In far-west-suburban Westmont, tucked inconspicuously among the boxy office parks and asphalt vistas, sits the International Plaza Shopping Center, a large, frequently desolate Asian supermarket anchoring a somewhat dingy food court, perpetually underlit in spite of a broad skylight. Unlike the grocery, the food court seems to do a brisk business, with folks continually lined up at the China Cafe for hot soy milk and Chinese doughnuts, and on weekends at the neighboring Yu Ton Dumpling House, where the owners stack piles of glistening red-green amaranth, Chinese broccoli, and cabbages harvested from their own farm.
Operating mostly alone out of a food-court stall keeps overhead down, and it’s reflected in the prices on the rest of the menu, which offers dishes such as bibimbap, often a gateway meal for non-Koreans. At Hanbun it sports some seven garnishes, including slow-roasted chicken, perfectly jiggly soft-cooked eggs dressed with fine threads of red chile, and puffed barley rice, which is mixed in to mimic the crunchy texture imparted from the traditional stone pot dolsot.
I’ve often used this space to extol, defend, and champion the reaches of suburbia for their culinary treasures, intermittently sprawled across the Olive Garden desert like oases, far from the overmarketed restaurant clots of the Fulton Market District and Logan Square. The International Plaza is one such oasis, and within it Hanbun is a treasure worth seeking. v
665 Pasquinelli, Westmont 630-948-3383hanbunrestaurant.com
