Escape the stress of New York City to this soothing shrine of vegan Korean cuisine.

Is this your first restaurant?

No, we owned a Korean restaurant—not a vegetarian restaurant—in Queens prior to opening Hangawi. When we became vegetarians, we decided to sell that restaurant and open a vegan restaurant.

When did it open?

Hangawi opened in December 1994. We also own Franchia Vegan Café at 12 Park Avenue in New York City, which opened in April 2003.

What’s your favorite dish on the menu?

The Organic Zen Bibimbap, which is wild mountain greens with vegetables and mushrooms served with organic brown rice. The way to eat this dish is to mix these mountain greens, vegetables, and mushrooms with the rice and chili sauce. This is my favorite dish because it is a very typical Korean dish but our version features mountain greens from the Jeong Bong Mountains of Korea that are handpicked and dried and sent by air to our restaurant.

What’s the most popular appetizer?

It’s the Combination Pancakes, three types of Korean pancakes: the kimchi (Korean preserved pickle)-mushroom pancake, the leek pancake, and the mung bean–kabocha pumpkin pancake.

What’s the most popular entrée on the menu?

The crispy mushrooms in sweet-and-sour sauce made with shiitake and button mushrooms. People love the light crispiness of the mushrooms coated with batter and the tangy taste of the tomato sauce.

What’s your most popular dessert?

It is our dairy-free soy cheesecake. People say that our cheesecake tastes better than the cheesecake made with actual cheese.

What do you feel is special about your restaurant?

Dining at Hangawi is a unique Zen experience, from the vegan menu to the total ambience of the space. Diners first need to take their shoes off when entering the dining area, just as they would if entering a Korean house. Then they sit on cushions at low tables (with a well underneath so that they can extend their legs). Zen candles are softly lit on the tables and the diners are transported to a templelike setting far away in the mountains of Korea. As Ruth Reichl wrote in the review of Hangawi in the New York Times, “A meal at Hangawi is an experience of all the senses, a chance to escape if only for a little while the stress and bustle of New York City…. The oversize door is an entrance to another world, an invitation to a place where nothing is familiar.”

How often do you change the menu items? Do you have daily or weekly specials?

The dishes presented in our prix-fixe Emperor’s Tasting Meal are changed every month.

We also have seasonal menus featuring produce available during a particular season, like the matsutake mushrooms in the fall and todok (mountain root from Korea) in the winter, as well as spring and summer special menus.

Do you have gluten-free, soy-free, or sugar-free options on the menu?

We have a separate gluten-free menu. For those dishes, we also use tamari soy sauce to substitute regular soy sauce that contains wheat.

What do you do to reduce your environmental impact?

We try to minimize the use of nonbiodegradable materials that are harmful to the environment such as takeout plastic utensils and straws. As much as possible, we also try to use recycled paper products such as recycled paper napkins. In our bathrooms, we have hand dryers that replace paper towels. The used cooking oil is also recycled.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as owner or chef of this restaurant?

We’ve learned that it’s important to believe in our philosophy of a healthy and ethical diet and educate our customers on this belief. When we started Hangawi in 1994, vegetarianism was not as popular as it is today and a Korean vegetarian restaurant was something really alien to the American public. It was important for us to constantly educate the public in our belief that vegetarianism is the safest diet and the most beneficial to our environment. We needed to teach our customers about eating a balanced vegetarian meal. This took a lot of patience and creativity. We’re constantly working with our menu to add variety and creativity to our dishes.

What led you to want to open a vegan restaurant, and/or what led you to a vegan diet yourself?

We opened a vegan restaurant because we became vegans and strongly believe that a vegan diet is the safest and the most healthy and ethical way of eating.

We attended a lecture about vegetarianism, and it convinced us to follow a vegan diet.

The professor who gave the lecture talked about the negative environmental effects of a meat-based diet and the horrendous cruelty afflicted on animals in factory farms. He also talked about the karma of the animal spirit that remains in our body after we consume animals. We were convinced that for health, ethical, environmental, and philosophical reasons, we had to adopt a vegan diet.

In the time since your restaurant first opened, how has the plant-based food movement changed? Do you find more demand now for vegan food?

There has definitely been a positive direction in the plant-based food movement in the last ten years. More and more people, especially young people in urban areas such as New York City, are becoming vegans with the awakening of the green movement.

