Little Kim Eight Months In
Ji Hye Kim's fast-casual vegetarian Korean cafe in Kerrytown has found its rhythm. Here's what the menu looks like now.
I wrote a brief when Little Kim opened last July. The gist was: Ji Hye Kim opened a fast-casual, all-vegetarian Korean cafe with a mini-mart in Kerrytown, and it was the piece that made her growing restaurant ecosystem click. Eight months later, I have eaten there enough times to say something more specific.
Little Kim is at 207 North Fifth Avenue, tucked into the Kerrytown courtyard near Miss Kim. The entrance is off the one-way parking lot at Kingsley and Fourth. If you've been to Miss Kim, you've walked past it. The room is small and functional: a counter for ordering, a handful of tables, and a display case with the mini-mart items. You order, you sit, you eat. No reservations, no table service, no fuss.
The Bowls
The build-your-own bowls are the center of the menu. You pick a base (jasmine rice, greens, or French fries), a protein (panko-fried tofu, paneer, or smoked tempeh), vegetables (kimchi, pickled radishes, charred broccolini, and others that rotate), and a sauce (gochujang mayo, sesame garlic vinaigrette, spicy mayo).
I have tried most combinations and the one I keep ordering is rice, fried tofu, kimchi, charred broccolini, and gochujang mayo. The tofu has a crunch that holds up for the length of the meal. The kimchi is house-made, with the funky depth that comes from proper fermentation. The gochujang mayo is sweet and spicy and ties everything together without masking what's underneath.
The bowls are filling enough for lunch without being heavy, which is harder to pull off with vegetarian food than it sounds. A lot of vegetarian fast-casual relies on volume (big portions of rice and beans) to create satiety. Little Kim creates satiety through texture and flavor, which is the more difficult and more interesting approach.
Beyond the Bowls
The jjajjangbap is a Korean black bean sauce over rice, savory and rich without any meat. The eggs in gochujang purgatory are a brunch crossover that works. The fried tofu sandwich is the grab-and-go option for people who don't want to build a bowl, and it's better than a fried tofu sandwich has any right to be. The bread is good, the tofu is crispy, and the sauce has the same gochujang heat that runs through the rest of the menu.
Kimbap rounds out the prepared items. The rice rolls are tight, well-seasoned, and portable. I have bought kimbap from the case on my way to the farmers market and eaten it on a bench in Kerrytown. That's the use case Kim is designing for.
The Mini-Mart
The grocery counter stocks Korean and Asian pantry staples: gochugaru, sesame oil, rice vinegar, noodles, sauces, and prepared items like kimchi. It is not a full grocery store. It is a curated selection chosen by someone who knows what these ingredients should taste like and where to source them. For Ann Arbor, which has limited Asian grocery options downtown, this fills a real gap.
I bought a jar of Kim's house-made kimchi and a bottle of sesame oil on my last visit. The kimchi was better than anything I've found at Meijer or Trader Joe's, and the price was comparable. The mini-mart is a small part of the business, but it extends Kim's influence from the dining room into home kitchens, which is exactly what the opening brief predicted.
Kim's Ecosystem
Little Kim is the third piece of Ji Hye Kim's operation. Miss Kim (415 N Fifth Ave) is the sit-down Korean restaurant, a Zingerman's Community of Businesses member, and the place where Kim's seasonal-Korean-meets-Michigan-agriculture approach started. The Ji Hye Kim profile we published covers her background and philosophy. Little Kim is the fast-casual extension: same sourcing principles, same commitment to vegetarian cooking, lower price, quicker format.
Together, they form a corridor. You can eat a composed bibimbap at Miss Kim, grab a fried tofu sandwich at Little Kim, and buy kimchi for the week from the mini-mart. All within a block. That's not a restaurant. That's a neighborhood food identity built by one chef.
The Details
Little Kim is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays. The menu changes seasonally. The bowls are the reason to come. The mini-mart is the reason to come back.
Little Kim is at 207 N Fifth Ave, Ann Arbor (Kerrytown area). Tue--Sun 11:30 a.m.--6 p.m. Closed Monday. All vegetarian. No reservations.