Cue the Justin Bieber music. Mr. Yummy Yummy is rolling into town. Serial entrepreneur Kurtis Tan’s newest concept—named after yum yum sauce—is a Japanese Grill and BBQ food truck featuring Tan’s creative Asian fusion cuisine with a hibachi twist.
What sets the truck apart is the placement of the hibachi grill. Instead of facing the back, as many food trucks are, the grill is in the front, so after people order, they can watch the show while they wait for food. Head chef Dian (a trained hibachi chef) is at the helm.
This setup may have inspired the tagline, “You pick a place, we bring the fire.”
If you want to try the food for yourself, you can catch Mr. Yummy Yummy at Food Truck Fridays. They plan to serve a weekly menu of bowls and sides, plus specials.
For a limited time, Mr. Yummy Yummy will cook a ribeye steak bowl piled with seven ounces of high-quality meat over a bed of hibachi fried rice and vegetables. And if you add shrimp, you can call it a surf and turf, a seriously delicious, restaurant-style meal being slang out of a food truck (that just so happens to be Chef Dian’s signature dish).
Special aside, the regular menu is heavy on bowls, offering karate (fried chicken), hibachi tofu, bulgogi beef or teriyaki chicken served over rice and veggies. You can also order just a bowl of that yummy fried rice for $5 or add shrimp to any bowl for $4.50 for four pieces. Shrimp are cooked crispy on the outside and oh-so-tender on the inside, making them a perfect accompaniment to any item on the menu.
The three-piece gyoza is absolutely delicious. They are pan-fried instead of deep-fried like potstickers, but they have the same ingredients inside and a soft outer shell that all but melts in your mouth.
There are also shishito peppers sprinkled with furikake seasoning. The dish itself isn’t spicy—or at least it isn’t usually. However, every batch seems to come with one spicy pepper, and you have no idea which one will be, offering a fun game of pepper roulette we don’t mind losing.
If you’re a fan of the cuisine served up at Mr. Yummy Yummy, you can hire the truck to cater your next event. In addition to Food Truck Fridays, the catering vehicle is available for hire, and you’ll likely see them out and about at other community events as they get rolling (pun intended).
To learn more about Mr. Yummy Yummy, follow along on social media. The Instagram page (@mryummyyummyreno) not only communicates specials and locations but also showcases Tan’s clever marketing style, which makes the content more than informative but fun to watch.
