Quirkily-named B.B.Bop, Korean-themed quick-serve restaurant, opens in Carrollton

by Teresa Gubbins

CARROLLTON — Korean food is one cuisine that remains mostly "untranslated" for mainstream white-people palates, but here is B.B.Bop to the rescue. This fast-casual Asian-fusion restaurant, which opened March 3 in Carrollton (and which features lower-case "b"s, i.e., b.b.bop), specializes in rice bowls inspired by the Korean dish known as "bi bim bap."

Traditional bibimbap is a Korean rice dish with vegetables, grilled beef, sesame oil, and spicy red pepper sauce. B.B.Bop offers this, called the "old school bowl". But in a Pei-Wei stroke, you can also customize your rice bowl by selecting from a choice of rices (house rice, white jasmine, or brown); vegetables, including cabbage, corn, peas, spinach, bean sprouts, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, and bell peppers; chicken or beef; and choice of sauce from selections such as Bangkok curry, Beijing black, Seoul on fire, Nagasaki teriyaki, and Tampico tomatillo.

The folks behind B.B.Bop include a husband-and-wife chef team: Gregory Bussey, executive sous chef at Hibiscus; and Sandy, his private-chef wife. Sandy, who is Korean-American, brings the expertise, as she grew up eating this kind of food. They'll keep their day jobs, since the primary focus at B.B.Bop is lunch; they're open weekdays only, boo.