There’s No Taste Like Home

There’s No Taste Like Home: Village North

Posted on July 10, 2017

Steven Ji, a UCSD grad with a sales and marketing resume, admits that “being a restaurateur wasn’t exactly planned.” Still, the desire to bring the tastes of his grandma’s cooking from his childhood home in Northern China to San Diego was irresistible. “Opening Village North was more of a mix of both nostalgia for the food of my hometown as well the vast lack of Northern Chinese food in the San Diego market,” says Ji. These heartier Northern dishes are ingredient-rich (a minimum of ten ingredients each!) and feature more wheat-based recipes than rice, plus other unexpected ingredients not commonly associated with Chinese food (Pumpkin! Potato!). Ji, a La Jolla resident, chose Convoy Street, the geographic heart of Asian dining in San Diego, for his venture. While Village North features Ji’s beloved Northern fare, it actually houses three chefs, offering Southern and barbecue recipes, too, for those seeking an experience that’s authentic but a little more familiar for American palates. 858.240.2728