Midtown Lunch

It’s been awhile since we talked about the two Korean carts on 6th Ave… the Bulgogi & Kimchi Cart on 49th btw. 6+7th, and the newer Korean BBQ cart on 50th btw. 6+7th. Well, Lunch’er Chris6Sigma checked in in the comments last week with this report.

As a Korean, I love the fact that Korean food is becoming ‘mainstream’ enough to serve streetcart style in Midtown Manhattan. Will they ever become as popular as the ubiquitous chicken & lamb halal carts? Probably not, but all of a sudden, 6th Ave has drawn two unlikely and scrappy competitors to the street meat scene.

Enter the bulgogi and kimchi cart (I’ll call it B&K for short) located at 49th & 6th and the Korean BBQ cart (I’ll call it KBBQ for short) just a block away 50th & 6th, in the vacated Happy Well Being Cart space (not sure if they’re related? ed note: they’re not). The proximity of the two carts to each other of course warrants a comparative review, so here we go!

Read more »

As promised, the new Korean cart on 50th btw. 6+7th began serving bulgogi topped hot dogs and Korean short rib tacos this week. I stopped by yesterday, not only to check out the two new items but also to ask if they had been getting the same “treatment” that chased the Happy Well Being House Cart from the same spot a few weeks ago. The Korean guy who runs the cart said that they ran into a bit of trouble earlier but that “everything is ok now.”  I don’t know whether to feel happy for them, or sorry for the Happy Well Being House Cart for not sticking it out in the spot longer.

So for now, it looks like these guys are going to be around.  The question is, how is their new bulgogi dog and short rib tacos!?! (The answer, plus photos of the craziness, is after the jump.)

Read more »

Even if Kogi BBQ does end up opening a truck in Midtown, as promised on Monday, they won’t be the first cart serving Korean tacos here.  That  distinction will probably go to a brand new “Korean BBQ” cart that popped up this week on 50th btw. 6+7th, in the same exact spot that used to belong to the Happy Well Being House Cart.  More like the Bulgogi Cart on 49th than the Happy Well Being House Cart (which had fried fish, and grilled chicken), this new Korean BBQ cart has bulgogi and “shortribs” (or their boneless version of kalbi.)  But what caught my eye was at the bottom of the menu: bulgogi hot dogs, and Korean tacos. Hello!

Read more »