Korean tacos are a fusion dish popular in the U.S. State of California,[1] often as street food, consisting of a Korean-style filling, typically bulgogi, placed on top of small traditional Mexican corn tortillas. Korean burritos are a similarly themed dish, using larger flour tortillas as a wrap.
Although nearly any savory dish can and has been used as filling for a taco, burrito, or sandwich wrap, and other restaurants have occasionally served dishes they called Korean tacos,[2] the enduring popularity of the dish is generally traced to the use of Twitter by the proprietors of the Kogi Korean BBQ, a food truck in Los Angeles, California, to announce their schedule and itinerary.[3][4] The idea of making Korean tacos came to owner Mark Manguera after an unsuccessful search of Los Angeles' Koreatown for carne asada tacos.[4] In its first year of operation, Kogi generated an estimated $2 million of revenue.[5]
Korean taco trucks later appeared in Portland, Oregon (the "KOI Fusion" truck), Austin, Texas (the "Chi'Lantro BBQ" truck)[1], and Seattle, Washington ("Marination Mobile", whose spicy pork Korean taco earned them Good Morning America's Best Food Truck in America).[6] In San Francisco the dish was popularized in 2009 by Namu Restaurant's Happy Belly food cart in Golden Gate Park, later moving to a farmers market food stand at the San Francisco Ferry Building.[7] The dish's popularity lead mainstream fast food chain Baja Fresh to test market Korean tacos as a menu item in California, with plans to introduce the dish to hundreds of locations nationwide.[8][9]
In April 2010, Food & Wine magazine named Roy Choi, the chef of the original Kogi's, one of its annual "Best New Chefs".[10] It was the first time a food truck chef had been nominated for the award.[11]