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Korean taco

From WikiTacos, the taco encyclopedia · Taco style
Also known as: Kogi taco, Korean barbecue taco

The Korean taco is a Korean-Mexican fusion taco, typically of sweet-savory marinated Korean barbecue short rib or pork on corn tortillas with spicy salsa, slaw and herbs. It was popularized by chef Roy Choi's Kogi BBQ truck in Los Angeles in 2008, whose use of Twitter to announce its moving locations helped spark the gourmet food truck boom.

Contents
  1. History
  2. Influence
  3. Preparation
  4. Recipe
  5. Where to try it
  6. Reviews
  7. See also
  8. References

History

Kogi BBQ took to the streets of Los Angeles in 2008, on a cold Thanksgiving weekend, according to The Splendid Table. Roy Choi, who was born in Korea, moved to Los Angeles with his family as a small child and trained at the Culinary Institute of America, had been working as a hotel chef before deciding to sell a mash-up of Korean barbecue and Mexican street food from a truck. National Geographic describes the project as the idea of two friends who set out to put Korean barbecue into tacos. The first item on the menu was a Korean short rib taco, which sold for two dollars.

The truck initially struggled to win over customers outside bars on Sunset Boulevard. It found its audience by posting its changing stops on the then-new Twitter, and within months it was drawing hundreds of people a day and going through as much as 400 pounds of meat across several stops. Newsweek called it America's first viral eatery. Choi won Food & Wine's Best New Chef award in 2010, wrote the memoir L.A. Son, and is credited on the 2014 film Chef.

Influence

National Geographic credits Kogi with helping launch a new wave of upscale food trucks, which by 2015 had grown into an industry worth about 800 million dollars a year in cities such as San Francisco, Austin and Washington. The 2008 recession helped, since a truck cost a fraction of a restaurant and diners wanted cheap meals. L.A. Taco has written that the city's taco trucks are often divided into those founded before and after 2008, and that Kogi drew on the existing loncheras of Los Angeles while bringing new energy to them.

Choi has said that the Kogi taco never represented Korean food so much as it represented Los Angeles, a city where Korean and Mexican communities live side by side, yet it also steered many diners toward Korean cooking. Korean tacos quickly spread to trucks and restaurants across the country.

Preparation

The typical filling is thin-sliced beef short rib marinated in soy sauce, sugar, garlic, sesame and Asian pear or other fruit, then charred on a griddle and chopped. Spicy pork marinated in gochujang is another common filling. It is usually served on two corn tortillas with a spicy, smoky salsa and a fresh slaw of cabbage or lettuce dressed with sesame and citrus, along with cilantro and onion.

Recipe

Makes 12 tacos · Time: Marinate 4 hours to overnight; 30 minutes cooking

Ingredients

  • 700 g boneless beef short rib or rib-eye, sliced 3 mm thick
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 3 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 Asian pear or 1 small apple, grated
  • 4 garlic cloves and 2 cm ginger, grated
  • 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 2 green onions, sliced
  • 2 tbsp gochujang, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp honey and juice of 1 lime, for the salsa
  • 2 cups finely shredded cabbage or romaine
  • 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
  • 24 small corn tortillas
  • Cilantro, diced onion and chopped kimchi to serve

Steps

  1. Mix soy sauce, sugar, grated pear, garlic, ginger, 1 tbsp sesame oil and half the green onion. Toss with the beef and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
  2. Whisk the gochujang, vinegar, honey and lime juice into a loose sauce.
  3. Toss the cabbage with the remaining sesame oil, sesame seeds, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime.
  4. Heat a griddle or cast-iron pan until very hot. Cook the beef in batches, without crowding, until caramelized, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Chop roughly.
  5. Warm the tortillas in pairs.
  6. Fill each pair with beef, slaw, a spoonful of gochujang sauce, cilantro, onion and kimchi if using.

Where to try it

  • Kogi BBQ, Los Angeles, California: Roy Choi's taco truck launched in 2008; the originator of the Korean taco craze.

Reviews

Reviews and tips open at launch. Readers will be able to share where they found the best version of this and how they make it at home.

See also

References

  1. "Chef Roy Choi on the rise of Korean food: 'Nobody can hate on a taco'". The Splendid Table. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
  2. "How One Korean Taco Truck Launched an $800 Million Industry". National Geographic. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
  3. "Highlights from the Rogue 99 ~ Kogi BBQ". L.A. Taco. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
Categories: Food trucks Fusion tacos Korean-American cuisine Los Angeles cuisine Tacos around the world Tacos in the United States