Midtown Lunch

When the Korilla BBQ Truck launched nearly 4 year ago, it was arguably a turning point on the NYC food landscape. It represented a new era of food trucks – not just the introduction of Korean tacos being vended from a food truck a la LA’s famed Kogi BBQ Truck, but also a paradigm shift towards the new school of gourmet food trucks.

Since then, many food trucks have come and gone. A ton of drama, police and otherwise, has occurred. However, the Korilla food truck has persevered and grown their footprint since their launch in 2010. I had a chance to sit down with the founder and owner, Eddie Song to talk about the current state of food trucks and his future plans for Korilla.
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Rejoicing is in order. The much-missed Korilla BBQ truck is back from their hiatus, as promised. The menu hasn’t changed much, but tacos are no longer an option. Now the vessels of choice are burritos, chosun bowls, and salads. According to their website, they should be on 47th and Park today. Time to satisfy that Korilla craving…

Some of you may have noticed that Korilla BBQ has been MIA for the last few weeks. We got a hold of owner Eddie Song who told us they’ve been on sabbatical in Korea working on future plans for the business. They plan to return around the end of June with some new menu items and new designs. There is also a Korilla BBQ brick-and-mortar in the works, perhaps in Midtown. He promised us more details as they become available. Let’s hope they don’t tweak the food too much. We say if it ain’t broke….

How did we miss this one??? Well, perhaps the writers at Midtown Lunch are too busy watching food porn and forgot to set our DVR’s to catch some quality children’s programming.

But thanks to an email from Luncher Rachael (and her child’s Sesame Street viewing), we learned that Eddie Song and the Korilla Truck were indeed featured on Sesame Street. The episode aired back in November and has been in re-runs. Eddie teaches Murray (the Elmo-like puppet above) how to make Korean food from a truck- but sadly there is no video of the scene online. I’m sure this has given Korilla a new group of adolescent fans. Let’s hope they don’t add to the already massive lines at the truck.

And if anybody doubted Korilla’s ethics from their previous television appearance on the Great Food Truck Race, I think this has cleared it up.

If you’re a fan of Korilla BBQ truck like we are here at Midtown Lunch, then please take a second to vote for them at Mission Small Business, which is sponsored by Chase and Living Social. In order to vote, all you need to do is:
1. Go to Missionsmallbusiness.com
2. Log in with Facebook
3. Search for Korilla
4. Vote

Your vote(s) will make them eligible for a $250,000 grant, with which they plan to open a brick and mortar shop, somewhere in Midtown or FiDi (which we clearly support!) The contest closes tomorrow, so get the word out and vote.

Imagine it’s “one of those days” at the office. You look up and it’s way past lunchtime, and suddenly you realize that sound you keep hearing is your own tummy grumbling. Now what? Now you can order Korilla delivery. Details are thin at this point, but according to this you can email them after lunchtime rush to order delivery. They did clarify that deliveries are available only in midtown and lower, and that orders should be placed an hour in advance.

Crisp on Wheels has also been tweeting lately about delivery in Midtown, usually around where their truck is parked. Could this be the new model for food trucks in 2012? Only time will tell …

For the past few weeks the forums have been abuzz with complaints about Korilla BBQ’s shrinking portions- specifically the filling in the burritos. Last week our Rachel Goldner hit up the truck stuff her face research whether or not the skimping extended to the bowls as well. Case closed, right? Not exactly. Commenters were not satisfied, and on Friday we got this response from Korilla owner Eddie Song…

When news broke out over alleged ‘skimping’ on food blogosphere, naturally, I thought someone on our staff was breaking major health code rules and eating the food as it’s getting made. Ridiculously enough, our work environment is so laid-back that ‘skimping’ would be as hard to enforce as a 11AM opening time, which has yet to happen! (Sorry Terry & friend for [the other] morning).

Nonetheless, we decided to hold our own internal audit independent of Midtown Lunch’s forensic food investigators.

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The forums have been abuzz for the past few weeks about Korilla’s shrinking portions. Midtown Lunch’er Goats started the conversation like this:

I don’t know what happened to them–maybe it’s all the publicity from the show–but the size of their burrito–rib eye of the tiger in particular–is f’ing MINISCULE now! I was so pissed! It was ALL tortilla and hardly any filling! I was biting folds of tortilla with nothing for nearly half the burrito it seemed! I used to love this truck–their burritos were huge! They weighed well over a lb and a half and were stuffed to the gills. But now, NO. Not even close. Less product. High price. Not sure I will return. I leave the hypechasers to support them….

Them’s fighting words, and unfortunately, many of the replies since seem to agree. Interestingly, though, all the complaints refer to the tacos and burritos, but no one has mentioned the chosun bowls (yet). So, when one of the trucks hit up midtown the other day, off I went to see if the issues extended across the board.

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The whole food truck frenzy of the past few years has been propagated by an avalanche of  “I left my high paying job to start a food truck!” stories.  But none of them, that we can remember, have come with a manifesto email telling co-workers to go F themselves. That’s why we couldn’t help but laugh when we read the resignation email leaked to accounting gossip website Going Concern by a disgruntled Price Waterhouse Cooper associate. In it, the dude sounds off on his co-workers before shamelessly promoting Korilla BBQ (presumably, his new employer?)  It’s a little ironic to talk about integrity while Korilla is still deflecting accusations of cheating, but it doesn’t make the rambling, clearly in need of editing, email any less funny.  Perhaps this tactless young bean counter had too good of a time at Korilla’s recent anniversary party? Finding out how little money food trucks make will likely sober him up real quick.

If you saw the Korilla BBQ crew accept their rookie prize at the Vendy Awards this year, you know these guys are young and know how to party… so it’s only natural that to celebrate their 1 year Anniversary, they’re throwing some crazy Friday night at a club blow out party tomorrow night.  The bash is at the Hiro Ballroom, and comes complete with typical Friday night nonsense meant to insure it’s not a sausage fest (women in get in for free until 11pm, and get free vodka until 11:30pm), but for men and those who want to show up fashionably late the cover is $20.  Thankfully, Korilla has graciously offered to throw 10 Midtown Lunch’ers on the guest list (plus 1) to show how much they appreciate our patronage over the past year.  The party is tomorrow night, so we’ve got to do this one quick… want to be on the guest list for the party?  First 10 people who comment below, score the passes.  Good luck… and congrats to Korilla on an eventful (and delicious) first year!

Even if you don’t win, you can still go.  Check out the full party flier, after the jump…

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