Fire and Rice

Fire and Rice is a relatively new food truck specializing in Korean meat bowls. They've been operating since June, 2012, but this was the first time I've seen them. It's actually been a while since I've had Bulgogi, and so I was excited to try theirs, and see how it compared to Yellow Vendor. In a nutshell, it compared well, but wasn't quite as heart-warming.

In addition to the beef, they have pork and chicken dishes, but I'm most familiar with bulgogi, so that's what I went with. There are all sorts of vegetables piled in the bowl as well as rice. The meat looked pale and gray at first, but this was just because there was no sauce on it; the sauces were next to the order window, perhaps inconveniently located in front of the menu. There were two sauces, one a slightly spicy peanut sauce, and the other a spicy tomato-based sauce. I applied the sauces liberally to my bowl before digging in.

The flavor was unsubtle and spicy, pretty much what I'm looking for in this sort of dish. The vegetables gave it a broader variety of flavors than Yellow Vendor's, without overwhelming the meat the way Japchae does. However, Yellow Vendor tastes richer and has more umami, which is probably the most important thing. But in any case, even if it's not my favorite, Fire and Rice is more than good enough for return visits.