Driving Change

Robyn “Mee Sun” Klingerman wants to change peoples’ concept of food, and she believes her Korean-Mexican fusion catering business will advance the conversation.

The founder of South Bend, Indiana–based A Bite With Mee had been working 40-plus hours a week at Chicory Café, while also slinging her noodles, soups, tacos, tamales and more at events around the city, when Covid-19 hit. She and Jairo Aleman—her fiancé, business partner and the Mexican half of the fusion—decided it was time to focus on their goal of operating a food truck.

“I am a muscle, and I know how to get things done,” says Klingerman. “Jairo comes from a whole different element that is creative and free-flowing. He is the one that has developed the recipes for the business.”

Klingerman was born in Seoul, South Korea, and adopted when she was 6 months old. She grew up in South Bend and didn’t learn much about her heritage until adulthood. It was Aleman who taught her how to make her first Korean dish: japchae, sweet potato glass noodles with vegetables. Now they serve their own version called K-Noodles.

Other popular dishes are their vegan nachos featuring coconut curried sweet potato sauce, quinoa and lentils; quesabirria tacos with slow-braised, grass-fed beef, Chihuahua cheese and kimchi; and vegan tamales made using coconut oil instead of lard.

During the worst of the pandemic, the couple focused on making weekly meal kits and doing home deliveries and parking lot pickups. Now they have multiple events planned every month, a contract with the University of Notre Dame’s football concessions and many catering projects.

“We’ve been working for years to try to get the 20% down for the loan for the food truck,” says Klingerman. “I think this year is really going to kickstart us into that goal.”

Klingerman started her career working on urban farms on the East Coast and southwest and even worked on an oyster boat in Alaska, through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, better known as WWOOF. This work increased her passion for locally sourced food, and she wants to share that passion with others.

“I want them to see how you can source things local and organic, eco-consciously. Think about the food that you’re taking in and appreciate the hands that made it. You’re going to enjoy it, and your body is going to be so happy when you get it.”

Klingerman sources as much as she can from local growers and buys the rest through local businesses including the Purple Porch Co-op, where she’s working part-time as her business grows.

Hosted by Our Lady of the Road, Common Goods (the former Monroe Park Grocery) is where Klingerman got her start cooking after she returned from a couple years of traveling and WWOOFing. It was a great place to get creative cooking with odd bulk donations, like “a whole trash bag full of kale,” and she was able to have her daughters with her while she worked.

It was there that Klingerman discovered her love of cooking for people and began thinking about opening her own business.

“I love nurturing people. I love feeding people and seeing their reaction to things,” she says. “If you look at our logo, there is a house over the bowl of noodles (nourishment) and inside the house is my Korean name, Mee Sun. When you come to A Bite With Mee, it’s as if you are a guest in our home. The outer symbols connect Jairo to his more Mayan/Native roots, and it encircles the logo. We give thanks to all points.”

A Bite With Mee
South Bend, IN
abitewithmee.net
facebook.com/abitewithmee

Katie Jamieson is an enthusiastic supporter and promoter of Michiana’s growing farm-to-table community and loves to shop, cook and eat local. She is associate editor for Curl magazine, owns Breath of Freedom Massage Therapy in Granger, Indiana, and writes and performs poetry wherever she travels. Katie is also the former publisher of Edible Michiana. Follow Katie on Instagram @followtheflavor.