Thanks to the millennials of today, food trends consistently change every few months. Back in 2008, a daring visionary decided to take his culinary skills to the streets by launching a food truck serving gourmet food. His massive risk started a revolution that steeply increased in popularity for the next few years, as many other hopeful chefs and entrepreneurs hoped to cash in on the gourmet food truck trend. When the trend started to die down, most of the original food truck owners cashed in their profits to settle down and open a brick & mortar restaurant, much to the delight of fans from all over. While the lesser successful food trucks simply faded out from existence, the more popular food trucks eventually converted to a physical restaurant, including the one that started the gourmet food truck revolution.
When a food truck converts to a restaurant, one can expect to find similarities between the food truck and the restaurant. When the founder of Kogi BBQ opened Eat Chego, food truck fans from all over flocked to this permanent Kogi fixture to experience Kogi in a more solid setting. As one of the originals, Kogi had one of the largest fan bases of any gourmet food truck, and continued to prosper in long lines for years to come. This popularity easily carried over to Eat Chego and also attracted countless more food fans to savor the flavor of what started a revolution. Although Eat Chego does not serve exactly what Kogi does, the flavors resemble each other, especially in the fan favorite Chubby Pork Belly Bowl. A massive meal in itself, this bowl of happiness features Kurobuta pork belly lacquered in Gochujang (savory hot sauce) served alongside pickled radishes, water spinach, Chinese broccoli, cotija cheese, and peanuts in a rice bowl. So many ingredients reside in this bowl, making it difficult to get a bit of every ingredient in each bite. I would recommend skipping the rice for now, and savoring a little of everything else: the pork belly, radishes, egg, greens, and anything else in each bite. Imagine a cartoon dust cloud fight occurring in your mouth, with all the ingredients attacking your taste buds all at once. The mixture of flavors going on may actually make you tear up.
Kogi made a huge legacy for themselves, and it transferred well to their restaurant, Eat Chego. Visit Eat Chego in Chinatown and snag this bowl of yumminess for $9. For bonus points, make this a combo with their Ooey Gooey Fries (will review in the future) and a drink for $15. You will not find anything like this anywhere nearby.
