korean), and since the government launched the Hong Kong British National Overseas visa in 2021, we’ve also had an influx of Hong Kongers in the area. It’s getting more competitive for all of us, but that must also be a good sign that we’re becoming a bit of a dining destination.
‘I don’t think I would be here without Genghis Khan. It’s become a huge part of who I am, and I am so grateful for it. It’s the restaurant that enabled me to get married, have two kids and raise a family. It still surprises me that I’ve been able to reap so much success from it, because you’re never guaranteed that when you open a restaurant, regardless of the amount of effort you put into it. It’s given me so much, and I’m never going to let myself forget that.’
*This interview was conducted in Korean.
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