In the time since your restaurant opened, has your view of what kinds of food choices to offer changed? Has your view of what constitutes healthy or delicious food changed?

It has always been our belief that a healthy vegan diet must be a balanced diet comprised of the um (yin) foods such as green vegetables and fruits and yang foods such as the root foods like carrots, potato, radish. A balance of the um and yang foods is our basic principle of a healthy vegan diet. Recently, we started offering more gluten-free and organic options in the menu as we believe that foods that are free of pesticides and artificial fertilizers are definitely healthier and taste better.

Tofu with Broccoli in Spicy Garlic Sauce

Serves 4

For the sauce:

¼ cup peeled and minced apple*

¼ cup peeled and minced pear*

¼ cup small pieces orange

3 teaspoons minced onion*

2 teaspoons minced garlic*

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 tablespoons sake (fermented rice wine)

10 tablespoons water

10 tablespoons gluten-free tamari**

For the tofu and broccoli:

10½ ounces tofu (medium firm)

½ medium-size eggplant

Soybean oil for frying

3½ cups broccoli pieces (cut into 2"-long segments, including crown)

2 teaspoons minced garlic*

2 tablespoons soybean oil to sauté

2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger*

* You can use a food processor to mince these ingredients.

** Available at Whole Foods and all major health food stores.

In a mixer, blend all of the sauce ingredients together until well combined. Transfer this mixture from the blender into a saucepot. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes over a low flame. Set aside.

Cut the tofu into triangles of approximately 2 x 1 x 1 and ½" thick. Slice the eggplant into thin slices, approximately 2" in length. Steam the sliced eggplant in a steaming pot for about 5 minutes. Set eggplant aside.

Heat 1" of soybean oil in a deep wok until the oil is very hot. Deep-fry the tofu pieces in the wok with oil for 30 seconds. Remove them from the oil using a slotted spoon or a spider and place them on a plate with a paper towel to soak any excess oil. Deep-fry the broccoli in the same oil for 5 seconds. Remove them from the oil and place on a plate with a paper towel. In a separate frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of soybean oil until the oil is hot. Sauté the minced garlic and ginger pieces until they are golden brown. Add the cooked tofu, broccoli, and steamed eggplant and sauté for 20 seconds.

To assemble: Add the sauce and sauté the broccoli, tofu, and eggplant together with the sauce for 30 seconds. Serve on a large plate.

Stuffed Shiitake Mushrooms with Almond-Cinnamon Sauce

Serves 4 (as an appetizer)

For the shiitake mushrooms and stuffing:

2 tablespoons finely minced carrot

10 ounces minced medium-hard tofu

½ cup finely minced oyster mushrooms

3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

¼ cup finely minced onions

Pinch black pepper

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

1 teaspoon mushroom powder*

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon ginger paste (blend ginger with a little water)

1 teaspoon potato powder*

8 medium-size shiitake mushrooms

Grapeseed oil for frying

For the almond sauce:

3 tablespoons finely chopped almonds

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

1½ teaspoons agave syrup

1 tablespoon corn syrup

Pinch salt

For the cinnamon sauce:

3¾ cups water

4 cinnamon sticks

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

1½ tablespoons potato powder

* Available at Asian markets.

For the shiitake mushrooms and stuffing: Mix the carrot, tofu, oyster mushrooms, parsley, and onions together in a large bowl. Add black pepper, sesame seeds, mushroom powder, salt, sesame oil, ginger paste, and potato powder and mix well again.

Wash the shiitake mushrooms well and cut the stems away. Make little patties with the minced ingredients and stuff the patties into the shiitake mushrooms where the stem has been cut away. Add a little oil to a saucepan, heat the oil, and pan-fry the stuffed shiitake mushrooms on both sides until the stuffing turns golden brown.

For the almond sauce: Blend the almonds with water, mirin, agave syrup, corn syrup, and salt until the mixture becomes milky and consistent.

For the cinnamon sauce: Boil 3¾ cups of water with the cinnamon sticks in a pot for 10 minutes, until the cinnamon flavor melts into the water. Remove the cinnamon sticks from the pot and add the soy sauce and sugar to pot. In a separate bowl mix a little water with the potato powder until the potato powder becomes a paste. Add the potato powder paste to the pot, stirring the mixture well over a low flame until it becomes consistent.

To assemble: First pour the almond sauce onto a plate followed by the cinnamon sauce. Place the stuffed shiitake mushrooms on top of the sauce and serve.