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Originally Posted by boi2socal
Granted I don't live in Boise anymore but I don't know of any place that offers Korean food. So I'm interested to know as well. As a side note, I think someday Boise will again be home to a large Asian population. Just give it time! haha
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Admittedly I'm pretty sure I know the answer to my own question anyway, but my attempt to goad Syringaloid into a response was unsuccessful.
The last place I remember Korean cuisine being served at was a restaurant in the strip mall on the southeastern corner of Fairview and Milwaukee. I remember that the signage didn't even mention it was Korean but something generic like Asian or Oriental, presumably to attract a bigger crowd.
If people here actually knew about Korean BBQ, I think it would go over well. It centers around two things big in Boise-- barbequed meat and a community aspect centering around cooking your own meat. If a place like Tucanos can thrive here, so can Korean BBQ. As is, you can kinda do your own with supplies from the two Korean markets. You can get the bulgogi and a limited amount of banchan/side dishes. You have Diana Market on Fairview and Five Mile in the K-Mart shopping center, and you have Manna Market (though the signage out front says Kim's Oriental Food & Gifts or something like that) on Ustick between Cole and Milwaukee, down the street a tad from Delsa's. I like mentioning that the owner of Manna has been hands-down the nicest proprietor I've had the pleasure of meeting in the city, going above and beyond his duty as a store owner to help me out. So I always support his store over Diana. It's a pleasant role-reversal from dealing with Korean restaurants in Koreatown in L.A., where I was continually met with scorn and substandard service for being a member of a dining party that would often have no Koreans or even Asians in it.
As an aside since I would never start up a thread about this: one tidbit I found interesting about the Korean scene here is that I was told by someone "in the know" that despite there being an Idaho Korean Association, it's not exactly a unified front. Lines have been drawn between the two primary Korean churches in town (Baptists vs. Presbyterians). If true, it's pretty sad that friction would come down to that, especially when there's not that many Koreans in the valley and you would think they would want to stick together. I don't want to ask the owner of Manna about it for fear of making him uncomfortable.