A Korean Street Food Sensation Is About to Arrive in Kearny Mesa

A top street food chain from South Korea is coming to San Diego where it’ll be a new attraction inside the food hall at H Mart’s Balboa store. With its only other U.S. outposts in the Source OC Mall and Koreatown in Los Angeles,Jaws TPKis being brought to Kearny Mesa by Kevin Bang, who runs the three local branches of Korean fried chicken brand Bonchon and operates a satellite of Canada-based Cheese Garden, a Japanese cheesecake bakery, in Carmel Valley.

Jaws TPK’s stall will open on Monday, March 27 with a menu of Korean street food hits, highlighting specialties like gimbap, or seaweed-wrapped rice rolls, and tteokbokki, which are rice cakes simmered in a spicy-sweet sauce.

Jaws TPK

The tteokbokki will also be available in trendy rose cream sauce or Korean-Chinese black bean sauce while the variety of gimbap fillings will range from bulgogi to spicy pork, tuna salad, and tofu.

Other featured street food includes soondae, a type of Korean sausage, deep-fried snacks like crispy cheeseballs, and a slushie made from sikhye, a traditional sweet rice drink.

Jaws TPK

And more changes are coming to the Balboa store’s food hall: an H Mart rep told Eater that there is a new Japanese food vendor replacing the shuttered Katzya, which cooked up Korean fried chicken and breaded pork cutlets.