Kum's Cafe and Arirang

I happened to stumble upon this place and decided to stop in for lunch today. It is located at the corner of Poplar Level and The Factory Lane about a mile or rwo south of the Watterson.

Rather interesting story. The people who ran Arirang opened a chicken place there about 3 years ago and added the Korean menu about 6 months later. Needless to say, its a strange, but obviously viable combination--fried chicken and cajun style, along with some standard Chinese stir-fry sélections on one side, and typical Korean on the other side of the combined dining area.

I had a boricha (Korean barley tea) and a bi bim bop with four sides. It was all good.

The place is of simple decor and construction, but I found it comfortable and the service friendly once we got over the confusion of me wanting to order Korean sit down, rather than fried chicken take out. I guess this is usually the case where non Asians order fried chicken given the reaction of several Korean ladies dining across from me who expressed their surprise and pleasure in my choice of food. I dazzled them further by thanking them in Korean!

that whole Cajun/Asian fusion thing is bizarre. We discovered a lot of that when shopping out J. Gumbo's for mall food courts. There were a ton of Cajun/Asia concepts in food courts.

Who knew?

Any standouts on the Korean side of the menu?

Asian/Cajun fusion is nothing new at all. When the first waves of Vietnamese refugees arrived, they were settled in the Gulf/ Louisiana area for they were fishermen in their homeland and the US government need not retrain them with a new skill. The next generation grew up with real cajun cuisine from growing up in smaller fishing towns.
As the newer generations migrate to Texas for high tech and oil/gas related jobs, they brought with them the cajun palate. There are many great cajun places run by second and third generation Vietnamese in the Houston area.