Vote for James Petrakis!

Today is THE last day to vote for The Ravenous Pig's James Petrakis, chef and co-owner. He is up for Food and Wine Magazine's Top New Chef award, a great honor. Let's represent Central Florida!

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/02/15/food-wines-the-peoples-best-new-chef-2011-gulf-coast/

Korean BBQ Taco Box

My bro in front of the truck; if you think he looks exited,
you should have seen my face!

Orlando denizens, rejoice! The first Korean BBQ Taco truck has arrived in Orlando. I've read about the outstanding trucks in LA such as Kogi whose chef, Roy Choi, was named one of Food and Wine's Best New Chef 2010: http://kogibbq.com/ . Now I can say we have one in our backyard and while I've never had Chef Choi's creations, I am pleased with what I had today at the Taco Box.

Located on the corner of Colonial/50 and Primrose in the Citco Gas Station parking lot, the Taco Box has a nice little spot on the far side of the lot. A few places for parking are available at Citco and I did see someone park at McDonald's right next door and walk over. While we waited for our food to be made, I was like a kid in a candy store, literally gushing standing in front of the truck (I know, I'm such a food geek). Let's just say my enthusiasm was not disappointed!

Now for the food; Tasty Chomps recommended the spicy pork taco which looked delicious from the pictures (Tasty Chomps is where I first heard about the Taco Box: http://tastychomps.blogspot.com/). The other options include subs and plates with your choice of meat plus rice. I figure if the thing is named Taco Box, go with the taco! So I did.

There were a number of us that converged on the spot and the girl and guy working the truck did a good job of cranking out the order. You have to have patience because they whip the food up right after you order it so the filling of the taco is nice and warm. I ended up getting the beef taco while my brother got the spicy pork so we could share. Each of our plates came with two half moon fried things with cabbage in them (very good), two seaweed type rolls that looked like it had been fried, two rice balls which were like meatballs rolled in sticky rice, one chicken wing (loved the sauce), and a bit of cabbage with onion and warm ginger dressing (could have eaten a whole bowl of salad with that dressing!). Quite the smorgasbord. The taco plus all the sides were the perfect amount of food. I've heard people saying that they felt stuffed after eating. The sides are little bit of this and a little bit of that so it doesn't end up being a ton. And the taco itself is just a bit bigger than one of Chipotle's tacos (you know, the soft shell ones that come in a set of three).



There was a bit of incongruency in the sides. Some of our group didn't get dressing on their salad. My fried roll didn't have any sauce on it (my dad was willing to swap one of mine for his). But I can understand that with just two people running the show, 10 people showing up at once to order, and making the tacos to order can cause some misses. No worries, Taco Box, I'll be back.

We asked for kimchi on the side and it ended up being raddish kimchi; at first, I wasn't sure about it but the spice and tang of the fermentation sort of grew on me. And, hey, it's healthy to boot!



I loved my beef taco as well as the spicy pork. The beef had a slight sweetness to it which I enjoyed. While the spicy pork taco was called "spicy", it wasn't overwhelmingly so. In fact it and the chicken wing could have had a bit more zing to it! I also had a taste of the chicken taco which my dad said had some sort of peanut sauce on it (next visit, baby!). All the tacos were delicious and hit that deep, comfort food spot. Like I said before, the sauces were really the show stealer both on the salad and on the chicken wing. I thought the sticky rice balls were a bit bland and should have dipped them in my leftover sauces.

For the amount of money (taco boxes cost $5.99) to the amount of food you get, the Taco Box is really a great find. I hope as they settle in they'll be willing to try new menu items. I'm already planning my next visit!