Korean cooking and street food are abundant in L.A. But outside the confines of a Kogi truck, the twain rarely meet.
Ken Lee, the owner of Assa K-Food, a Korean stand at Lincoln and Rose in Venice with no internet presence, believes it all comes down to the massive amount of work that goes into street vending.
Lee should know. He and his wife, Savannah, make the trek from Palmdale to Venice and back five times a week. Once all their equipment–including a four-burner stove–is broken down, unloaded, and cleaned, they rarely get to bed before 2 AM.
Prep starts anew early the next morning, where Ken slices his own bulgogi and pork, prepares his own marinades, grinds three types of peppers for his spicy broths, and cures his kimchi the old-fashioned way, with nothing more than the juice extracted from Asian pears and apples. All before returning to L.A.’s Westside to set up and vend for eight to nine hours in the evening.
Raised in Seoul, Lee’s family immigrated to Michigan in 1976 when he was about 11. A few years later, his parents opened their own Korean restaurant in Grand Rapids, where he learned how to cook, along with getting steeped in the trials of running a restaurant.
Ken later owned and operated BWon, his own big Korean-Japanese restaurant, in Chicago. Then he fell in love. He met Savannah in L.A. 17 years ago through friends. A year later, he moved to the West Coast.
Lee, 60, enjoyed the relaxed pace of an early retirement before launching Assa about eleven months ago. Savannah’s idea to start a Korean food stand pulled Ken back into the professional world of cooking and management.
“She came up with this idea because everywhere, she saw so many taco stands, but she never saw Korean food,” Ken tells L.A. TACO. “She told me she wanted to open it and do Korean street food and bugged me for a whole year. And I said ‘no,’ because I know what a restaurant involves, but finally, she said she wants to learn English by talking to other people. So that kind of got me started.”
The couple’s goal at Assa has always been to offer genuine, healthy Korean food at an affordable price. Only one dish, the tteokbokki, which costs $12, is priced over $10.
Assa’s menu is fairly casual, offering tacos with tender pork and bulgogi with crunchy vegetables and a Greek yogurt sauce; deeply flavored bowls of rich beef or sweet-spicy pork with vegetables and your choice of rice, slippery glass noodles, or one of a variety of packaged ramens in Ken’s homemade broths; bulgogi burgers; handmade gimbap; mandu dumplings; a fiery dish of silky tteokbokki; and a grip of Korean snacks and sodas.
Lee weighs out his meats, usually using chuck roll for his bulgogi, his biggest seller, so the servings are the same portion daily. Packed individually, he marinates them on the spot in bags using sauces that took months to develop and days to ferment, with no MSG or added sugars. Everything is cooked to order and priced lower than most of our Korean restaurants.
“I want people to enjoy and try Korean food at an affordable price,” he says. “And good quality food. I assure you that the ingredients and the sauce that I make are very healthy for people.”
Lee would eventually love to expand Assa’s offerings to include more of the dishes common to street food-heavy South Korea, like the sweet hotteok hot cakes that await customers in stacks hundreds-strong.
Despite diving into the hard work of running a street food stand, the Lees have no regrets. Ken says they’ve served thousands of people and received “no complaints” in turn. The business has grown through a steady stream of regulars, who keep the couple inspired.
Spend a moment at the stand with Ken and Savannah–and possibly Savannah’s mom and sister, who sometimes help out– and you’ll witness many loyal customers coming by to order, dole out a fist bump, or simply honk their horns and wave as they drive by amid Lincoln’s evening car-crush. Ken says he has one customer who even brings her food to feed him a few times each week.
“People are great,” he says. “It's just a really good feeling when you meet people like that. I have touched them, and they touch me. There's something, a big bond between the people and us. That's the greatest feeling.”
“I don't think it's all about financial things or anything like that,” Ken shares about the best part about cooking on the street. “It's just the people who are so genuine in life.”
With Ken’s kids grown and living in Michigan, Savannah tells L.A. TACO she feels like she’s serving “our kids,” “feeding our kids,” “at Assa,” which translates to something along the lines of, “Let’s do it!”
“They call me ‘Uncle Ken,” Lee says, citing some of their younger customers. “It's like, ‘hi aunt, hi uncle.’ That’s really the best feeling. I never got that kind of feeling from the restaurant.”
The Lees also love the businesses they share this block with. As street food goes, it’s a prosperous one, with options including Turkish shawarma, a crepes maker, and La Güera, a popular taco stand chain, in addition to the only Korean street food stand we’ve seen in L.A.
“They’re [all] great people,” he says. “If anything happens, they all come to us and say, ‘Are you okay?’ They're super nice to us, and we get along fine.”
He recalls one time when Assa’s generator failed, and a neighboring vendor brought them a new unit. The businesses often share their food and new creations with one another, too.
“And that's how we get along,” Ken says. “That's how it is. We're not, you know, going after each other's throat or anything like that. We’re trying to help each other out.”
Assa also seeks to look out for its surrounding community, providing food for homeless neighbors on Thanksgiving, even as customers continue stopping by to buy it.
Not only is their food unique to L.A.’s street food scene, but the Lees sound truly happy with their choice to launch Assa, no matter how much labor it takes. They have no plans for expansion or dreams of launching a brick-and-mortar business.
They’re stoked just being there.
“My goal was something different,” Ken says. “Something that I can really enjoy, being out there and talking to people, and meeting nice people. Already, I think we achieved that goal.”
At Assa, they get to know strangers, greet regulars like family, serve food they’re proud of, and most importantly, stick together.
“Since I met her, we’ve never been apart,” he says about working so closely with Savannah. “It’s beautiful.”
Assa K-Food ~ Wednesdays through Sundays, 3:00-10:30 PM ~ 215 Lincoln Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90291
