Everyone Gets to Eat
Inside a charmingly sticky punk pinball dive bar, my husband and I step up to the order window for Tiny Chef, where Melanie Hye Jin Meyer is slinging a distilled menu of bibimbap, Korean street tacos, and a weekly special, all of which can be customized with a protein of choice. The special that week is her take on a Korean Crunchwrap, a runaway hit inspired by Taco Bell and first popularized by Joanne Lee Molinaro of The Korean Vegan. Meyer’s version, first introduced in July 2025, features jjajjangmeyon-inspired refried black beans, housemade vegan kimchi, a Korean-inspired pico, and either dairy or vegan cheese. My husband orders the Crunchwrap with Meyer’s signature char siu pork, and I order it with char siu tofu. As the food arrives, I step away to grab us cups of water. When I return, it becomes apparent that my husband has eaten nearly half of my char siu tofu, thinking it was his. Her tofu can fool a meat-eater, and yet, it doesn’t attempt to mimic meat; rather, it’s prepared with so much care that it would never occur to you to want anything more.
Meyer’s identity as a Korean adoptee and a former songwriter, drummer, and guitarist for the Vigilettes, an “all-fem pop punk-ish” band, informs her understanding of family and food. Meyer is no longer in contact with her adoptive parents, who denied her access to Korean culture as a child, so the band became her first chosen family, a support system that helped her to feel more comfortable learning about her Korean origins. In 2019, when a kitchen became available, she decided to open Tiny Chef as a means of connecting to her Korean heritage. She had significant restaurant experience as a line cook and recipe developer, “working at everything from fast food, to fine dining, to steakhouses, to Vietnamese, to Chinese, but [she] never felt Korean enough to work at a Korean place.” Branching out on her own allowed her to research the history and culture of her food heritage at her own pace while developing recipes that reflected her experience as an adoptee.
In 2021, as Tiny Chef was gaining recognition in St. Louis, Meyer reconnected with her birth family with the support of a friend and fellow restaurateur, Simone Faure, pastry chef and owner of Chouquette. Despite growing up being told by her adoptive parents that she had been abandoned and unwanted, Meyer always assumed that her Oma had compassionate intentions in placing her into adoption. This rewrote her story: When Meyer made contact with her birth mother, she not only learned that she had two younger brothers, but that they had been seeking her for years. Even before that moment, Meyer dreamed of someday visiting her birth family and cooking for them. “It wasn’t until the end of that first trip that I did end up cooking for them because my Oma wouldn’t allow me,” she says. It comes as no surprise that her Oma also expresses love through food. She was eager to make up for lost time.
Though Meyer is not herself a vegan—she maintains a commitment to plant-based eating several days each week—her time working in a vegan kitchen encouraged her to consider the environmental impacts of food choices and the importance of food inclusivity. All of her menu items, including specials, can be made vegan or gluten-free, ensuring that no one is turned away. “It’s important for me that everyone gets to eat. If you are constricted to a diet, if you have celiacs or are vegan, it's harder to try new things,” she says, “especially other cultures’ foods, since they can be based on specific ingredients.”
Her standing vegan protein option is the char siu tofu. Like all of her proteins, the tofu is batch prepped before service in a multi-step process. She starts with organic firm tofu that is pressed to remove as much moisture as possible. The tofu is then finely chopped until no large chunks remain. The chopped tofu is soaked in a house-made gluten-free vegan marinade made with tamari and Jovick Brother’s five-spice blend (the char siu pork belly uses an identical marinade) before getting stirred to crush the tofu further. The marinated tofu is roasted to remove any remaining moisture, cooled, and then finished in a pan with oil and sauce until it is well-caramelized and fragrant. The result is a symphony of texture, tasting both smoky and sweet: luscious with charred bits and a satisfying chew.
Meyer’s commitment to community not only shows up in her vegan and gluten-free offerings—she maintains dedicated utensils, containers, and pans for vegan and gluten-free options to prevent cross-contamination—but also in her dedication to sourcing ingredients from local and regional providers and to staying open on holidays. She never had family to celebrate holidays with, so the realization that she had the “opportunity to give and provide a place for people to go to, and, not only that, to be able to cook for them” was meaningful.
As we spoke, Meyer peppered the conversation with Korean phrases and described aspects of Korean traditions and history that have informed her cooking. When asked about the decision to describe her food as “Korean-inspired,” Meyer said she “never claimed to be authentic.” Over the years, she has been accused of cultural appropriation by both Koreans and White Americans, forcing her to wonder: “Am I good enough? Am I Korean enough?” She said, “I’ve been told before that my dishes aren’t Korean enough or that it’s not traditional, and to that I say, that as an adoptee, I’m still trying to discover what it means to be ‘Korean enough.’ What that means to me is accepting yourself for who you are. I am who I am, and sometimes I still struggle with identity issues and impostor syndrome, but when it comes down to it, it’s because of opening Tiny Chef that I’ve been the most comfortable in my skin that I ever have.”
Lauren Yu-Ting Bo is a St. Louis–based writer and critic interested in translation, migration, contemporary literature, and food culture. Find more at laurenbo.com.
