Comments (0) Best Fusion Tacos - 2010
Marination Mobile
"Best" and "fusion" are two words not often found in the same sentence. At least not in the sentences I write. In almost every case, fusion is what happens when chefs or owners don't really know what they want to cook, so they end up cooking everything poorly rather than a few things really well. Marination Mobile, though, is an exception to that rule. Actually, it's the exception to a lot of rules, but the fusion rule is the big one. And the results of that exception are Mexican/Korean/Hawaiian tacos that gleefully jump over borders and across canons without ever being weighed down by the repetition and mediocrity that defines most attempts at quote/unquote World Cuisine. Virtually everything on the short, sweet menu at Marination has fans who'd weep buckets if it ever went away, but the kalbi tacos? Those are special—the perfect expression of everything good about fusion: short ribs marinated in chef/owner Kamala Saxton's kinda-secret, fully awesome version of the classic Korean preparation, folded inside warm corn tortillas, then topped with nothing but slaw in an idealized Mexico-gone-Far East mashup of flavors. They are simple and complex at the same time, show a complete disregard for any stodgy notions of how food is supposed to taste, and (the best part) come to you on wheels—provided, of course, you're in the neighborhood that Marination Mobile is cruising on any given day. —Jason Sheehan Locations vary. marinationmobile.com, twitter.com/curb.cuisine
