Gourmet Food Trucks

 As a Washington D.C. Native (yes, Filipinos live here too… ), growing up with the dirty water hotdog/pizza/ egg roll vendors along Constitution Avenue is a long cry from what we see today riding the streets; the GOURMET FOOD TRUCKS!  You can get everything from Korean Food to New England Lobster Rolls.  In D.C., all of the gourmet food trucks can be found downtown along K Street and the surround area, catering mostly to the D.C. office worker.  But alas, as you’ve seen in previous posts, I work in Georgetown, an exclusive area that is known for their boutique shops and white tablecloth restaurants.  Needless to say, I’ve never been to a gourmet food truck in D.C.

But while attending a wedding celebration in Oakland, CA, I got to experience my very first food truck.  Even better… it was a FILIPINO FUSION FOOD TRUCK!  So let’s get to it!

Firstly, how does one find the food truck of choice?  I mean… it’s a truck… it moves around the city… so how do you know where it is going to be located at any given moment?  In the age of the Internet, specifically Facebook and Twitter, all you have to do is subscribe to your favorite food truck, and the proprietors will let you know via postings on Facebook or Tweets on Twitter.  WHOO HOO!

So, lets get back to my food truck experience.  Señor Sisig (Check out Senior Sisig) is a Filipino Fusion food truck that takes sisig (a Filipino dish made that is usually made from parts of pig's heads and liver, seasoned with calamansi and chili peppers, cooked and served in a cast iron pan) and mixes it with tacos or burritos!  AMAZING!  Ok… the classic version of sisig may not sound good to everyone, but its classically eaten while drinking alcohol… so just about anything is good!  But to please everyone’s palates, Señior Sisig makes a pork version, a chicken version, and a tofu version for you Veg heads!  Man… so good!

So on the night of the Wedding Celebration, Señior Sisig was right out front of the venue.   

PERFECT drinking food!  I walk up to the window and order beef sisig with rice, atchara (pickled unripe papaya) and a fried egg on top (better known in the Filipino community as being siloged).  Needless to say, that lil bit of food got TORN DOWN.  The beef was perfectly cooked, flavorfully seasoned bringing you that hint of umami or savoriness.  The egg was perfectly fried, the broken yolk creating a fatty sauce to cover the rice.  The atchara rounded out the entire meal, giving you the acid to cut the richness of the rest of the plate.  Perfect in my eyes.

You could also get a side of lumpia shanghai, the Filipino style eggrolls with no frills, just meat filled rice paper, deep fried to a precise crispness and dipped in a sweet and spicy sauce.  GOOD GRIEF!  JUST THINKING ABOUT IT JUST MAKES ME WANT SOME RIGHT NOW!

Peep this menu!!!!

I write this for you to explore your local food trucks… you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find.  You can try foods foreign to your palate for cheap and can help you expand your food horizons.

Onward and upwards,

-Vince