Bubbles & Barbecue

BY SID PETERSON

ShanShan Kong has been making hardto-come-by Korean and Chinese dishes available in downtown Iowa City for three years. She opened La Wine Bar & Restaurant in fall 2019 at 180 E Burlington— the short-lived home of a Zombie Burger and a BeerBurger franchise—and mustered through the pandemic. She now operates several other businesses in town, including La Tea, a popular bubble tea spot on Washington Street.

Kong spends most of her days at La Wine Bar, heavily involved in the kitchen, preparing homemade sauces and doing prep work before dinnertime. She’s also frequently touching base and ordering from suppliers in China, where she sources most items for her businesses.

In the evenings, she’s working front of the house, often cooking Korean barbecue tableside for customers. Kong prefers to cook this dish with guests because, for many, it’s their first time experiencing Korean barbecue. It’s not typical for Korean restaurants in bigger cities to be so hands-on, but Kong said she enjoys interacting with folks and wants to make sure each meat is properly cooked, as well as paired with the right sauce.

As you flip through La Wine Bar’s menu (which Kong designed personally), you’ll notice the items are different from other Asian restaurants in town. Kong isn’t interested in cooking American-style Asian dishes; she’s focused on flavors that transport you to her hometown in northern China, near the North Korean border.

“Even the seasoning and a lot of the materials we use, I import from Asia,” Kong said. “I try to make exactly the same thing. When you sit in my restaurant and get the food, it’s like you’re sitting in China.”

Aside from Korean barbecue, a few other popular dishes at the La Wine Bar include bibimbap, a mixed rice dish; naengmyeon, a cold noodle with beef broth, which is a particularly great summer dish; and appetizers like rice cakes and fried chicken. The restaurant/ cocktail lounge also serves excellent bubble tea—try the brown sugar flavor if you can.

La Wine Bar has even hosted a Mill Revival Showcase Series, attracting artists from within the community yearning for a smaller, intimate space to play. Additionally, La Wine Bar now has a consistent schedule of shows every Friday and Saturday night, and an open mic night each Wednesday with J. Knight, a musician, former Mill open mic host and a big supporter of rising artists in Iowa City for over 40 years.

In the past year, many folks have been coming to the La Wine Bar not only for the food, but for the music. La Wine Bar is located next door to where The Mill, an iconic venue and restaurant, stood for 50 years before it closed in 2020 and was torn down in 2022. Kong has managed to keep live music going on the block, thanks to a small stage inside La Wine Bar and programming help from local musician Bob Hall.

“A lot of musicians come to check out [the restaurant], we attract new customers, they start to try our food and they’re really surprised that they like it,” Kong said.

On one of La Wine Bar’s interior walls near the stage, there are words hung on the wall reading, “Why are we here? For fun.” That’s Kong’s mentality. She wants La Wine Bar to continue to be a place for people to try something new, return for something great and unwind among good company.