Seoul Sausage Wins Great Food Truck Race, Opens This Weekend

The winners!

By Lesley Balla

When we first checked in with Seoul Sausage Company, co-owner Chris Oh told us the new Sawtelle Korean-inspired link shop would open by the debut of The Great Food Truck Race, as he and partners Ted and Yong Kim were contestants this season. Whether intentional or not, it was pretty smart to wait until the show's finale to open - because they won. And they don't even have a truck. Well, now they do. Plus $50k and something a little extra.

The story is as good as it gets. Three guys, two related, one a chef, decide to put Korean bbq flavors in a sausage. They served it at street-food festivals, and started catering a few events around town. Their motto is catchy: Make Sausage Not War. Then they get on the Great Food Truck Race, start to work on a retail space, and it all culminates to now. Thousands of fans and followers later, Seoul Sausage opens its brick-and-mortar doors (11313 Mississippi Ave.; 310-477-7739) on Saturday, October 6, and next week the truck will debut at KCON. After that, it'll be rolling all over town.

The menu on the truck, which is the same truck from the show, will be exactly what you saw on the GFTR: sausages, kimchi rice balls, the Kalbi burger. And in an effort to keep the experiences different, there will be an expanded menu at the shop. So in addition to specialties like kalbi sausage topped with kimchi relish and garlic-jalapeno aioli, or spicy pork topped with apple-cabbage slaw, there are some new items like braised kalbi poutine with avocado lime crema and pickled onions, rice bowls, and fried rice balls in various flavors (Japanese curry, etc.). There's a few tables and bar seats to eat there, but also a deli case to take fresh sausages home. No beer or wine yet, but if the trio expands with more locations, a bar is priority.

If that's not enough, check out this other cool crazy grilling machine the Kims and Oh got this cool crazy grilling machine. They're definitely rolling in it.