Show A taco truck street sensation is born Jessica Gelt Los Angeles Times It started with a 4 am a.m. glass of Champagne and anda a came asada taco after a night of serious bar hopping year Thirty-year- old Mark Manguera was sitting with his year old sister-in-law sister Alice Shin his wife Caroline was already sleeping soundly when the taste of LAs most ubiquitous street food caused him to have a drunken revelation Im biting into my taco and it dawned on me Alice wouldn't it be great if someone put Korean barbecue on a taco recalls Manguera who is Filipino but married into a Korean family Most people would have left it at that maybe recounting their brilliant idea ad to friends at dinner parties but Manguera followed through He got a truck from truck taco-truck Goliath Cater Craft he brought in former chef Roy Choi as a partner and he enlisted friends and family to begin branding and Twittering on his behalf The result The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck After celebrating a Nov 20 soft opening the roving vehicle has emerged as a social-networking social juggernaut drawing to people each time it parks often several times in an evening and spawning a burgeoning cyber hippie movement affectionately referred to as as- Kogi The truck and its staff of merry makers have become a sort of roving party bringing people to neighborhoods they might not normally go to and allowing for interactions with strangers they might not otherwise talk to A constant Twitter feed connects truck-followers truck and updates them about whether Kogi is going to tobe tobe tobe be late to its next stop Occasionally a negative Nelly will rain on this l love ve parade by asking the Kogi truck to park elsewhere when this happens legions of Kogi lytes rally to find a desirable new location On a recent Thursday night Kogi parked at pm p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum By 7 pm p.m. the truck had already served at least people and a long line still snaked across the broad brick entrance to the museum Milady Flores and her fri friends stand near the front of the line They have been waiting for an hour by the time they get their tacos it will have been nearly two hours They are giggling because a drunken girl has slipped them 10 to buy her three tacos Tacos cost 2 each so that's a 4 profit for them They dont don't mind waiting though If you youre you're re expecting it its it's OK says And its it's safe to say that pretty much everyone in inline inline inline line is expecting it So how did this happen and what kind of magic resides in a Kogi taco Maybe its it's the power of juicy meat flavored with slightly spicy delicately tangy Korean salsa roja topped w with th cilantro and onions as well as cabbage slaw with soy-sesame soy chili and cupped in a soft com corn tortilla it can taste awfully good especially when your stomach has spent two hours priming Or perhaps its it's the exquisite cultural mingling co-mingling inherent in the food that draws crowds crowds- the only in combination of two of the city's most beloved ethnic cuisines Sitting on the museum steps Manguera looks with bewilderment at the line linein linein linein in front of Kogi and offers this I have no idea how this happened Recently hes he's been overwhelmed by bya a flash flood of investment solicitations as well as many offers to cater high- high profile special events and parties Manguera by his own admission is not very tech- tech savvy The most I know about the online world is ismy ismy ismy my Google mail and my he says That's where his sister-in-law sister Alice Shin comes in handy Shin also runs runs' the trucks truck's Twitter feed which as as s' s it turns out is a transnational endeavor Because Kogi Kog draws such massive crowds it usually runs late When that happens Manguera calls Shin in Brooklyn and Shin puts out a Twitter feed notifying those waiting of the trucks truck's delay The other key players on the Kogi carousel Manguera's wife Caroline who as a food beverage and hospitality specialist with Four Seasons hotels knows how to keep a crowd calm and make people feel special Carolines Caroline's brother Eric Shin who obsessively photographs the trucks truck's cross-county cross journeys Erics Eric's best friend Mike Prasad Carolines Caroline's cousin Young Ho Yoo who acts as the trucks truck's promoter and chef finally year old Roy Choi himself who sees his place in the group as that of culinary guru a sort of post-Abstract post Expressionist food artist This is my graffiti says Choi A AIts Its not Korean food Choi says of Kogi Its a Korean American kid translating the food from f om his country into the present-day present life of LA Its It's everything I Isee Isee Isee in inthe inthe inthe see the Latinos working the Korean market the bus that I ride |