I am a genuine lover of food trucks and generally try to give the benefit of the doubt, particularly in scoring. Today's review will follow suit with a generous score of 1 honk for DC Shawarma. And it's really too bad because I was looking forward to it, even mentioning on the 18th of November I was considering a long trek just to try it as I love shawarma. See the review and another photo in the first post:
DC Shawarma (@dcshawarma on Twitter) -- Normally I'm willing to give any truck a second try, but unless something substantially changes, I won't even take that chance on one of the newer trucks roaming the streets of DC. DC Shawarma serves exactly what you'd think, chicken or beef+lamb shawarma's and falafels, all either over rice as a platter or in a pita. I ordered the chicken sandwich; I can't even say "I had the chicken sandwich" because after 2 bites, it was in the trash. It was terribly dry to the point it was chalky tasting. The not-totally-burned pieces were equally dehydrated, and the rest of the accompaniments ("salad", tahini, garlic sauce) didn't help either. 1/2 honk awarded for the garlic sauce and 1/2 for putting themselves out there at all, for that alone takes some guts.
I normally take my photos before digging in to my meal, but after I doing so in this case, I took another to illustrate what I am trying to say:
It can't be because the chicken was sitting on the grill all day because we were there at about 11:25. It could be they're serving meat from another day, although I would find that pretty hard to believe. I just can't come up with an explanation about how perfectly good chicken got so overdone.
Kimchi BBQ Taco was back at Farragut today too, and I found the menu so intriguing the other day, I went back to try something else. This time I got a K-Town hot dog. The following update is appended to the original review with an additional photo:
Only 11 more days of work in 2011, and with some holiday parties mixed in, I feel the year closing quickly for me and my truck friends. See y'all next week!Kimchi BBQ Taco UPDATE (1Dec): Only a few days out, but still in desperate need of organization and another set of hands. A K-Town hot dog took 20 minutes at 11:40am with only one other order placed ahead of mine. Call it a Korean chili dog or something... this was pretty good. Bulgogi and a choice of kimchi topped a Nathan's Famous hot dog in a toasted sub roll. I got some gochujang to spice it up, (BIG YAY for getting some out there!) but forgot to top it by the time I got back to the office and inhaled the dog. Next time I'll choose a different kimchi because the "sweet-n-spicy radish kimchi," which looked like a spiced up version of (one of my faves) pickled carrot & daikon, doesn't really come together like it should. Sticking at 3.5 honks, but will start heading down if service (time) doesn't improve.
