And Now, the Frozen “Korean Street Taco”

By the time an item titled “Korean BBQ Steak Tacos” appeared on the menu at California Pizza Kitchen last year, the defining edible metaphor for 2010s-era Los Angeles had taken a considerable journey.

Pioneered by L.A.’s Kogi taco trucks, the simple but yummy combo of Korean barbecue on the inside, Mexican corn tortilla on the outside had by then spread throughout the country, with copycat Korean taco vendors plying the streets of Portland and Austin and restaurants serving their own versions from San Francisco to Atlanta.

But the jump-the-shark moment for the beloved multi-culti taco has come courtesy of the frozen-food label Bamboo Lane, purveyors of the frozen Korean beef “street tacos” being sold at Costco. Blogger Gary Soup of Geezericious wrote about the frozen tacos earlier this month. His post was followed by reactions on a variety of sites, from Korean culture sites to the SF Weekly, whose headline the other day was filed under a category called “WTF?”

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