Chitti Chitti Grill

****JOE’S JURY DUTY Unilocal-​A-​THON: reviewing every damn thing, because there’s nothing else to do when you’re hanging out at the DC Courts and they’ve got great Wifi. In the spirit of truth and justice, all reviews will be mad real****
This review is an intervention. You know that friend you have (you all have one) with so much raw talent, but they just can’t seem to get it together? They’re drinking their life away instead of making things happen for themselves? You try to pull them out of it and you even get them a job interview, and they never show up?
Chitti Chitti Grill is that friend, in food truck form.
The bulgogi, kalbi, and chicken they use here isn’t bad quality at all. In fact, it’s pretty good, and I know because eventually I took everything else off their tacos and just started eating the meat.
What’s the other stuff they put on there? What appears to be craft cheddar cheese straight out of the bag. Iceberg lettuce. Bad tortillas they sure as hell didn’t make themselves. These are basically Taco Bell tacos with different meat in them.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s more than one way to do a good Korean BBQ taco. Back in my beloved SoCal, Kogi BBQ and Dos Chinos approach the same fusion-​y cuisine w/​very different ingredients and preparations and both manage to do big things with it.
How on earth in 2014 do you get away with selling a Taco Bell taco out of a food truck?
Answer: you don’t… they had by far the shortest line of the food trucks lining Farragut for the lunch rush, and this won’t end well for them if they don’t reverse course.
To get their act together, they’ve just gotta start constructing dishes like they give a damn — which means picking real ingredients, fresh good stuff, and not just relying on the fact that your food is fusion to get people to pay food truck prices. I would suggest a plane ticket out to SoCal to taste Roy Choi’s cooking, but even within DC they need look no further than TaKorean or Far East Taco Grille to see how to do it.
Hell, just copy TaKorean wholesale; TaKorean copied everyone else wholesale and did a decent job of it, so it’s not like they can complain.

As I was walking out of my office in Pentagon City while trying to decide on what I wanted for lunch, I saw this cool little purple food truck parked outside. I’d never seen it there before and I thought Chitti Chitti Grill was a pretty funny name for it. Anyways, I was curious enough to try it out and, as I love Korean barbeque, I ordered the bulgogi and rice.
The food was ready pretty quickly and they gave a decent portion for $ 9 + tax. That said, I did notice how they cooked the beef with carrots and onions-​which I didn’t mind but I wish they had given a little bit more meat as I felt the vegetables were a sizeable portion (they gave quite a bit of rice). The food itself was pretty good overall, the meat was a little bit salty but still well cooked and the kimchi was surprisingly a little bit spicy (which I liked). They also included a small bottle of a what the owner told me was a sweet, Korean dairy drink similar to a milkshake (it was pretty good!). All in all, I’ve definitely had better Korean food in the area but, hey, this place is a food truck in Pentagon City and not a sit down establishment in Annandale.

Liked my first lunch at this food truck very much — had the bulgogi (rib eye) tacos and was very satisfied. A hefty portion for $ 8.50. Meat was particularly tasty. Only suggestion would be to swap the canned/​crushed tomatoes for a bit of freshly chopped tomatoes, along with some more freshly chopped lettuce. Will definitely return to try the shrimp tacos.

Two and a half stars. Friendly service, reasonable wait time, solid portioning on my galbi & rice order for the price point. The yakult was a nice touch on a humid day, and I gratefully accepted the option of chopsticks with my napkins. Deboned galbi was sliced up and mixed with fajita-​style veg. Reasonably tender, mild in flavor. More than enough properly cooked, quality white rice to soak up the juices. I’ll give them another shot with shrimp and bulgogi.

They get points for quick service and reasonable prices, but my chicken soft tacos were (while tasty) kinda boring. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by other lunch trucks thinking outside the box and offering original dishes, but the tacos tasted basically like anything else you can get at any run-​of-​the-​mill taco place.
This isn’t to say that the preparation wasn’t good– the chicken was well-​spiced and not overcooked, but all in all, it didn’t stand out enough to make me go out of my way to seek out this truck the next time I’m in the mood for soft tacos.

The galbi sub was extremely delicious. Not only was the portion much larger than expected coming from a food truck, but the galbi boneless short ribs were perfectly cooked and super tender. Very satisfying and delicious.

meh. I got the chicken tacos. I know. I should have gotten the bulgogi if I wanted an authentic Korean food truck experience. Alas, I don’t eat red meat. But given all the raves I’ve heard about Korean food/​food trucks, I still expected something flavorful and unique. Not so much. There was lots of chicken and it wasn’t dry. But that’s about all I’ve got on a positive note. If I didn’t know where it came from, I would have sworn that I was eating Mexican tacos with a sweet salsa. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t especially good and it definitely wasn’t different or memorable.

Had the short korean rib with rice. It was very very good. The marinade was on point while the short rib was cooked to perfection. The rice was sticky and went will w/​the short rib and veggies. For the price (9.90, average for a DC truck) the portion was a heaping. This may be one of my favorite trucks.
Oh, and forgot to mention, the folks who worked the truck were super friendly. I was wondering about the taste and they let me have a sample. Nice as can be.

**** 3 ½ Stars****
On the rare days that I do not have to rush through lunch at my desk, I will treat myself to lunch. Today was one of those lucky days, where I decided to venture to the food trucks parked by the Waterfront Metro stop near where I work. I quickly decided on the Chitti Chitti Grill food trunk for 2 main reasons: the truck was a shade of purple (my favorite color) and there was no line. 2 pts. And to my luck, it happened to be a Korean barbecue food truck.
Having never heard of this food truck, I was eager to try their menu. I decided on the tacos. You have your choice of 1 taco for $ 3.50 or 3 tacos for $ 8 – 9, depending on the meat. I went for the three tacos and the staff was accommodating of my request to mix my taco order: I ordered 2 bulgogi tacos and 1 galbi beef taco with the works: cabbage, tomato, housemade salsa, and sour cream on corn tortillas. The truck was clean and the staff was friendly, so I felt comfortable handing over my payment.
After a few minutes, I was rewarded with the smells of Korean fusion fast food, which smelled delicious. I got comments on how good the food smelled by my co-​workers who walked by my desk as I ate my food. Free advertisement here! The bulgogi and galbi beef were pretty good. Flavorful and fully cooked. No mystery meat here, folks! I think I will come back again and get the tacos, but probably without the sour cream. Made lunching at my desk while working more bearable, so thank you Chitti Chitti Grill!