Friday, June 1, 2012

Another week coming to an end

And while I'm looking forward to hitting Farragut Friday in a couple of hours, on Wednesday I met my prior record of 5 trucks in a single day again: Sate Indonesian Food, Souvlaki Stop, Stella's, Captain Cookie, and Sinplicity.  I won't go in to Stella's or Sinplicity as I've discussed both many times, and will start with my first stop, Sate.  

Two options for sate, chicken or beef (or combo) served with rice and vegetables and Mie Ayam which is described as egg noodles, sesame sauce, chicken, oyster mushrooms, bok choy, and crispy wontons.  Realizing I would be also ordering a beef-something from Souvlaki Stop, I opted to go with the chicken sate.  While preparing the order, one of the two gentlemen on the truck asked if I liked spicy.  When I replied affirmatively, they filled my container with "spicy rice" instead of white rice.  Four skewers of reasonably grilled chicken topped the rice, along with a really tempting, moderately peanut-ty sauce.  On the other hand, the vegetables are described as a stew and they really meant it.  Really mushy carrots, onions, and string beans were also cooked with potatoes (or maybe turnips/rutabagas) but the starch component had broken down to the point it dissolved, making it indistinguishable.  $8.  3.5 honks.  No Twitter yet, but more than some of the other vendors who say they will get on Twitter, I kind of believe these guys.

Rather than going for the platter as I normally would if it were the only lunch I planned to enjoy, I went for a Greek salad from Souvlaki Stop, with beef souvlaki.  Even though I ended up bringing the salad home and ate it for dinner, I did sample the components as served.  It's interesting... I actually preferred everything at dinner far more than the lunchtime sampling.  During the day when I tried the beef, while the meat was heavily seasoned, I found it quite dry.  Later that evening, the (at that point) chilled beef worked nicely against the feta and other components.  The menu has both a green salad ($4) and a Greek ($6) listed, and both are available with a protein for $2 more.  Looking forward to the feta along with the typical herb-heavy oil and vinegar dressing, I asked for the Greek salad, but was disappointed to find a creamy Italian-ish blended dressing.  So, when I ate the salad, I instead dolloped the provided yogurt-based tzatziki sauce, which worked nicely other than being way too thick for that purpose.  I'll go for 3.5 honks on them too.

Later in the afternoon, Captain Cookie and the Milkman truck made its way to Farragut for the later part of lunch service, so I made a quick trip between meetings and ordered two cookies with milk ($4) from the varied options including made-to-order ice cream sandwiches, not too dissimilar from what Scoops2U offers.  Both cookies were soft and the ginger molasses fit the bill perfectly, but between my friend and I we could find only 3 chocolate chips in my entire chocolate chip cookie (maybe 3-3.5" in diameter, for perspective,) and frankly that cookie needed more of that creaminess running through it.  (If you click the photo to the right to blow it up and see the bottom of the lower cookie, you can see no chocolate.)  On a separate note, the size of the milk jug was unexpected to a benefit of 4 ounces.  Well priced menu and owners who are anxious to please.  A trifecta for 3.5 honks.

BTW -- Can I just mention how, at this point, it is nearly a daily occurrence I walk up to Farragut Square where there is another new truck?  Even when I look at the map, if there's nothing that I'm necessarily in the mood for, I am confident I can go and find either a new truck, or at least one from the Shame List.

Off to Farragut Friday soon...