Korean Burrito Joint by Aria

Deep in the middle of the pandemic, I became a big fan of the 60 Morris Street Cloud/Ghost Kitchen that sprung up during the early covid days.  There are, literally, 81 different listings on Seamless.com for establishments located at 60 Morris Street.  I wanted to try them all, often picking up orders from multiple at a time.

Quick backstory, if you aren't familiar ... it is a big warehouse, not really a restaurant.  It is basically a distribution center for a bunch of the delivery companies.  They sell a combination of items they do source from actual restaurants and then sell from there (e.g. pizza they sell from Amicis), but they also created a ton, and I mean a ton, of totally random restaurant names and concepts, and just ... list them all, hoping to draw you in by one of them.  Many sell the exact same products.  They make these at the location, en masse.

One of the businesses that sprung up there was Korean Burrito Joint by Aria, an offshoot of Aria, a Korean chicken restaurant with a regular brick and mortar location in SF and down in LA.  As you can probably guess, fusion burritos and Korean style fried chicken are the basis of the place, but, I was drawn in for other reasons.

Side note: Stuck doing a lot of takeout and delivery these days? Want to try some free food and new pickup or delivery services?  Here are some codes for free money!

• Nextdish: ($10 off your first order) [ Delivery only ]
• Door Dash ($15 off, $5 each of your first 3 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Caviar ($20 off, $10 off your first 2 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Ritual ($6 off) [ Pickup only ]
• Delivery.com ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Grub Hub ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Seamless ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Allset ($5 off) [ Pickup only ]
• Nextdish: ($10 off your first order) [ Delivery only ]
• Uber Eats ($20 off - use code eats-lejw5 at checkout) [ Pickup or delivery ]

My order was via Seamless, and was ready quickly, easy to pick up from my assigned "locker" at the pickup station (if you haven't been to 60 Morris, it really is quite interesting, you are given a locker number, and your food is placed into it for contactless pickup).

Spoiler: Korean Burrito Joint by Aria was one of the top places I found in the ghost kitchens.

Korean Fried Dumplings. $5.

Um yeah.

I was really, really in the mood for crispy fried dumplings when I picked these up.  And, wow, did they satisfy.

So crispy.  I know some people complain in reviews that they are too fried, dried out, too crispy, etc, but I actually adored how crispy they were.

And yes, they were horribly oily.  No question.  Seriously.  So. Much. Oil.  But, uh, again, I was in the mood for exactly this.  Greasy, and crispy, and fried.

They didn't seem particularly fresh, and likely weren't.  Probably prepared in batches, and just heated up?  They were lukewarm even though I was there as the order came out, and ate them immediately on the street.

But again, I didn't care.

Korean Fried Dumplings: Inside.

I'm not sure what the filling of the dumplings actually was.

The regular Aria restaurant has fried mandu on the menu, and they say that they have ground beef, carrots, and onions?  Which didn't seem to be what these were.  I thought I found cabbage, and, there was some kind of meat, but it seemed pork?  Definitely not ground beef.

Anyway, the filling was juicy and fine, just, uh, not identifiable.  Again, something that probably should warrant a negative review, but, yup, I really, truly, didn't mind.

I devoured these on the spot, and loved every moment of it.

****, these really satisfied me.  I recommend with just soy sauce, or a mix of soy with a splash of their secret sauce mixed in.

$5 for order of 6 seemed quite reasonable.

Sauces

To go with most items on the Aria menu, you are able to select 2 sauces for free, and add additional for a fee.  The lineup of sauces to choose from was kinda funny if you think of it pairing with dumplings, but these are the same sauces offered to pair with the Mexican foods and fried chicken too: 3 kinds of salsa (roja, verde, or mild salsa), 2 kinda of aioli (chipotle or "spicy"), and then what seemed to be their signature sauces "green dipping sauce" and "Secret" sauce.

Aria Secret Sauce (Sweet & Spicy) / Green Dipping Sauce.
(Included with dumplings, $0.75 otherwise).

I went for the two signature sauces.  I was pairing with dumplings, so they also seemed more appropriate than salsas or heavy aioli.

Aria Secret Sauce (Sweet & Spicy)

The secret sauce, the red one, was ... definitely more sweet than spicy.  It was fine, but I found it overwhelmed the dumplings, and really was just far more sweet than I wanted.  I think this one likely is great with the actual Korean Fried Chicken.

**+.

Green Dipping Sauce

The green dipping sauce was actually really quite good.  Very vibrant and fresh tasting, rather ... Peruvian inspired perhaps?  I liked it, but, I didn't think it went with the dumplings that well.  I'm not sure what to pair it with actually, it made me wish I had some yucca fries!

***+.