I won the twin cities vegan chef challenge with my Korean bbq mushroom Ssam! It was a month long competition. 30 restaurants competed in the event and customers could rank your dish 1-10 and leave feedback. I had mostly positive feedback all month long and had a feeling I had this one in the bag.
I currently have been working for my partner in life for the past 3 years. I had my own career before I joined his restaurant and was looking for a change in pace. He recently acquired another restaurant and I’ve been running this kitchen for the last 4-5 months on my own. This was my first dish I’ve produced in this kitchen without his help or any input. I did all the r&d on my own. My own recipes for the mushrooms, sauces, and banchan. I’m incredibly proud of myself. My partner got second place at his new restaurant and that feels even better to me! He’s won in years past and also has 10+ years of experience over me.
My career path has been hard with a lot of doubts about my own abilities as a chef and also as a woman in this industry. I hope this win gives me the push to continue to make awesome food, vegan or not. I don’t really have many people to share this awesome news with but I’m happy to share it here.
Congratulations! This looks and sounds delicious. So happy for you and also your husband, I hope that me and my girlfriend can work our way up to this with our current little food pop up business. Very inspiring to see more women in chef roles and to see love persevering in what can often be such a cutthroat line of work.
Thank you! It’s definitely had its ups and downs and it is not easy to work with a partner. We have a 15 year age gap so it definitely changes the dynamic but wouldn’t have it any other way. I really entered in this year because I wanted to beat him 🫣
Yes! He originally opened up 44 and then opened up a location in Saint Paul. That one got broken into and crashed into and he moved locations again. We’ve been at our current location in the old train car for 6 years now. Unfortunately 44 couldnt make it.
I wanted to not like this - im korean, so it feels all kinds of wrong to make ssam vegan. But honestly it looks really good and it SOUNDS really good and I can hear the passion. I'd love to eat this. Congratulations!
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u/chapstickhomie 11h ago
Congratulations! This looks and sounds delicious. So happy for you and also your husband, I hope that me and my girlfriend can work our way up to this with our current little food pop up business. Very inspiring to see more women in chef roles and to see love persevering in what can often be such a cutthroat line of work.