D.C.'s TaKorean Draws Throngs

It isn’t often that a complete stranger approaches me on the sidewalk in downtown D.C. to share his unsolicited views about food.

That’s what happened while I stood on line at TaKorean, the new mobile food truck that opened last week in Franklin Square.

“It’s not Korean!” the guy said.  “I’m Korean, and those tacos aren’t Korean.” 
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He was apparently offering this statement as an expert witness on the merits of dedicating 40 minutes to get to the front of the TaKorean line.  My reaction, though, was less gratitude than confusion: why had he singled me out as the recipient of his Korean omniscience?  More perplexing still, why the expectation that the food should be Korean?  It’s a taco.

Mike Lenard, the guy who started TaKorean, aspires to a higher creative plane than simply preparing authentic Korean food.  He takes pride in fusing different traditions to hatch funky culinary offspring.  The fare is cheap, fearlessly spicy and flavorful, and above all, unapologetically crossbred.  “I like to fuse the Mexican influence into the food more than just putting [only Korean ingredients] on a tortilla,” says Lenard.

Take, for instance, the slaws used to top the tortillas.  “The idea of cabbage on a taco is very close to some Salvadorian and Mexican style tacos,” he says.  At the same time, he dresses the slaws in mostly Asian flavors: a kimchi style sauce for the spicy kimchi slaw, and a rice vinegar, lime and sesame oil vinaigrette for the Napa-Romaine slaw.

Lenard’s passion for blending cuisines was obvious when I emailed him my proposal for his next specialty item: the Bimbimbap Taco.  He liked the general concept, but he didn’t seem too enthused by my suggested ingredients: “Egg, bulgogi, bean sprouts, sesame oil, gochujang.”  After thinking more about what makes TaKorean’s food so good, I realized my bimbimbaco needs a few more Mexican ingredients to achieve perfection.

Check out the TaKorean menu and follow its tweets at www.twitter.com/takorean, or, for the Federally employed such as myself (who are not trustworthy enough to be granted access to social media in the workplace), you can see Mike’s latest tweets on his website or a cool food truck website I recently discovered, www.foodtruckfiesta.com.   

A couple more posts about recently opened food trucks in the D.C. area: Sauca and Red Hook Lobster Pound.