is this a good lunch?

[Suesumba]

Sandra Wasson ate her lunch while shivering on a curb in a city parking lot Monday afternoon, but said it was one of the best meals she has ever had.


Click to enlarge
Jillian Dorman marks up the menu on her food wagon during Santa Rosa's inaugural Munch Monday event. It started with a Chicago style hot dog slathered with hot sweet pickles.

Next came a steaming rice paper dumpling with special sesame oil.

That was followed by a slow-roasted pulled pork sandwich with Jamaican jerk sauce on a toasted roll with fresh cole slaw.

And finally, the piece de résistance: a warm crab sandwich made with a quarter pound of fresh local crab, wild arugula and strawberry daikons on a warm ciabatta roll, which she split with friend Susan Pinto.

“This is awesome,” Wasson said, her eyes rolling back in her head as she cradled her half of the sandwich.

Hundreds of people joined her, braving frigid temperatures to buy lunch from six mobile gourmet food vendors who set up shop in a Third Street parking lot just south of the library.

Driven largely by social media and word of mouth, the city sanctioned event dubbed Munch Mondays aims to give mobile vendors a place to congregate downtown, while also promoting traditional eateries on a traditionally slow lunch day.

“This is fun. This is what people want. The whole West Coast is doing it,” said Jeff Tyler, owner of Chicago Style Hot Dog and one of the event's organizers.

Tyler got the idea after the city started letting him and others park after hours in Old Courthouse Square. Business has been brisk on Friday and Saturday nights, he said.

“Sometimes there are 150 people standing around my hot dog cart at two in the morning,” he said.

a bread sandwich with a side of bread

[JAmerican Ooman]

Re: is this a good lunch?

This is the new thing here in downtown DC. Most of the big name restaurants have Mobile Vans now.. and you can get anything from Fish to Nuts at them...

You can imagine the Hot Dog vendors are really Pizzed. even had one ask the man to move is Van because he did not have a license to be there. Little did he know, all he needs is a vendor's license, and he can park his Van on any street that he chooses, whereas the Hot Dog Vendor is on the sidewalk and that is where he is licensed to sell.. (this is in the DC area). Can't wait for the weather to break to see who else is going to join the frey..


GUIDANCE

[Suesumba]

Re: is this a good lunch?

hi JOoman

they were trying to start up the same thing, but mostly it got mired in red tape. although there is a jamaican curry goat wagon across from where i work, mostly the fees to start up was beyond the means of the *little man*, so i have only seen one falafel wagon to date.

that lady mentioned in the piece sure ate a lot of starches tho.

[CeaBee]

Re: is this a good lunch?

that crab ting sound good. not sure bout crab from a van though

(gone fi look up "strawberry daikon)

[JAmerican Ooman]

Re: is this a good lunch?

Suesumba

There is a lobster truck that only tells its location on FaceBook.. and they only have a certain amount of portions. First come first serve. The Jamaican Truck is the bomb. two young men cooking up some good food. The curry chicken salad is to die fore.. and the Jerk kabob will make you yo momma The only one that comes on a regular.. rain or shine and sell-out fast...
I remember these truck wayyyyyyyyyyyy back in the day when Momma used to bring us downtown to the musuems...

GUIDANCE

[kia027]

Re: is this a good lunch?

yes a good lunch buy it & eat in the warmth of your office kitchen

[johnnycakes]

Re: is this a good lunch?

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110110/articles/110119941&#

And in the picture, the two buns on the right are most likely char su bao or baked pork buns which are a sweet roll with chopped pork in sauce inside and usually served warm.
They are so good as to defy description and are the biggest seller at all Chinese bakeries.
The dumpling that is darker than the rest is called siu mai and is a wheat dumpling with a mixture of chopped spiced pork and shrimp inside. The others are all dumplings made with a rice wrapper, most likely some are har gao (shrimp dumplings) but the Chinese do make an amazing variety of dumplings and I have NEVER eaten one I did not at least like.

If any of you live near a Chinatown of any size, there will be a restaurant that specializes in dim-sum which are what these sort of little things are called.

I promise you the eating experience of your life if and when you go to one of these places but I would avoid the small restaurants in the suburbs if you want really good dim sum.

The way it works is you are seated and there is a blank bill already on the table. A number of two-three tiered carts are constantly wheeled around the restaurant containing a great variety of small plates (3 to a plate) of dumplings, roast duck, roast chicken, roast pork, pork buns, steamed Chinese greens in oyster sauce, whole fried giant shrimp, fried spicy calamari, clams in black bean sauce, crab claw with minced shrimp coating fried onto it, and on and on and on and on. The variety is boggling.

As each cart stops at your table, you point at what you want and the waitress puts whatever you want on the table and marks you bill for what you've taken. (It is usually useless to ask what is in any of the dishes as in the big city Chinatowns the help usually does not speak much English. They might say "Poke" or 'Swimp" for pork or shrimp but that is about all the info you'll get but no matter. There are so few things that are not superbly delicious in any of the carts that it doesn't matter.
That said do not get a dish of tripe. It is HORRIBLE tasting to Western palates.
(In fact, in Boston's dim sum restaurants, the ladies with the tripe cart will not stop at a table full of non-Chinese because they and the management know that non-Chinese will not like tripe Chinese style.)

They will continue to wheel up to your table until you leave and you usually just have to wave them off when you're full.
At that point, you signal to a waiter to tote up your bill and you pay and you're done.

I have eaten in less than twenty minutes at a dim-sum restaurant due to the speed at which the carts arrived at my table.

In Boston I can recommend the Emperor's Garden (seats about 1000 people in what used to be a movie theater) but I do not think you can find a bad dim sum place in any Chinatown since the Chinese are quite fussy about their food and any places serving sub-standard food are quickly out of business.

You can pay more for your Chinese food in fancier restaurants where the food may be presented with more flair but even the cheapest dingiest looking places will have good food.

I worked in Boston's Chinatown area for some 30 years and ate there constantly so I can tell you from experience that (IMO) there is no culture that has a better cuisine than do the Chinese.

What you do have to avoid are the suburban Chinese restaurants that have an all-American clientele because they serve them stuff that the Chinese will not eat.

You know those crunchy fried noodles that they serve with chow mein in the suburban restaurants? They do not use them at all in real Chinese restaurants where chow mein (fried noodle) is made using egg noodles that are pan fried until crisped but which still have some parts of the noodle that still feel and look and taste like noodle.

I could talk for days about the glories of (real) Chinese food. Sorry if I rambled but if you want or need info on Chinese food I'd be more than glad to help.

The best dish for those who know nothing about Chinese food but find themselves in a real Chinatown Chinese restaurant is Beef Chow Hor Foon (specify DRY FRY and not the one made with gravy)
As long as you like or will eat beef, this is the one dish that I have never seen anyone not love. This includes my eight year old niece and my 85 year old mother and father -in-law.


OKAY OKAY that's it.
LUNCHTIME and I'm 20 miles from Chinatown. KT.

[kia027]

Re: is this a good lunch?

yes chai shu bao is so good even jews used to go to chinatown in NY to buy & eat dem

I found some at our local asian market the other day