By Honorary Reporter Ana Claire Hernandez from Philippines
Photos = Ema Kwai

Ema Kwai is the British owner of a Korean restaurant in the relatively unknown French territory of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. 

Despite the pandemic, her Korean restaurant Kimbap has weathered the challenges in bringing Korean food and culture to people on the island. She and her husband run both Kimbap and the under-renovation Asian fusion restaurant EST Bento.

Kimbap has grown into a gathering place for fans of Hallyu on the island, whose population is an estimated 858,450.

Background
Before moving to the island seven years ago, Kwai was a graphic designer at a clothing company she owned. She held multiple exhibitions of her paintings in the U.K. and other countries, and as she often traveled, she developed a love of food, Korean in particular.

Even before Korean food grew famous worldwide due to Hallyu, she frequented Korean restaurants in the U.K. or elsewhere and had a fridge full of kimchi at home. "I love food. It's like I pray to food, It's like my god," she said.

Kwai and her husband eventually emigrated from the U.K. to allow their son, 14, to experience living abroad. The goal was to live on an island with a unique multicultural society, and they later decided to open a restaurant on Reunion Island.

Beginning
Kwai said that before she arrived, the island had no good Asian restaurants. Based on her experiences during previous trips to Asia, she opened EST Bento. EST stands for "eat, share and travel" and offers a lunchbox with Korean-style chicken wings and kimchi combined with Japanese food like unagi. 

EST Bento was the first restaurant opened by Ema Kwai on Reunion Island. 

"So we started the restaurant like this, and it was successful. It was just packed," she said about EST Bento's first day. "It was just something new on Reunion Island. We're in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Half of the world doesn't even know about Reunion."

What shocked her the most, however, occurred when she opened Kimbap, which serves exclusively Korean food. She said she had no idea how many K-pop fans were on the island.

"They were all dressed up in K-pop style, in K-fashion. I was like, wow, I never thought they existed. I never realized that the island had more than 50 fan clubs despite a population of like 850,000. Without realizing it, we opened a concept, a lifestyle, for those who cannot afford to go to Korea,"
she said. 

More than a restaurant
On a typical day, young customers at the restaurant do their homework on the floor and later use the TV to dance and sing along to K-pop.

Young people dance to K-pop at Kimbap (top), which exclusively serves Korean cuisine (bottom left and right).

"It's really like a small world in Kimbap, and it's very inspiring," Kwai said. "It's a cozy restaurant with a lot of happiness, relationships and friendships. I find it incredible that food can open a lot of opportunities and bring people together."

Ema and her team. 

kalhong617@korea.kr

*This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.