One taste of this Korean restaurant’s star ingredient and the queue will make sense

The queues started on Dubudang’s opening day in May, but this Epping restaurant’s story began three decades ago – at a tofu shop in Busan, South Korea. Co-owner Hyunjoon “Leo” Joo recalls his mother preparing soybeans before sunrise, and the countless hours his father spent behind the tofu press. His parents’ store, Kongsarang, translates as “love for soybeans” in Korean, and Joo now continues the family craft in Sydney.

Growing up, Joo wasn’t a fan of tofu, but the natural sweetness and unmuted revelatory flavours of his dad’s freshly made bean curd changed his mind. His father told him the plant-based protein should taste of soybeans, not packaging, and experiencing the difference between hand-crafted and mass-produced tofu ruined the supermarket stuff for Joo permanently.

Once you get through Dubudang’s queue, you may never reach for those plastic stacks again either. Inside the restaurant, black-and-white photos of Kongsarang in Busan mark a visual timeline that ends with a colour portrait of Joo with his wife Jiwon “Ellie” Kim. She’s Dubudang’s co-owner and head chef. They both grew up in Busan, but met while working at a barbecue restaurant in Australia (she asked if he wanted to meet her cat and things took off from there).

After Joo condenses soybeans and water into something special every morning, Kim transforms the finished slabs in wide-ranging ways, such as jumbo tofu slices pan-fried in understated perilla oil, and white tofu soup exemplifying sick-in-bed comfort food – those times you crave utterly stripped-back flavours.

But before bean curd hits your table, Dubudang’s meals start with banchan: complimentary sides such as pickled lettuce stems, sesame-sprinkled spinach, seaweed crisps and a zingy soy dipping sauce. Then a waitress brings a bowl of rice and explains you should mix the banchan through, bibimbap-style. Eat as is, or bulk it up with additional items (or keep all the dishes separate – there is no wrong way, Joo explains).

I steal my moves from the older Korean women at the next table. They dollop mushroom and soy-pulp soup into their rice bowl and I do the same with the thick, grainy mixture, which is speckled like a grey knit jumper. Don’t expect broth: this “soup” is formed with biji (fibrous tofu-making leftovers) and flavoured with roasted perilla seeds and mixed shimeji, enoki and button mushrooms. It tastes like a nutty, winter-friendly paste and I see it on many tables around me.

Another popular dish is the platter of slow-cooked pork jowl: meat slices fanned out with plain tofu, tangy grilled spring onions, raw garlic, green chilli and radish kimchi. Dubudang might specialise in tofu, but pork headlines many menu items, including a stir-fry smoky with fried onions and spicy with cabbage kimchi. The kimchi, aged for weeks in the restaurant, is the punchy, chilli-seasoned opposite to the just-pressed tofu slabs on the plate. One represents freshness, the other reflects time, Joo says.

Then there’s sweet and sour tofu. Bean curd is coated in starch and fried twice, so the corners stiffen into ultra-crisp edges, while the interior remains sponge-soft. Bathed in tangy gloop spiced with ginger and cinnamon, it’s the best sweet and sour tofu I’ve tried – a conversion dish for anyone unconvinced about the soybean staple.

Dubudang will also shake up your ideas about soy milk. It’s made daily here, in small batches, and unlike long-life dairy substitutes that are thinned out and flavourless, this cauldron-cooked drink is creamy, nutty and thick with texture. You can add it to a take-home haul with packs of bean curd. The crumbly-looking protein is surprisingly sturdy and pure tasting, partly thanks to the biodynamic Queensland soybeans used.

Korean culture is showcased throughout the restaurant, from its name (which translates as “house of tofu”) to menus shaped like munsal (the traditional wooden lattice on Korean doors). There are other venues flexing soybeans across Sydney, such as Hoa Hung Tofu’s various Vietnamese outlets and BCD Tofu House in Epping, but Dubudang feels especially personal because Joo opened it after his father’s health declined – his family’s tofu-making traditions could so easily disappear, Joo realised.

When his parents travelled here and saw their story continuing in another country, that moment meant more to him than any sold-out day or busy service ever could. Sure, Dubudang has gained social media attention, but it offers something deeper than the latest food trend. It also reminds me of Kim’s Bop in Glebe and Yeodongsik in Eastwood: singular, small-scale, next-generation Korean restaurants that inspire queues for good reason.

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