Step aside, Filet-o-Fish—there’s a new shrimp burger sheriff in town.
Bbang, a Korean-inspired burger and fried chicken spot, opened next to Holy Ghost bar on February 18. Even before opening, shrimp burger devotees were waiting eagerly at the restaurant’s metaphorical door. They’d come to be obsessed with the shrimp burger in previous years when Doyaji, a Korean food truck from the same owners as Bbang that frequently posted up outside of Holy Ghost, offered the shrimp burger as an occasional special. (Doyaji has since moved to the CORE food cart pod on SE 82nd.)
“It just kept building up and up—a lot of Instagram, a lot of word of mouth. Every single time we did it, we sold out,” says Changsoo Kim, who owns Bbang with his wife, Megan.
Since Bbang opened, the shrimp burger has been one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes. At the heart of it is a six-ounce handmade shrimp patty, a mix of coarsely chopped and smoothly blended shrimp that’s battered in panko and fried. Think rectangular, springy fish ball meets shrimp tempura. Garnishes are simple: a generous slosh of caper-laden tartar sauce, a blanket of shredded purple cabbage, all between a chewy, slightly sweet milk bun from An Xuyen. (The name Bbang means bread in Korean, so no wonder they’re paying attention to the bready details here.)
Kim isn’t the creator of the shrimp burger, but he’s a long-time appreciator. Growing up in Seoul, the shrimp burger was his mom’s favorite burger from Lotteria, the Korean-Japanese fast food chain that introduced its shrimp burger in South Korea in 1979. (Kim’s order, meanwhile, was the bulgogi burger, a patty marinated in sweet sauce that inspired a similar burger on Bbang’s menu.) Lotteria was a weekly fixture of Kim’s childhood until moving to the States at age 12—when a Filet-o-Fish was the closest thing he could find to Lotteria’s offerings. His first taste, Kim recalls, was “disappointing,” lacking the bounce and sweetness of the shrimp. So when he started offering shrimp burgers at Doyaji and Bbang, fellow Korean Americans came out in droves.
“A lot of Korean people came out [to Doyaji] because they couldn’t find the shrimp burger anywhere else,” says Kim. “I think every Korean person goes through this when they move out of the country. There’s always a few things that you miss, and the bulgogi burger and the shrimp burger are things that a lot of Korean people reminisce about.”
As Bbang settles into its second month of business, the shrimp burger cult has grown to include several dozen members. “I’m gonna say 30 for sure, but it might go up to the 50s,” says Kim. Count me as number 51.
4105 SE 28th Ave, Wed-Thur 3 pm-10 pm, Fri 3 pm-midnight, Sat noon-midnight, Sun noon-10 pm, bbangpdx.com, @bbangpdx