Munch

I discovered the Munch food truck on a Saturday evening at the Atlanta Food Truck Park on Howell Mill Rd. The food truck was parked on the far west end of the lot. It looked all far away and lonely by itself. I swear the spaces on this end are cursed. Every food truck or food stand I’ve seen set up in this area of the park always looks dead and never gets any business. It’s a bad location.
After browsing the other trucks that night and having already been to most of them, I decided to try out Munch. It turned out to be a good decision. I was surprised I’d never seen or heard of Munch before, given all the events and parks I’ve been to where food trucks like to congregate. Munch has been around for over three years. I spoke with the owner who told me they don’t really go to a lot of events, so he wasn’t surprised I hadn’t seen them before.
Munch’s menu looked like this on my visit:
Thai Red Curry Chicken — $ 8
Korean Pork or Chicken Bim Bim Bap — $ 7
Filipino Lumpia (fried egg rolls) — $ 5
Chinese Pork Potstickers — $ 5
Thai Cucumber & Peanut Salad — $ 3
I ended up ordering the Thai Red Curry Chicken and the Korean Pork Bim Bim Bap. When I placed my order, the owner told me to give him 8 minutes to prepare everything. Precise.
I enjoyed the Thai Red Curry Chicken. It was a pretty simple dish, but it hit the spot. It consisted of several bite-​sized chunks of chicken (probably thigh) along with potatoes, in a rich, creamy, and flavorful curry. This was topped with a mound of steamed white rice with a bit of cilantro on top, a nice touch to its presentation. Both dishes were served in plastic disposable (or reusable) bowls.
The Korean pork ended up being Korean marinated pork (bulgogi) on top of bibimbap (Korean mixed rice). Along with marinated pork, the rice bowl had an egg, bean sprouts, mushrooms, kimchi, and red onion, all topped with sesame seeds. The bibimbap was OK at best. I like that Munch actually offers bibimbap. I don’t know of any other food truck in Atlanta that offers it (paging: Yumbii). My chief complaints about Munch’s bibimbap are (1) there was not enough pork and (2) the bowl was too oily.
Credit card is accepted, though I’m not sure if there’s a minimum. My card was swiped through an iPhone reader and my receipt was texted to me. I also had the option to get it emailed to me, but my number was already in the system (from some other food trucks), so I just had it texted.
Despite the minor flaws in the bibimbap, I did like the friendly, personable service and the unique «Asian comfort food» menu that Munch offered.

I’ve been a fan of Munch food truck from the beggining. The food is delicious from Bahn Mis to pot sticker. They wouldn’t always have huge lines if this wasn’t so. The time it has taken to get food had varied depending on the size of the line but its always been worth the wait. Yes there are Bhan Mis that you can find on Buford Highway under $ 5 but not only would you pay the difference in gas but the taste doesn’t even come close.

I went to this food truck three times. The first two times were in a row because the bibimbap was delicious as long as I knew it wasn’t authentic bibimbap. The meat, kimchi, and bean sprouts altogether made a delightful combination that I had to get more of.
Stay away from the shrimp luc lac. If you want to know what shrimp tastes like after you left it in a pool of soy sauce for days, this is it. I’m not sure what the sauce in the salad was suppose to taste like but it was mediocre. It’s the same price as the bibimbap and not worth it. The potstickers are always a safe but boring option. Another thing that bothered me was that on different days, the quality of the rice was different. I’m not a rice connoisseur by any means, but when fresh rice one day becomes clumpy paste on the next, that’s not good.
The service here i very pleasant and they are quick to make recommendations for you if you’re indecisive like me.

I don’t usually go for curry dishes but this place has ridiculously amazing Thai curry. I visited Atlanta on business and when I was downtown and I made sure to stop by again before I left for NY. Brought my coworkers for the second time around and they raved about the walnut shrimp.

Really friendly staff and delicious foods! Also they offer vegetarian options/​alternatives. I love their Vegetarian chicken satay…

Munch has brought a breath of fresh air to day time on Mitchell Street. The banh mi is the best I have ever had. I am not sure about the previous posts, but Munch’s bahn mi is served on delicious french bread. James has been perfecting the pâté for years and it shows. Just enough on the sandwich to make you go «hmmm». The pork belly is really good. My vegetarian friends loves what Munch does to curried rice dishes. What a great addition to the food truck scene and downtown Atlanta.

We should’ve known better when we saw no lines for this food truck — and I questioned myself why I’d pay $ 7 for a banh mi (vs. $ 2 – 3 on Buford Hwy). We ended up discovering more reasons why we should stick to the banh mi’s on Buford Hwy.
First, it took way too long to get our sandwiches. We were the only customers. The ladies at Quoc Huong can turnaround a banh mi in a few minutes tops.
Both Atiyah T and I ordered the chicken banh mi. I naturally assumed the chicken would be BBQ chicken. But it was more like boiled cold chicken, and worse part was some of the chicken was pink. Yep, pink as in «incomplete.»
They failed in the bread selection too — sourdough. That’s like the worst bread they could’ve chosen for a sandwich that has picked veggies inside. And the veggie selection — no jalapenos at all, sparse cilantro, special mayo sauce was missing, and veggies were super vinegary. We actually tried to eat the banh mi minus the chicken — but eating vinegary veggies on sourdough was kinda gross. We tried though!
Thai Ice Tea was disappointing too — we paid $ 2 for tea that was not cold, not sweet, and did not have the coloring of Thai Ice Tea. I told the food truck guy right away the drink was watery and not sweet, and his response «it’s because the ice melted.» He didn’t apologize or offer to make a new one. And because of that response, we figured they wouldn’t apologize for our awful banh mi sandwiches either.
I hope that everyone who’s tried the Munch banh mi realizes it’s a poor representation of what an authentic banh mi tastes like — I recommend making a visit to Quoc Huong or Lee’s Bakery.