Stephanie Spear Soomin ‘Mina’ Kim is the founder of Virginialicious®, a food tour company specializing in sharing traditional Korean food in Annandale, VA. Virginialicious® is a combination of Soomin’s professional background in hospitality and her personal passion for sharing Korean food and culture. A tour with Soomin is equal parts gastrotourism and history lesson. Read on for more about Soomin Kim and Virginialicious.
About Soomin
Soomin “Mina” Kim was born and raised in Busan, Korea, a port city. She moved to the US in 2006. Soomin had a background in teaching English in Korea and knew she wanted to go to the US. “I was looking for anything that would get me to the US, and the hotel internship was a great opportunity,” she said. “I was working at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, Maryland, and met my husband. He had graduated from culinary school and was cooking in the hotel and I was there working on my food and beverage management internship.”
After 1.5 years, Soomin’s visa ran out, so she and her husband moved back to Korea. “We always knew we wanted to come back to the US, especially the DMV area,” she said. “We stayed for five years and came back, and we landed in Northern Virginia.” Her husband got a job in 2012 that brought them to Arlington, and Soomin found work as a trademark paralegal. They moved to Alexandria in 2013 where they still live. Part of the draw to the DMV area was the robust Korean-American community in Northern Virginia. According to a 2022 study conducted by Fairfax County, there are approximately 40,000 Koreans in Fairfax County.
Read more: Why Virginia Drivers Can’t Resist a Vanity Plate
While she was back in the US and enjoying her work as a trademark paralegal, Soomin knew there was something else she wanted to do. “I’m obsessed with food. I’m always thinking about it, where I’m going to eat next, what I want to try,” she said. Soomin would spend weekends exploring, trying out new and new-to-her restaurants, chatting with the business owners, and bringing friends along for the ride.
All tour participants get a nametag with the Korean version of their names.
In December 2023, Soomin said she started to get some mail addressed to Virginialicious, LLC, and some spam calls about Virginialicious, LLC. “My husband had registered it for me as a gift,” she said. “We had been talking for months about making this into something more formal, and getting the business registration meant I had to make it happen.”
About Virginialicious
Figuring out what Virginialicious would offer was the next task for Soomin. “Squid Game had just been released, so Korean food and culture were blowing up here in the US,” she said. “And I knew I wanted to have a charitable aspect to the business. It’s important to give back the community we all live in.” She knew that the outcome would be some sort of walking food tour of Annandale, but the specifics had to be worked out.
Next, she had to talk to business owners to get them on board. “This was the hardest part: explaining what a food tour was to Korean restaurant owners,” she said. “Most of them have never been on a food tour. I made a PowerPoint presentation, and they thought I was selling something or that I wanted something. I just wanted to bring customers.” Soomin had handpicked her favorite spots to be on the tour, and enough agreed to create a tour itinerary with five stops.
The final hurdle was the logistics of actually walking through Annandale. “I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to walk to places,” she said. “So I had the pleasure of walking around Annandale, it was very doable, and I was able to notice a lot of small businesses and micro businesses.”
Soomin debuted her tour in March 2024. “It was March 30th, which is also my birthday. We applied for a trademark at the same time,” she said. It was an auspicious start to the business, and the trademark application has since been approved. The first tour group was some acquaintances and friends-of-friends who went on the tour and shared their feedback with Soomin. The first paid tour followed in April 2024, and the tours have been offered nearly every weekend since then.
Participants listen to guide Soo-jin describe Korean fried chicken.
“In spring 2024 the tours were offered every other weekend and we had a wait list each time,” she said. “Then we added tours so they’d be every weekend, and I have another tour guide who helps deliver some of the tours.”
What to Expect
The Virginialicious® experience is a 2.5-3 hour walking tour of Annandale that includes stops at 4-5 Korean restaurants and cafes. The ticket price includes all the tastings plus tips at each stop. Soomin says that there are three main elements of the Virginialicious® experience. “First, love for food. Everyone is here because they love food,” she said. “Second is love for the local community, and third is love for giving back.”
The ‘love for the local community’ aspect is put into action each weekend when Soomin brings her tour group to these restaurants. “These are my personal favorite restaurants but especially during COVID I saw them struggle. They don’t have a proper English website, or Instagram, or it’s not that good. I understand why that is; social media is hard, and so is running a business. Plus the language barrier,” she said. “I wanted to be a bridge between the community and Northern Virginia residents or even tourists, so they can expand to a larger audience. It can be intimidating to walk into these restaurants and know what to order.”
The same goes for Soomin’s mission of giving back. “Since I’m always feeding people, I wanted to partner with Food for Others,” she said. “I went on a tour of the facility and learned about how they support food-insecure families in Northern Virginia. We have donated a portion of ticket sales from every tour, from day one.” Soomin continued, “On a personal level, I dedicate one weekend every month to delivering meals to local seniors through Meals on Wheels. Feeding others is an important part of my life.”
See more: Herndon’s Kerrie Miller Went from Corporate to Cookies and Hasn’t Looked Back
In addition to the food tastings, the tour comes with education about Korean food, history, and culture, and the occasional drinking game or two. “The feedback is very positive,” Soomin says. “We’ll get longtime Annandale residents who said they’ve been driving past this shopping center for 25 years and never knew what was there, or Korean-Americans who say they learned something about Korean culture from us.”
“It’s really heart-warming to me that so many people are interested in the culture I came from. It’s not just food,” Soomin said. “People ask about the actual country, the culture. We’ve had more than a few Korean adoptees or family members who have Korean adoptees in their family, and they’re trying to learn about the culture personally.”
Finally, Soomin says that she wants to be a resource for everyone who goes on a tour with Virginialicious®. “You have a new Korean friend. I always ask people to ask me, text me, DM me anything about Korean food,” she said. “My friends in real life text me randomly, ‘how do I use this rice cooker?’ or ‘which soy sauce should I buy?’ – I ask people to do the same. I am everyone’s new Korean friend now.”
To learn more about Virginialicious® or to book a tour, visit its website.
Follow @thefairfaxgirl on Instagram + TikTok for the latest Northern Virginia updates, and check out our events calendar, which has over 100+ events weekly to peruse.
