All storiesA real order
"Isn't Korean food spicy?" What a hospital team ordered four times in a row.
The worry usually comes from one bad bite of a dish nobody labeled. On our menu, heat is the exception, and it's marked.
Questions offices askIs Korean food too spicy for a mixed office?
When you order for people you don't know well, spice is the one mistake you can't undo. Someone bites into the wrong dish, and for the rest of the meeting you're the one who ordered "that spicy stuff." So you play it safe and get sandwiches again.
This group couldn't take that chance either.
Fifteen to twenty doctors, eating between patients
A family medicine residency program in the Valley has ordered lunch from us four times since January. Residents and attendings eat fast and go back to work.
All four orders were built on sweet chili chicken, purple rice and assorted namul. Savory, a little sweet, and no heat at all.
Every order also had one spicy dish, mapo tofu. Once they added tteokbokki, rice cakes in gochujang sauce, as a second. That's one or two trays out of five, and both were labeled spicy, so nobody found out the hard way.
Most offices end up ordering the same way: a mild table, plus one hot tray with a label for the people who want it.
What's mild and what isn't
No heat: bulgogi, sweet chili chicken, galbi-jjim, japchae, jeon, mandu, kimbap, namul, fried rice. That's most of the menu and most of what offices order.
Spicy: spicy pork, tteokbokki, mapo tofu, army stew, yangnyeom wings and spicy squid salad. Each one is marked on the menu.
What to tell us
Say it's a cautious crowd. We'll build a mild set and put one spicy tray, clearly marked, at the end of the line. People can see what's what without coming to ask you.
Planning something similar?
Tell us the headcount, the date, and any dietary lines. We'll suggest a menu that fits.
Next question: Do you do individual boxes, or only trays?