I first visited Hankook Taqueria back in early July and decided to take my lovely wife back as we headed in town this afternoon.  On the first visit, it was a lone wolf Thursday and I was looking for something quick before heading downtown.  I had heard about them in an article about Atlanta tacos and that it would be a great chance to try them out.

I arrived kind of early for dinner and the place, while empty when I first got there, was filling up as I finished eating.  On that visit, I ordered a couple of tacos – one buffalo chicken with an apple slaw and the other dae ji gogi (Korean barbecued pork).  

The pork taco was good, but the buffalo chicken was excellent.  In fact, when I was talking about Hankook with a friend (who I discovered eats there quite often), he said that he ordered the buffalo tacos whenever they were one of the specials.  I also ordered ko kuma –

tempura-fried Korean sweet potatoes, which were served with a chili aioli.  These were awesome – thin sliced and beautifully fried, slightly sweet and with the aioli adding a perfect kick.   On the second visit, I ordered the same dae ji gogi taco and one of the special tacos, a fried chicken with the same aioli as the sweet potatoes.

The tacos are generally topped with lettuce, green onion, green cabbage tossed in soy sesame vinaigrette and onions, cilantro, lime and jack cheese.  On this visit, I held most of the toppings to get more of the flavor of the meat, but I think I actually liked the tacos on the first visit better.  Except for the cilantro, which seems to be excessive on most tacos, these days, to my liking.  On the second visit, my beloved ordered the sesame fries as a side. 

These were fresh cut, fried and then tossed in sesame oil and pepper flakes.  They were easily as good as the sweet potatoes.  On a future visit, two tacos and one of the sides, to share, would be perfect.  Or maybe the bibim-bop – we saw a couple of folks eating that on our last visit and it looked really tasty.