Something to savor: Umami Moto melds Asian cuisine with a slight twist of American flavors

Love brought Jae Stulock to the Land of Enchantment, but it was his love of New Mexico that ultimately made him call it home.

“The very common story, chasing love and a woman,” that brought him to Albuquerque, said Stulock, owner of Umami Moto food truck. “The other half of the common story is that it only lasted 30 days. I decided to stay. So I bought a house and moved my business out here, and I absolutely love it out here. I tell people that, you know, I’m not from New Mexico, but I got here as quick as I could.”

Something to savor: Umami Moto melds Asian cuisine with a slight twist of American flavors

Stulock relocated from Cleveland. Prior to his departure, he gained some fans with his Asian-inspired dishes that he would make at home.

“I owned a construction company before (the food truck) and in 2008 I completely lost my business,” he said. “It was terrible during that economic crash. Out east, it was a whole lot worse than it was here, apparently. I decided, I’m not going to start over again in construction, might as well start over again in something else. And people had been telling me for years that I should sell my food, particularly my pad thai, was exceptional, and so I decided to do just that, and started Umami Moto.”

Stulock prefers Asian-style food and Eastern European cuisine.

“My grandmother was Hungarian, so I had a lot of exposure to that kind of cuisine through my dad’s side of the family,” he said. “And then, when I was in high school, a restaurant opened up called Johnny Mango’s, and I was down in that neighborhood with some friends and we decided to stop there and check it out. And that’s when I had Thai cuisine for the first time. It was pad thai, actually, just the flavor was so different than anything that I was used to and it just blew up my mind. And I chased out my own recipe of pad thai to kind of recreate that flavor that I tasted, that was so unique, and that I had at the restaurant. And it took me about 10 years, but I ended up perfecting my personal recipe, my take on it, and that’s when I opened Umami Moto with pad thai, a pulled pork banh mi and a chicken rice bowl.”

Now, the pad thai can be labor-intensive to make. So it is now reserved for slower days and pop-ups. However, patrons line up for the fish tacos made with grilled swai fish in a corn tortilla with curry, cabbage, cilantro, mint, housemade pickles and a housemade lime aioli.

Another hit is the Korean burrito.

“That’s our flour tortilla, slightly spicy queso, napa cabbage, bulgogi beef, housemade kimchi fried rice, cilantro, onion, carrot, daikon, pickle, and we make it as spicy as you’d like,” Stulock said. “The bulgogi seasoning we make in house, queso we make in house, the kimchi for the kimchi fried rice we make in house, the carrot, daikon, pickle we make in house.”

Patrons also visit the food truck for its pulled pork banh mi. The classic Vietnamese sandwich is made with mayonnaise, a special house sauce, carrot, daikon, pickle, cilantro and some jalapeños. Its seared ahi tuna BLT is another popular request.

“(It is a) quarter pound of ahi tuna, seared, sliced, put on a toasted brioche bun with our housemade Thai basil, lettuce, tomato and bacon, and it’s just a slam sandwich,” Stulock said. “It sounds so simple. It looks beautiful because of the seared ahi, but boy oh boy, the flavors really fair well.”

Stulock said he is particularly proud of his smashed burger.

“(It is) premium black Angus beef that we season and patty in house,” he explained. “Again we make the seasoning in house, make up the patties, toasted brioche bun, (lettuce and tomato) and cheese. It’s so good, I would say it’s one of the best burgers in town, if not the best. It’s got a very unique flavor, the beef, it’s so good, it really comes through. And it’s just a good-looking burger, too. We go through so many of those.”

Umami, or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It is characteristic of broths and cooked meats. That is the theme and in the namesake of the food truck for a reason.

“Umami is flavoring, just quality and food,” Stulock said. “And a lot of people think that the truck is Korean or it’s Japanese because of the name, because the word umami is a Japanese thing, but it’s very Pan-Asian and just that quality that we’re going for. And then, moto because we’re mobile.”