This is the story as I understand it: Korean Tacos were born in the back of Los Angeles grocery stores when Latino workers and Korean store owners shared lunch. I doubt they dubbed their hybrid child Korean Taco. I suspect they called him Lunch.
Korean Tacos were baptized, named, and brought to the world by LA food trucks looking for something unique that could be prepped in advanced. I'm pretty sure my understanding is a complete bastardization of the facts, but what good is a creation story without a little (a lot) of fact bastardization.
My first experience with Korean Tacos was at the Minnesota State Fair. It was the first State Fair food that truly amazed. It wasn't a food based on deep frying fat in an attempt to get as many calories as possible into the smallest space possible, as is so much of Fair food. It was a food based on truly something new, something that came about organically from different cultures interacting. Disecting my taco that day I figured it would be really easy to make at home. Which it is.
Korean Taco Recipe
The Meat:
Big ol' slap of fatty pork, like the shoulder (lean pork does not work)
Equal measure of guava (or pear) juice and dark soy sauce. About 1/2 a cup of each
A couple tablespoons brown sugar
A dash of rice vinegar
Some ginger
some 5 spice powder
*Korean BBQ recipes are easily found on the web, and I'm sure some are much better than mine.
Mix the sauce and cook the meat in it. I guess you could use a slow cooker, but I prefer a pressure cooker. I like to cook it for about a half hour in the pressure cooker. Depressurize, remove and break up the meat and recook in a fresh batch of sauce. You don't need to do this, it just gets rid of some of the fat and caramelizes the meat.
The Accouterments
Cabbage with a rice vinegar/sugar dressing(equal parts of vinegar and sugar) plus a little five spice
Kimchi
Tortillas
Siracha, or other hot sauce
You can also add Sriracha to mayo to taste for a mellowing touch
Cook the meat, put out the rest, and there you have it, dinner.
