Thursday, December 1, 2011

The worst yet

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:
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.
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!