Leo came to New Zealand early this year and studied in our Taranaki centre English for Employees Programme (E4E) with teacher Callie Boyle on Monday mornings.

He felt coming to the class helped him so much with his English but also understanding employment law and responsibilities as a business owner/operator as well.

He wrote this story for us during his E4E class:

Doing Business in New Zealand  – by Leo Kwon

Before I came to New Zealand, I was an IT engineer for Korea Telecom. My mother-in-law wanted to start a restaurant and my wife convinced me to come to New Plymouth and help with her mother’s new restaurant.

Now I help run ‘Korean Bistro’ on Devon Street in New Plymouth. It’s a family business so at the beginning we made a small investment in the business, but now we are basically employees. I have been working there for ten months.

We serve Traditional Korean and fusion food. I think the most popular dish is beef Bulgogi.

Some recent changes have I been involved in at the business are we discussed the updated menu, and now we will do that. I also helped decorate the restaurant for Christmas.

Something I’m most proud of is that my suggestion to change the fried chicken recipe has made it more popular. Next year I would like to have more specials on menu.