LA: Kogi at the Alibi Room

When it was finally confirmed that I would be going to Los Angeles for winter break, two words immediately formed in my finals-addled brain: Korean tacos. Or more specifically, the Kogi truck, the culinary brainchild of Chef Roy Choi that swept Southern California into a truck-chasing frenzy in 2008 and has since spawned dozens of copycat operations across the US (including one of the most recent pop-ups, the Korilla BBQ truck in New York). I'm not a proponent for imitation anything, so I semi-consciously made the decision not to try any iteration of a Kogi taco until I could taste the real thing for myself, in California. With this trip, I saw my chance. However, I'm still a New Yorker, and there was no way I was going to chase a truck down an unfamiliar California highway in a car only to wait two hours for my fix. With my original four days in LA slashed to two and a half due to an East Coast blizzard, I was on a strict schedule. Thankfully, a friend directed me to the Alibi Room, a bar that partnered with Kogi soon after it took off, and offers the same menu out of their kitchen.

Short rib tacos with slaw, cilantro, onions and salsa roja

Spicy pork tacos with slaw, cilantro, onions and salsa roja

The Alibi Room isn't much more than a large square bar plopped in the middle of a dark room, with a row of seating near the entrance. A couple we later met at the bar told us that prior to its partnership with Kogi, the Alibi Room wasn't exactly the most happening spot. The proprietors of the Alibi Room may not be very successful bar owners but they do know how to strike a deal. That Tuesday night, the place was packed with young locals, their chatter reverberating off the bare walls. It's a rather daunting scene for the average tourist so here's a crash course for the uninitiated: Go to the bar. Try to find some empty bar space. Place your food order with the bartender. Throw back a couple of drinks while you wait.

Kimchi sesame quesadilla: flour tortilla, cheese, kimchi, red pepper sour cream, salsa roja

Blackjack quesadilla: flour tortilla, cheese, spicy pork, onion, salsa verde

The tacos arrived first, sporting mounds of slaw and the traditional lime and radish. Both the pork and the short rib were grilled well, with the short rib exhibiting the toothsome, slightly resistant texture particular to traditional galbi. However, I found the slightly cloying sweet-sour sauce coating the meat to be better suited to the pork than the beef; the short rib taco would have been preferable had the natural beef flavor been allowed to break through the confines of its marinade. I wouldn’t call the overall effect harmonious – maybe they aren’t supposed to be. After all, the tacos are a mishmash of Korean and Mexican cuisine – they are meant to be an intriguing yet tasty juxtaposition of the textures and flavors of each, and this is certainly accomplished. How then, does one explain the almost preternatural flawlessness of the kimchi quesadilla? I’m not going to pretend I’ve never thrown a slice of cheese into a bubbling pot of kimchi chigae, but those were sly maneuvers to add some salty richness to the fermented tang of the kimchi – moves I sort of kept to myself because they seemed a little pedestrian, and well, inauthentic. But it seems that many Koreans often have the same idea, and Mr. Choi apparently decided to come clean with this guilty pleasure head-on with his kimchi quesadilla. The thing is bursting with copious amounts of melted cheese and kimchi, the oozing cheese the perfect foil for the sharpness of the cabbage. It’s all encased in an impeccably crisp flour tortilla and dressed with a smooth salsa roja for an extra blast of heat. There are few things I will risk third-degree burns for, but I palmed this quesadilla with gusto, scalded fingers be damned, lobbing it back and forth between both hands all the while trying to steer it into my mouth. (Eating with me is not humiliating at all.) The blackjack version is equally sumptuous, although less obviously a product of ‘fusion’ cuisine - with its spicy pork and cheese filling, it's just a really, really good quesadilla.

Driving around LA later that evening, it wasn't difficult to see how the phenomenon of Korean tacos took hold. The city has a huge Mexican population, and a formidable Koreatown to match. Weaving in and out of the streets of K-town, and along its outskirts, we whizzed past innumerable taco trucks, stands (including a lone man tending to an extremely makeshift grill in a parking lot - something I regret not stopping for to this day), and Spanish-only storefronts. The confluence of the two is probably something that should have happened earlier. But when it's this good, it is not ours to question when or why or how - just find that truck (or not) and go with it.

Kogi at the Alibi Room

12236 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066

Phone: (310) 390-9300

Best dishes: Kimchi quesadilla, blackjack quesadilla

Kogi Korean BBQ hours at the Alibi Room: 6 pm-12 am, Monday - Saturday

Kogi Truck website (with schedule): www.kogibbq.com