The Bun Truck: Food Truck of the Week

By Lesley Balla

If you can put anything in a tortilla and call it a taco, then the same can be said for bao. Or at least a bao bun, which is the base of all deliciousness on The Bun Truck. Roaming the streets for a little more than a year, you can find this one at most food truck gatherings, like Downtown Art Walk, where it will be tonight, or the Miracle Mile line-up. It also has a nightly residency at R Bar in Koreatown (7 PM-1 AM), serving Korean-Mediterranean fusion bao sandwiches to sobers and drunkies alike.

Launched by two Detroit-born friends, Brian Yuen, the business guy, and chef James Seok, a grad of the New York Culinary Institute who did time in Morimoto's kitchen, The Bun Truck takes things like kalbi-marinated steak, fried onions, greens and aioli, or katsu-style fried pork with tzatziki, and stuffs it in soft, steamed bao buns. There are also "sammiches," warm pita sandwiches filled with they're version of Philly cheesesteak, or with spicy chicken, peppers and sweet potato hash. Both the fries and the Old Bay-spiked onion rings are fried in duck fat, so you know they're good. (They had us at Old Bay.) Get a combo meal for a little bit of everything. Catch up with the Bun boys via Twitter or Facebook.