Midtown Lunch

If you’ve been paying attention to the ML Downtown Twitter Tracker, you may have noticed Big D’s Grub truck mentioning they have rice platters every once in a while. The truck mostly sticks with tacos and grinders with Korean meats, and they were quiet about introducing this new menu item that isn’t available every day. Yesterday they were in the Financial District and I decided that some Korean meat over rice was just what I needed to perk up a dreary day.

There was a  sign of sorts advertising that they did indeed have the rice platter ($9) on board, so I ordered one with bulgogi. They don’t really tell you what exactly goes into this platter but I handed over my money and rolled with it, only asking for some hot sauce on the side because I’m always afraid food won’t be spicy enough.

When I opened the container to take a photo, my first thought was that my co-workers were not going to be pleased when I cracked this in the office. With bulgogi, kimchi, pickled carrot and daikon as well as green onion, this was a very fragrant lunch. There was a reasonable amount of bulgogi, although some are probably going to complain that there wasn’t enough. I was fine with it since there were so many other things going on over the rice. In addition to all of the pickled or fermented vegetables, there was also a pile of cucumber which I would be thankful for later when I got a mouthful of Korean hot sauce.

The meat was good in that sweet/savory way that bulgogi is – much better than the spicy chicken I’d gotten from this truck once before. Underneath everything there was a good amount of rice that was seasoned a little bit, and delightfully oily from the meat and kimchi. I would maybe recommend mixing the rice and everything together because on its own, the base layer was a little dull. Or you could pour on some of the sauce they include which tasted to me like a creamy honey mustard.

I really liked this rice platter, actually, and didn’t mind paying $9 since I’d shelled out nearly that much for a rice bowl at Kortako that had half the amount of food. I guess it’s up to you to decide if you’d rather have your Korean protein come in tortillas, bread or over rice.

It looks like the truck will be in Soho today on Hudson between King & Houston, and at the World Financial Center food truck lot on Friday.

Big D’s Grub Truck, on Twitter and the Web.