CORNER KITCHEN

Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★★

Mexican dishes with Korean & Asian fusion

Perfect For: Casual Dining; Lunch; Takeout

Standout Dishes: Birria Torta; Quesa-Birria Taco; Elote Bites; Bulgogi Torta; Elote Tots

If all Corner Kitchen served were dishes with traditional Mexican flavors, it would be an excellent restaurant. Chef/owner Oscar Hernandez’s creativity and ability to build flavors make for some awesome dishes.

But Corner Kitchen doesn’t stop there. It adds inspiration from China, Korea, and American cuisines to create a unique fusion not found anywhere else in Omaha.

If you think that combination of flavors sounds like it shouldn’t work, you’re not alone. And at most restaurants, walking the tightrope of combining the cuisines could produce disastrous results. But Corner Kitchen finds the balance so many fusion restaurants miss.

One of the best examples of this is the Bulgogi Torta, a special that blends Korea and Mexico in one dish. The sandwich pulls in the sweet smokiness from bulgogi beef to balance a creamy coleslaw, crisp pickles, pepper-hoison sauce, and a warming Sriracha mayo. The telera roll, with a crisp crust and a fluffy inside, is the perfect delivery device for this wonderful flavor mash-up.

But another torta proves that Corner Kitchen doesn’t need fusion to create a craveable dish.

The Birria Torta takes two beloved Mexican dishes—birria tacos and tortas (Mexican sandwiches)—and melds them into one cohesive dish.

This sandwich puts Corner Kitchen’s rich, tender birria stew meat front and center. The delicious protein is joined by an abundance of gooey mozzarella cheese inside a telera roll, which is dunked in the juices left over from the meat cookery and fried on the flattop. A dunk in the complex, salty consommé takes you to sandwich heaven.

The subtle differences in those two sandwiches are what make Corner Kitchen so unique. They’re similar in so many ways, but the final products are completely different, each with its explosive, individual flavor profile.

But tortas are just the tip of the iceberg on this wide-ranging menu. You’ll find tacos with expected ingredients like asada (steak) and al pastor (marianted pork) to ones with brussels sprouts and Korean pork. There’s a burrito with beef barbacoa alongside one stuffed with Nashville hot chicken. Fried chicken sandwiches, loaded mac & cheese, and ramen all make appearances, too. But Corner Kitchen’s versions all have an interesting verve.

But as fun as the fusion dishes are, Corner Kitchen can nail the traditional dishes, too. One of the better examples is the Quesa-Birria Taco. Melty, oozing cheese glues together two corn tortillas, which are stuffed with savory carnitas and served with an umami bomb of a consomme.

And the Chilango Burrito, a beastly wrap filled with beef barbacoa, sausage, bacon, sweet corn, rice, and macha mayo, takes everything you love about a beefy burrito and twists the dial up a few notches.

Hernandez and his team aren’t afraid to have some fun creating wholly unique dishes contrived from Mexican flavors, especially elote. The street food treat normally consists of a grilled corn cob smothered in mayo, cotija cheese, chili powder, and cilantro.

Corner Kick reimagines the handheld snack in several appetizers and specials, including the Elote Tots. If all this dish consisted of was a bed of the crispy, salty tots, it would be more than enough to satisfy most diners. But Corner Kitchen adds a lively chili-lime mayo, several ears worth of sweet corn kernels, and a mess of milky, salty cotija.

Loaded tot dishes tend to quickly get soggy, but these potato nuggets maintain their integrity well into the meal.

And yet, they’re not Corner Kitchen’s best spin on elote. That designation is saved for the Elote Bites.

This dish consists of fried masa balls so filled with gooey cheese that they practically erupt when you cut them open. The salt from the cheese is cut by sweetness of corn kernels, and the crispy shell gives body and texture. This is a top five appetizer in Omaha.

Great as many of Corner Kitchen’s fusion dishes are, a few provide a glimpse into why combining flavors from different cuisines is so hard to pull off. The Korean Pork Taco, for instance, is a delicious taco, but it doesn’t bring to mind Korean cuisine. There’s little sweetness, and the tender pork is aggressively salty. When balanced by coleslaw, Sriracha mayo, and green onion, however, it’s terrific.

Same goes for the Dan Dan Noodles. This Sichuan noodle dish is typically heat-forward, with chili oil, red pepper flakes, and sesame paste bringing some serious spice. But Corner Kitchen’s version is instead sweet thanks to a creamy peanut sauce. This isn’t a bad thing, as the sauce mixes with the thick, perfectly cooked noodles and savory Korean carnitas to create a scrumptious bowl, but it’s not what one might expect from the original dish.

Corner Kitchen even unleashes its creativity on weekend brunch with dish like Tres Leches French Toast and eggs Benedict with barbacoa and a chili-truffle hollandaise. The Cheesy Hashbrowns are a breakfast version of the Elote Bites, though not as successful. They need more bacon and potatoes, and the cheese is a bit heavy and gloppy.

Maybe the best way to describe Corner Kitchen is that it excels in the unexpected. In what other Omaha restaurant would you find a Bang Bang Chicken Sandwich and a Brussels Sprouts Taco on the same menu? Or a Nashville Chicken Burrito alongside Chipotle Miso Ramen? Oh, and if you just want a traditional cheeseburger, that’s here too.

If you need help navigating the menu, the staff is more than happy to walk you through your options and describe their favorites. And the restaurant, located just off 50th and L, is impeccably clean. On my visits, the floor has been spotless, the tables wiped clean, and even the bathrooms are immaculate. Corner Kitchen’s attention to detail extends beyond the plates to the whole restaurant.

Corner Kitchen has brought something very new to the Omaha dining culture, and it’s hard to put one’s finger on exactly what that is. But it’s unique, special, and delicious, and ultimately, that’s all that matters.