Happy Well Being House is Related to Downtown Korean BBQ Cart
The chef from the Downtown Korean BBQ cart that Daniel wrote about on Friday commented yesterday morning to let us know that the Happy Well Being House cart (on 50th and 6th) is run by his mom! He was also none too happy with Daniel’s write up (or ordering methods) and it’s kind of hard to disagree with his logic:
I don’t feel good with this. We have 2 different kind of rice One is fried vege rice(yellow) which has carrots and peas the other one is just plain white steamed rice. And for salad we have Italian dressing, some people put white sauce on their salad. It’s optional :( You did not ask for anything and you messed up everything, remember? You ordered fried fish box and when the food was ready, you changed your mind. When its buzy, that makes chefs get mad you know :.(
But wait, there’s more…
It’s hard to make food when 9 people order at once. And the hot sauce! You were busy to take pictures. You didnt say stop while I was puttin… I’m so sad…. Anyway I am still proud of my Dad’s food :) I understand everybody has different taste rite?
Daniel responded with a comment of his own:
I’m sorry but the food I got was the same food everyone else was getting.. regardless of the fact I changed my order (which I admitted in the post). But as for the hot sauce I wasn’t complaining about anything in regards to that.. It tasted better with hot sauce but the meat shouldn’t really need it to start with.. the meat wasn’t flavored to my liking, sorry. The fish was good though, if I ever come back I will have to get an order of that (if I’m not banned from the cart). :)
But the Downtown Cart guy assured Daniel he was not banned:
“Actually I had learned a lot of things here and I did not blame the writer for my “bad food”. I am saying, is that ok to change the order when the food is ready and packed in a bag and about 5-6 customers lined up? And the people that who made comments, they don’t know the difference between “kalbi” and “bulgogi”. “Kalbi” should be cooked on grill (char) and “Bulgogi” that we sell should be cooked like that (stirred) with some noodles, carrots and some scallions (however, we just put onions there). I just dont feel so happy because there are only bad comments :( except only one maybe? And I expected to have good comments on my parent’s food but it was different from my expectation- so I felt little…. mmm. Anyway, sorry if my comments made you feel not too good :.( I didn’t mean to. We’re not gonna ban you come and get the fish box lolz. :)”
So, smiley face emoticons were exchanged and all is right with the world. Except for those of you looking for the Happy Well Being House cart the past few days! It’s been missing… but guess what? We got a comment about that from the daughter who works in the cart! (Clearly the whole family was on the site yesterday.)
“Last friday and [yesterday] we took off because my mom got a knee surgery on last friday… I did not know about this site and lots of comments -_-;;; Anyway we are back again ..Please enjoy our food and advise any thing about our store~~ THANKS!!”
Nice. All you could ever need or want to know about these two carts…
Posted by Zach Brooks at 10:15 am, April 7th, 2009 under Happy Well Being House.
22 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
ADVERTISEMENT
22 Comments
-
-
I think it was fair for them to defend themselves… also nice to see that they want to make an effort to be an exceptional midtown lunch.
-
Now they just need to make some quality kalbi to go with the bulgolgi.
I wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks more for a well marinated, nicely charred kalbi.
Should be super quick to cook up too, keep the line moving.
-
To be fair, he’s correct about the bulgogi. Bulgogi doesn’t need to be charred at all… it’s more of a stir fry than anything.
-
I’m no doctor, but I sure wouldn’t recommend standing in a 5×8 cart for 12 hours four days after knee surgery.
-
Remind me to refrain from using any emoticons in the future. But in their defense, pan frying bulgogi is rather common. I think everyone is confusing bulgogi (sliced sirloin which is grilled or pan fried) with kalbi (grilled short ribs). It’s like ordering a steak sandwich and then complaining it’s not a prime rib.
-
With an iffy knee…..id steer clear of the white sauce for a while.
-
I think everyone is missing the point. Daniel and others mentioned that the meat is just plain BLAND. However you cook it, it should still have some flavor. You shouldn’t need to douse it in hot sauce to make it edible.
-
“You shouldn’t need to douse it in hot sauce to make it edible.”
Maybe folks should better appreciate subtle flavors? Putting hot sauce on bulgogi is like putting ketchup on your steak.
-
@CH. Bulgogi is NOT a subtle flavor… neither is kalbi. Both should need nothing.
However, there is something called ssaeng kalbi which is basically kalbi without the marinate and has a very subtle flavor. But even that too, you shouldn’t put anything on it.
-
Subtle flavour of beef from a cart?
Don’t be bloody silly.
It’s hardly Angus or Wagyu they’ll be using.
-
Went around 2:15, as I approached the window, the girl, with a horrified look on her face said, “no more food, at all”
I went yesterday and they weren’t there. I had gone last Thursday (also just after 2 pm), and they were out of Bogogie.3 strikes and you are out !
-
I’m a food vendor of this cart. I am very sorry that we couldn’t prepare more food to serve. The cart is somehow limited circumstance to keep much food… Also only my mom and I prepare all stuff we need… Maybe we made mistake sometimes.. but I try to improve our food quality and service as well..
-
coming after 2pm can mean places are out of their main food items. I feel that’s usual for a Lunch cart… aka most luncher are at 12 and 1pm.. by 2-ish they are bound to only have leftovers. Maybe I’m alone in this.
-
Carts run out of food all the time, especially the good ones.
-
First of all..I wasn’t told there were “two rices” when I ordered or when I changed my order. Also I didn’t “mess everything up”
1) I ordered the fried fish
2) I gave that order to another guy in line and ordered the korean bbq.
Thats it.. very simple not complicated
And again.. regardless of the fact there were people waiting for their food, the fact I changed my order did not disrupt the flow of business or cause any disruption. There was a dude on line who wanted the fried fish and took my order.. he lucked out in that he didn’t have to wait for his food.
And finally..whether or not I was taking photos, changing my order, or eating my lunch off my bicycle seat..does not change the fact that the lunch I got wasn’t good. I just didn’t like it plain and simple. Some people probably love that pan fried meat but it was bland to me.
Ruth Reichel where are you ?!?!?! did you ever eat from this cart or what? I’d be interested to see other people’s opinions of the actual food here, not just the ordering process.
-
Well, In the last 10 years, I have never had lunch before 2 pm, and this was the first time a cart was ever out of food(for me). Trust me, I understand running out of food, it’s just that this was the 3rd time in 5 days that I went to the cart and couldn’t get the food I wanted.
-
Had the fish yesterday over a bed of rice. It was dope. LOVE it. Fish was crunchy and the rice was great. Being Indian I love by rice and was happy it was well prepared better than pretty much all the Indian street wallas. Definitely going to hit this up more often….Sahil
-
I keep meaning to alert the banh mi cart down here of your site so they can listen to all the criticisms… especially of their new prices (grrr!). Zach, you are doing the world a great service!
Now I’m debating waiting a month or two to go to this cart so they can work out their seasoning issues before I eat it… Daniel, I totally hear you– if it wasn’t seasoned properly, you could order it in Korean and it still wouldn’t taste good. Oops am I not allowed to talk directly to you? Heh. -
maybe i shouldn’t have made that comment about her being cute-ish. closedmouthofshameemoticon
@ krieger, did you have to go back to the end of the line when you changed your order or were you still next up? i know in a restaurant, when you change your order, it usually goes to the end of the line even as a ‘fire’. .
Assuming people already put in orders, of course that would disrupt the flow of business. I don’t know why you so adamantly defend yourself when the chef’s son personally said that it disrupted the flow of business. And naturally that would affect the quality of the food as it is no longer made with love.
A bit defensive on their end, but at least they are open to suggested improvements (kind of…)….