If you asked me where Dallas Koreatown actually begins, I would point to a corner. Royal Lane and Harry Hines, southwest side. Korea House has been on that corner since 1987, and the restaurant itself goes back even further than that. Sung Kim opened the first one in Richardson in 1979. Most of her ingredients had to come in from New York back then. Korean food in Dallas was barely a thing. A handful of Korean wholesalers and small banks started moving into the cheap strip centers around Royal and Harry Hines a few years later, and Kim moved her restaurant right into the middle of them. Everything else you see out there now, all the grocers and markets and newer restaurants, grew up around her.
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