Editor’s note: After a brief pandemic hiatus, our full dining reviews have returned.
Christian Lee remembers eating the pancake hotteok as a kid in South Korea, where it basically came two ways — with cinnamon and sugar, or filled with japchae (glass noodles, usually made from sweet-potato starch). Whether sweet or savory, the popular street snack always was folded and tucked into a paper cup, for eating on the go.
“You pay 50 cents for one of those, and you are happy all day,” said Lee, 52, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and owns a construction company.
Lee, who worked at Cafe Intermezzo while in college, estimates he’s built about 200 restaurants in the metro area.
Credit: Wendell Brock
Credit: Wendell Brock
The latest, his own Tiger K Cupbob in Duluth, pays tribute to the nostalgic bites of his youth. At Tiger K, you will find an expansive menu of fetching rice bowls, topped with a fried egg and everyday Korean fare (fried chicken, bulgogi, tofu); a dozen little hand-held sandwiches stuffed with the same (plus potato salad, meatballs, tuna melt and more); and a dazzling assortment of hotteok (ho dduk on the menu), filled with Nutella, ice cream, fruit, corn flakes, chicken tenders, hot dogs, panko-fried shrimp and so on.
Those Instagramable pancakes in a cup are reason enough for a visit.
Another choice is cupbob, a filling $10 meal that caters to the current everything-is-better-in-a-bowl trend. (Just add veggies, an egg and an umami-laced sauce or two.) Tiger K’s fried-rice bowls are more of the meat-and-starch variety than the salad-and-super-grain kind, but I wouldn’t take points off for that. I’ve never had one that was anything less than satisfying.
Credit: Wendell Brock
Credit: Wendell Brock
Another point of clarification: Although Tiger K advertises Korean fried chicken — with an emphasis on “hot!” on its website — it is not a traditional Korean fried chicken joint, where baskets of deep-fried, bone-in bird take a starring role, and cold beer is mandatory. There is a so-called “fire” heat level (in a sandwich or threaded on a skewer), but the mainstay here are boneless chunks of batter-fried chicken. Choose between a spicy glaze that carries a gentle kick, and a middle-of-the-road KFC treatment that’s sweet and tangy — but not very much of either. It’s hard to say which I liked better — they were all good — but getting a fiery chicken stick buried under a heavy blanket of stringy cheese was a bit of a wash.
The aforementioned $5-$6 sandwiches (labeled croquettes) are less appealing than the bowls. Lee told me the panko-topped buns are baked in-house, but the chewy, doughy, slightly sweet crumb wasn’t my thing. However, the fillings — we tried meatball and spicy shrimp — made the croquettes worth a bite or three.
Credit: Wendell Brock
Credit: Wendell Brock
I enjoyed the skewers of so-tteok so-tteok (here called ”so dduk so dduk”), more for the gochujang-brushed cocktail weenies than the aggressively crispy fried rice cakes that share the stick. If you don’t know this little nibble, you might try it, just for fun.
When it comes to a pancake in a cup, however, let there be no hesitation. You have 20 options. All except the savory japchae (which I love) are made the traditional way, with cinnamon, butter and brown sugar. This means your hash brown- and beef frank-stuffed options are going to come with a powerful blast of sweetness. I realized this when I bit into the panko-shrimp hotteok. Joke’s on me! On another stop, we loved the Nutella-strawberry combo, and an over-the-top preparation with a mini ice cream sandwich, whipped cream and crushed Oreos.
Calorie-laden kiddie food? You bet. Count me in.
Credit: Wendell Brock
Credit: Wendell Brock
TIGER K CUPBOB
Food: fast-casual Korean street food
Service: friendly, helpful
Best dishes: spicy chicken and Korean fried chicken cupbob; japchae, ice cream and strawberry-Nutella hotteok
Vegetarian selections: crispy tofu and cupbokki cupbob; vegetable, japchae and potato salad croquettes; many of the hotteok; veggie fried rice; fried tofu side
Alcohol: no
Price range: $
COVID-19 safety: vaccines, masks mandatory for staff; masks optional for guests
Credit cards: all major credit cards accepted
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and Sundays; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays
Children: yes
Parking: free in lot
MARTA station: no
Reservations: no
Wheelchair access: yes
Noise level: low
Takeout: yes, order by phone or via restaurant website; delivery available via Seamless, Grubhub and DoorDash
Address, phone: 3675 Satellite Blvd., Duluth; 678-580-5284
Website: tigerkcupbob.com
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