It first starts with the smell on the street. As steam and smoke from the grill waft into the surroundings of Bulkogi Korean Barbeque food truck, the perfume lures people to stop by and take at least a glance. It is hard to pin down the smell, which comes off as a mix of soy sauce, marinated meat and the peculiar hint of Mexican food.
“The smell of the food is like advertising itself,” Christine So, cook and attendant at Bulkogi, said. “We can’t help it, but we use it to our advantage.”
Bulkogi, which the So family started in January of 2010, delivers the traditional favorites of the Korean family in a method that Americans would be more familiar with.
“People may be unsure about or scared off by the real Korean stuff,” So said, “so we thought that presenting these flavors in tacos, quesadillas and hotdogs would be more appealing to people.”
The Bulkogi truck, which takes its name from typical Korean dishes of barbequed-marinated beef, comes to 920 Main Campus Drive on Centennial Campus every Thursday, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. According to So, the demographic the truck targets is between the age of 20 to 40 years.
“Centennial fits that really well,” So said. “With the professionals and some of the students around, we can serve both.”
The truck, which father Jin So salvaged and custom outfitted, is based out of Raleigh, but due to stringent municipal regulation, the family has to commute daily to Durham and often sell at different locations each day. Rising gas prices have become problematic for the family.
Food prices too. Recent spikes in food prices, due to the current rise in oil prices, has been an issue for the So family, but they still continue to buy the finest ingredients at there disposal.
“We use a lot of vegetables and our meat is very lean,” Jenny So, mother of the family and head chef of the operation. “Korean food is very healthy and we don’t like a lot of grease. But healthy food can be more pricey.”
The truck’s dishes uses inspiration from Korean favorites like bulkogi and kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage dish. Although tortillas and hotdogs aren’t common items in the Korean kitchen, Bulkogi uses them as a mode to deliver the distinguished and unmistakable Asian flavors.
“As Koreans, we use a lot of ground chili, sesame, soy sauce, garlic and ginger in our food,” Christine So said. “With the chili, my grandmother in Korea grows in on her organic farm, dries it and then crushes it into flakes. We really want to serve the best quality we can provide.”
The So family also cooks its spin on the chili dog, this time substituting chili meat with bulkogi barbeque. Their rendition of this hotdog, which they call the Bul-dog, is spicy but filling, garnishing the traditional frankfurter with slices of tender meat and a cream-based sauce.
The crowd that routinely stops by Bulkogi waits while the smell of their soon-to-come food teases their senses.
“The smell of the food really attracted me here and I became curious,” Yuhao Feng, PhD student in civil engineering said. “This is my first time here, but I really like the other trucks that stop by this location.
The aura of fusion tacos and platters of Korean barbeque even bring students from main campus to make the trip to try the food.
“I thought the tacos were incredibly full of taste,” Alex Perez, a senior in biological sciences, said. “My only complaint was that they were really small. To be completely honest, if you but anything in a taco, I’ll eat it. I didn’t know what bulkogi really was beforehand, but it worked extraordinarily well, and the Asian salad and sauce were really refreshing too.”
For more information about Bulkogi, their menus and locations are updated daily on their Facebook and Twitter accounts:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/profile.php?id=100000911245112
ALong with Korean inspired tacos, burritos and quesadillas, Bulkogi Korean BBQ offers more traditional Korean cuisine. This platter of spicy bulkogi consists of stir-fried vegetables, rice and the signature spicy beef. "Korean food is typically fresh," Jen So, cook, said. Photo by Kimberly Rochester
