What I Ate This Week

Hello from Brooklyn, and happy President’s Day!  Couldn’t let the (long) weekend end without talking about some tremendous lunches this week in the ‘Nati!  Friends, the trucks have arrived!

Senor Roy’s

Senor Roy is in the house

I won’t spend forever talking about the history of food trucks in America– you can Google it, honest.  But the arrival of food trucks in Cincinnati may mark the beginning of an entirely different set of options in dining.  I’ll admit it’s an odd choice to get the thing fired up in mid-winter but I guess this is good practice time for these guys.

Anyway, finding Roy’s isn’t hard if you know where to look.  www.Twitter.com/SenorRoys (sorry, Roy, for the old link before!) has the current spot.  Apparently this week they’ve set up “permanent” camp for lunch downtown at Central Parkway and Main or so.  I was the only one there at this moment, so I had a few minutes to peruse the menu.

Choices, muchos choices

Roy’s takes the L.A. taco truck approach to street food and admittedly, their menu is filled with interesting and delectable-sounding items that seem straight off of the L.A. truck scene.  As I visited them on their first day, they didn’t have quite everything I wanted, but I ordered the “lunch special” which seemed like a good way to try a range of things, all of which were hauled back to my desk at work in one surprisingly heavy bag.

Hungry much?

It starts with chips and salsa– the chips tasted homemade (which is great) but were just a little bit chewy/stale for my taste.  Thankfully, though, I enjoyed some mango habanero salsa with it that blew me away–bright and bold, the hotness came from the flavor of the chili, not through alternative means.  Good stuff.

Hotness

Then came the tacos.  The lunch deal comes with three, dressed the way you like it.  I was interested in their “al pastor” pork but it wasn’t available on this day, so between the remaining choices of beef and chicken that they could pretty much take their pick and give me two of their favorite (which turned out to be chicken) and one of the other.

The main event!

These were excellent tacos–I was surprised to find them served on flour tortillas, though.  I noticed corn was available and I’ll make sure I ask for them next time.  I found the meats to be uniformly excellent–the chicken wasn’t as dry as I feared (and as dry as it almost always is in quick service operations) and was flavorful from some kind of lime marinade.  The steak was juicy, tender, and not fatty.  It was a delight.  Further, the tacos were dressed with delicious salsas (I tried them all and enjoyed them all–even the sweet corn salsa which I tried mostly out of completism!) and the cojita cheese I added was a nice touch.  Overall, these weren’t perfect tacos (the flavors probably could be a little bolder) but for a first day, this was really, really excellent.  And the price was right, too, under $8 for three huge tacos, chips, salsa, and a bottled beverage!

Cafe De Wheels

The next day, thankfully the burger truck was back in town after a few days of maintenance.  Just as with Senor Roy’s, you can find the location on twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/burgerbgood.  In addition, however (and likely owing to both the cold weather and longer cooking time needed for a good burger), you’re encourage to call, text, or yes even fax your orders in.  Once I saw they had set up shop, I sent a text message with my order.  (I had looked online at the menu ahead of time to be prepared.  Then I sauntered off in search of my lunch, ironically to the same near-OTR neighborhood where Roy’s sits–this time at a “permanent location” on Court St. at Walnut.

The approach

Sure enough, 10 minutes after my confirmatory text return, and about 1 minute after I arrived, things were ready.  So I didn’t have tons of time to look at the very interesting menu.

choices aplenty

And then I was on my way to unwrap my first truck burger.

Here it all is

So I know I ordered more than I needed to, but under the guise of doing serious culinary research on the food phenomenon, I obliged.  I started with the chili–it wasn’t my favorite, nor was it the best thing in my lunch.  But that said, it was very serviceable.  It’s a rich, meaty, texas style chili with beans.  The flavor was acceptable without being particularly bold.  I like some interesting hints of style in chili (whether it come from the chilis themselves or other interesting additions) and I’d be interested to see this truck spice it up just a little bit!

The fries were better but are clearly meant as a sidecar to the burger– they were simple, held up well, and very well-seasoned–almost to the point of being “salty”–but they were indeed an excellent accompaniment.

Smashed, and smashing

Thankfully, the burger DID live up to the hype.  It’s a solid amount of meat, and clearly tasted of high quality.  (Avril-Bleh handles the meat duties, and they’re my favorite butcher in town.  Really nice.)  I asked for medium rare and I think it was cooked a little past that but not unrecognizably so.  The meat was the center of the equation, but it had nice supporting characters–the onion marmelade that comes with most burgers gives an interesting caramelized goodness and the cheese (cheddar for me, though American is the normal slice for them) was a bunch of gooey goodness.  Only thing missing was ketchup and mustard–thankfully the ketchup I got for the fries helped out and made all the difference.  Folks, this is a good burger.  It’s not best-in-the-city good (I still hold Terry’s highest for that), but it’s much-better-than-you’d-think-it-is-given-it-came-from-a-truck good.  And that means I’ll go back soon.  (Though I think I need to try their heralded Cuban next time.)

So that’s it.  Truck wars are on, but I think the good news is we can all be winners in this fight.  Now…if only the snow would stop and we could get ourselves a little nice weather to go al fresco!  When that happens, I’ll see you there!  Until next time!  (I’m going to try to get an update on some of the excellent NYC food I’ve been enjoying in some kind of postscript, though it might take me a couple of days!  Stay warm!)