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In other news, far-right Korean Ams are now gathering at a Korean restaurant near DC to establish the "alternative government" because they are convinced that Moon Jae-in is a communist spy who rigged elections and is preparing to surrender to Kim Jong Un.
The flyer claims Xi Jinping is attempting to communize the entire peninsula by assisting the election rigging, so there now must be a government-in-exile in DC with Park Geun-hye as the head of state.
I'm so mad I didn't get to see this meeting, purely for the comedy value.
I'm so mad I didn't get to see this meeting, purely for the comedy value.
There's a good story to be written about the fate of big Korean restaurant halls like Sorak Garden in Annandale, VA, the DC suburb that was once the center of Korean Am population near DC. When I moved to DC ten years ago there were several of these; now there are only 1 or 2. https://twitter.com/snbatman/status/1278696054200979457
People are surprised to hear that the DMV area (DC, MD, VA) has the third largest Korean Am community in the US. Behind LA and NY, but ahead of places like SF, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago. And for a long time, Annandale was the Korean Am neighborhood.
One of the reasons why DC restaurants are so bad is because they are not really in the business of selling food, but selling space - for big political gatherings where the food is secondary in importance. That same factor applied to Korean restaurants in Annandale.
All these cavernous restaurants - Sorak Garden, Heebin, Han Gang, Palace, Woo Lae Oak (in Arlington then later Tysons) and more - had a long menu in which every dish was passable at best. But their main business is serving bus tours and Korean Am political gatherings.
Koreans are not big into bus tours anymore, and Korean Am political gatherings are now cocktails at Hotel Monaco rather than a Korean restaurant hall. With C19, most of these restaurants closed. I think only two remain - Sorak Garden and Yechon. Three if you count Woo Lae Oak.
Annandale's Korean Am community as a whole shrank quite a bit. All the newer, nicer Korean Am businesses like supermarkets and restaurants are now in Centreville and Reston, even further removed from DC. Within DC, awful gentrified shit like Anju became the Korean presence.
I did my daughter's dol party at one of these restaurants, simply because I had no other option. Ahead of our reservation was a lunch gathering of Korean Patriots Party, the out-and-out fascist party of S Korea. That's how these places are.
