Basically meat jun is combined word meat as English meat, jun as a Korean style, stir frying with egg.

It's marinated, it's flavorful, it's thick, it's juicy.

So it's really like a local thing.

Meat jun is Korean food, but Korean food that could only come from Hawaiʻi.

I'm proud of serving everybody's to my meat jun and my culture.

ʻOno, Hawaiʻi's food culture sponsored by Hawaiʻi gas.

One of our most and highest selled items is our meat jun.

I think that's how it became such a big thing around the entire island and the other islands too.

Kim Chee II is just one link in a chain of Kim Chee restaurants across Hawaiʻi.

For many local families, it's their first introduction to Korean food.

My great grandmother started Kim Chee I on the windward side.

My grandfather, his mom kind of gave all of his kids and like stuff, like a restaurant, if that makes sense.

Some people get gifts.

Some people get restaurants.

I think whenever they moved here, they realized that meat is such like a loved item, you know.

So they did meat jun, and what I've been told that it originates in the Kim Chee restaurants.

Meat jun is a Korean-Hawaiian specialty.

It consists of marinated beef coated in flour and egg, then stir fried to a golden crisp.

Our meat jun plate is three huge pieces of meat jun.

Most of the time people share with another person.

They don't finish it or eat half of it and take it home for later, and they get the plate and it's completely gone.

I'm like, Oh, you guys definitely didn't enjoy that one today.

Kim Chee II has been in Kaimukī for 40 something years now, and almost 50 years.

And people bring people like their grandparents brought their kids, and then their kids started bringing their kids, and people grew up on it.

So I mean, it's always a special place in so many people's hearts, and I love that I'm a part of it.

I have a theory that meat jun was like a natural step and progression from terry beef as being like a staple to plate lunches.

In Korea, Jun refers to pan fried or battered items, most often served with fish or vegetables.

It was introduced to Hawaiʻi by Korean immigrants in the early 1900s The history of jun has its ties to Korean royal cuisine, and often the making of jun was a way to celebrate the seasonal produce and items available.

The Korean diaspora started when American missionaries went to the peninsula and convinced the king to agree to send plantation laborers to Hawaiʻi.

In the 1950s Hawaiʻi saw another influx of Korean immigrants during and after the Korean War.

Whether we know it or not, or whether we simply forget and ignore it.

War is a condition that structures our everyday lives.

There is more to Korean food and Korean communities than you can take at face value.

I think oftentimes meat jun as an entry point for folks into Korean culture specific to Hawaiʻi, the risk there is flattening of Korean people's experiences, and likewise, a disavowal and continued forgetting about what brought Korean communities here to Hawaii to begin with.

Okay, can I help you?

Can I get the barbecue beef?

Barbecue beef.

With rice only?

Rice only.

We calling- have something similar meat jun in Korea, but it's way different to cook.

So when I came first to Hawaiʻi, over ten years ago, they said, Oh, you're Korean.

So you know meat jun, oh, what is a meat jun.

First opened in 2023 Seoul Food is a new Korean restaurant.

The restaurant was passed on to June by a close friend and previous owner of Dong Yang Inn.

Actually, my friend running Dong Yang Inn and I visit over there to restaurant, and then like, Oh, I wonder why it's popular.

Because it's, it's about the right sweetness, about the right saltiness, and then savory and the meat is very tender and soft.

Before the egg, we coating the flour, so that way the egg is not coming off easy.

Egg staying on the meat.

The meat quality is the most telling difference.

I'm marinating at least about 48 hours, and I do native access the sauce and flour and egg and stir fry.

We're calling flour, egg flour.

Like a popcorn.

Meat jun's popularity reflects Hawaiʻi's ongoing appreciation for its ethnic communities, and is a reminder of how they shaped our food culture.

It feels like local Korean culture is being sustained through what remaining Korean plate lunch franchises or restaurants we do have, and meat jun is becoming more nostalgic as we have more of a global Korean influence coming into Hawaii, and likewise changing the food landscape.

It's nostalgic.

It's bringing back memories.

Even our restaurant is nostalgic.

I mean, we haven't changed really anything in the past very long time.

So being gone for a bit and then coming back, it's like a little time capsule.

I guess that this is my second home.

I'm not going to back to Korea.

But even this also, I never imagined to I running the restaurant.

It's a little different style Korean food in Korea and over here, Hawaiʻi.

But I'm happy I cook as my country.

That's what I growing up.

That's I comfortable.

So I'm happy.

And sometimes most happiness is the customer told me, oh aunty taste good.

Oh, thank you.

Then I feel so happy about that.