Meet Me on the Corner of Korea and Mexico
Roy Choi and his Kogi BBQ Korean taco truck have been media darlings for nearly a year now, but it’s only in person that his full passion reveals itself. His voice quavers, he sometimes even sheds a tear as he describes this cuisine that bubbled up from his very soul. “What Kogi is, it’s not a fusion, it’s not a mash up, it’s just a window into my country,” Choi says.
Choi was born in Seoul, raised in Los Angeles, and trained at CIA and Le Bernardin, but his country lies between LA’s downtown Alvarado and the famously diverse Western Avenue. His food is nothing short of indigenous to the region. “I see tamales, al pastor, pupusas, that fills my life,” he says. “The spicy pork, in Korean it’s bulgogi. But every time I made it, it looked like al pastor to me. So I played around with the elements. And it’s so friggin’ delicious.”
If his classical training taught him to measure and chiffonade, Choi’s soul has told him to cook “with the spirit of a grandmother.” Here he is, channeling the grandmother.
4 comments
I love this interview! Roy embodies the Korean spirit, the intensity, the passion for food, for ancestors, for feeding people, for adapting, for living in the now. Awesome, that you captured it all in a few short minutes. Thanks for this Michele! I’ve got to tell my sister.
Unyong, so glad you liked it. He’s a great guy and it doesn’t take much coaxing to get him to be him! Thanks for reading!
He would definitely be one of the people invited to my imaginary dinner parties–what fun to listen to him dish about his passion! How can we get him to drive Kogi to Northern Virginia?
Shey, he is wonderful, isn’t he? And you can taste the passion in the food. It is some of the most scrupdillicious stuff I’ve ever had! Let’s start a petition to get him here…
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