Jungmin Seo lives in London and is a senior reporter at The Caterer, covering the hospitality industry. Prior to that, she co-edited Ed Fringe Review.
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‘It serves actual ‘‘jajangmyeon’’!’: the New Malden restaurant at the heart of London’s Little Korea
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.
Photograph: Jess Hand for Time Out
It’s still the only restaurant I’ve been to in London that serves actual ‘jajangmyeon’: plump wheat noodles (imagine a texture between spaghetti a