Paik's Noodles in Aurora Delivers Chinese-Korean Delights

Korean culture is extremely popular right now, and the K-craze shows no signs of stopping. From cult Korean beauty products to the cult of K-pop boy band BTS, Korean everything is hotter right now than Cheongyang chili peppers. South Korea has gone all in on hallyu, the Korean Wave promoting the country’s unique pop culture, including a healthy serving of so-called gastrodiplomacy.

Which brings us, naturally, to food. The Denver metro area has one of the largest concentrations of Korean diaspora outside of Los Angeles and New York City and is no stranger to Korean flavors. Aurora’s Silla, for example, has been serving bibimbap, bulgogi, barbecue and banchan for more than fifty years — but Chinese-Korean fusion has been a little harder to come by.

That changed last year with the debut of Paik’s Noodles at South Peoria Street and East Iliff Avenue, a spot formerly occupied by Von’s Chicken. Since May 2023, diners have been flocking to Paik’s for a variety of Chinese-Korean delights. While classic Korean cuisine is heavy on funky fermentation (kimchi, anyone?), rice and the myriad of small side dishes called banchan, Chinese- or Sino-Korean fuses ingredients and techniques from the peninsula’s neighbor to the north, particularly from the ethnic Chinese of the Shandong region who settled in Incheon in the nineteenth century.

Paik’s Noodles offers some of the hybrid cuisine’s most popular dishes, accompanied by an assortment of beer, soju and makgeolli, a creamy, unfiltered beer made from fermented rice that requires a good shake before opening to combine the components of the food-friendly brew.
Start your meal with an order of gunmandu. Every region in Asia has its own take on dumplings, and Paik’s do not disappoint. The thin wrapping on the fried treats is simultaneously tender and crispy, surrounding a filling of well-seasoned pork.

First-timers to Chinese-Korean cuisine will want to order jaengban jjajangmyeon. Jaengban means "platter," and jjajangmyeon are springy, stir-fried wheat noodles bathed in a black soybean sauce that’s both slightly sweet and deeply savory, with shrimp, squid, pork and vegetables. One of Korea’s ultimate comfort foods, it’s among the restaurant’s signature dishes and is a flavorful and tangier riff on China’s zha jiang mian.

Another standout is jjamppong, a spicy noodle soup loaded with pork, squid, mussels and vegetables in a fiery (but not uncomfortably so) red broth. Koreans are famed for their fried chicken, and the deep-fried kkanpunggi here remains shatteringly crunchy despite its glossy hot-pepper sauce.
Paik’s Noodles is the latest venture from celebrity chef and restaurateur Jong Won Paik. A household name in South Korea, the 57-year-old entrepreneur is CEO of the Born Korea, a culinary empire with 2,000 restaurants worldwide, including Paik’s BBQ, Paik’s Coffee and Paik Boy Pizza. He has more than six million YouTube subscribers, and a bunch of cookbooks and TV shows such as Top 3 Chef King, Food Truck, The Genius Paik and The Backpacker Chef — season two of which is rumored to include BTS singer-songwriter and K-pop heartthrob Jin, who is also said to be developing a line of traditional Korean liquors with Paik.

South Korea’s answer to Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver doesn’t show any signs of stopping soon: The Born Korea posted more than $300 million in revenue last year and recently filed for an IPO.

Paik’s Noodles in Aurora is the group's first offering in Colorado, and nine new outposts of the brand are slated to open this year in New Jersey, Texas, Nevada and Illinois. To that, raise a glass and say, “Geonbae!”