Food Trucks

by Heather Shouse

  Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

  KEEP UP WITH IT: www.biggayicecreamtruck.com or twitter.com/biggayicecream

  A classically trained bassoonist, with degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard, is finishing up his doctorate in musical arts while shuffling back and forth between Manhattan and Boston to perform with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Boston Pops, and so on. So what does he decide to add to his résumé? Ice cream man.

  “My flutist friend from Julliard was driving an ice cream truck for a few summers, and I was sort of following her adventures, living vicariously through her, thinking it was such a funny thing for a conservatory person to hop into this blue-collar job,” Doug Quint explains. “Then, in late winter of 2008, I see on her Facebook page something like, ‘If you ever want to drive an ice cream truck, contact me because I’m selling it.’ I just turned to my boyfriend Bryan on the couch and said, ‘I should probably get in touch with her, right?’ and he nodded, like, ‘Naturally.’ ”

  And so it was. The ice cream truck exchanged hands, and by summer of 2009 Doug had added weekday truck outings to his ridiculously full plate. But this wasn’t work. It was playing ice cream man, and hanging out in the kitchen with his partner coming up with fun toppings like wasabi pea dust and olive oil with sea salt, and it was, ultimately, a way to put the LGBT in rainbow sprinkles. “It really wasn’t premeditated, but when we were getting started and were talking about setting up a Facebook page, I was telling friends, ‘Oh, it’s for me and my big gay ice cream truck,’ and we realized we had just named it,” Doug says. “We felt that even if it wasn’t successful, if people just walked by and laughed, that’s something positive right there. And we like the idea of people having to realize that if they had a problem with a big gay ice cream truck, if that can actually bother them, they would learn a lesson in a way. Some will actually stop and you see this look like they’re trying to figure out a reason to walk away, and then they realize how silly that is, so they just order ice cream.”

  What they order is half the fun. The truck is still very much an old-school Mister Softee–style truck, from the soft-serve machine doling out vanilla, chocolate, and twists to the faded menus advertising glorious dipped cones, shakes, and sundaes, all of which Doug happily makes. But alongside the traditional lineup are handwritten signs under photos of his signature creations, sporting names like the Bea Arthur and the Salty Pimp, with add-ons including dulce de leche, Sriracha hot sauce, saba (a thick and concentrated liquid similar to balsamic vinegar), and pumpkin butter. Doug says getting to experiment with tradition is what drew him in to begin with, so here’s his take on the top sellers that took the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck from formulaic to fabulous:

  The Bea Arthur: Vanilla ice cream on a cone drizzled with dulce de leche and rolled in crushed Nilla wafers.

  “I just knew the caramel and vanilla were classic and that the Nilla wafers would add that texture it needed, but the name came from someone on Twitter. The cone has this great golden color from top to bottom, and it became our little Golden Girl. Plus it turns out that in her will, Bea Arthur left a huge sum of money to a shelter for homeless LGBT teens, so the idea of naming something after her was a nice tribute.”

  The Choinkwich: Caramelized bacon and chocolate soft serve between two chocolate wafer cookies.

  “A couple years ago Bryan and I had this chocolate bar with bacon from Vosges, and we really liked the idea, but our initial experiments with this were horrible. We tried making bacon bits as a topping and it was absolutely disgusting, soaking wet and cold and hopeless. Then it occurred to me that a sandwich was the way to go, and Bryan played around with caramelizing bacon, found a nice lean cut since fat doesn’t chew well once it’s cold, and found the right sugar, and voilà! Someone on Twitter suggested naming it Pig Cream, but that was a bit much.”

  The Salty Pimp: Vanilla ice cream drizzled with dulce de leche, sprinkled with sea salt, and dipped in dark chocolate.

  “Again, you have the salt and the chocolate, which is so good, with a bit of the dulce de leche for that caramel savoriness. And the name actually came from this strange altercation on the street with a pimp who was at the truck with his girls. I had to ask them to leave and he got a bit salty. That kind of thing happens: school kids one second, junkies the next, then German tourists, then undercover cops. What can I say? It’s New York.”

  The Gobbler: Vanilla ice cream sundae drizzled with pumpkin butter and topped with crushed graham crackers, dried cranberries, and whipped cream.

  “This is essentially a mock pumpkin pie, bringing in the cranberries for color and the fall thing. It was called ‘Thanksgiving’ originally, and I was only doing it on Thursdays, but people were gobbling it up, so I put it on the menu and switched the name.”

  ( SIDE DISH )

  You could eat at the Heavenly Delights (161st St. and Concourse Village West) cart in the Bronx every day for a month and never repeat a dish. Like any contemporary American tablecloth spot over in Manhattan, the chef here crafts the day’s menu according to her mood. Fauzia Abdur-Rahman is in her fifties, good at what she does, and beloved by loyal customers who will wait in the rain for her home-style food. Fauzia is from Kingston, Jamaica, so occasionally her hand-scrawled list of daily specials will lean toward the Caribbean: jerk chicken, crispy codfish, curried vegetables. But usually it’s tough to put a finger on the origin of dishes, as honey mustard might mingle with tofu, fresh basil finds its way into a sautéed heap of whiting, and desserts lean Southern, with red velvet cake popular. Fauzia opened her cart in 1995, and little has changed since, although she did upgrade to a deluxe model sporting a six-burner stove. That hasn’t done much to speed up production, but it’s given Fauzia more room for her one-woman show.

  Trini Paki Boys Cart

  FIND IT: 43rd St. and 6th Ave., New York, New York

  “My husband, Abdul Sami Khan, was the first person to do curry chicken on rice at a cart in New York, and he was the very, very first person to have a halal cart,” claims Fatima Khan proudly. In the New York City cart game, just about every vendor you meet alleges he or she was the first to do this or that, but something about Fatima makes her boasts believable. Her confidence is much bigger than her five-foot frame, and she works in molasses-slow movements, gathering up her flowing sarilike wrap to squat on a milk crate while counting out change. “How much does he owe, boy?” she calls out to her son Muhammed, who works the grill like nobody’s business while his face shows boredom beyond belief.

  “My husband started it, but we run it because he got lazy,” Fatima explains with a laugh. “Plus he runs a 99-cent discount store in Brooklyn, so maybe fifteen years ago we took over. I have six sons, and everybody used to help, but now they all branched out, so it’s just me and this boy.”

  This “boy” is actually in his early thirties, but when you’ve been making chicken and rice on a street corner in Midtown for half of your life, you tend to get that glazed-over look of a weathered assembly-line worker. Fatima smiles enough for the both of them, telling her story to anyone who will listen, explaining the handwriting on the menu board (“I’m from Trinidad, my husband from Pakistan, this cart is run by my boys”), and soaking up the compliments for the Caribbean specialties she added to the menu just a couple years ago. Her “doubles” are similar to Indian poori, fried puffs of white flour colored from a little yellow curry powder and topped with curried chickpeas. Palourie are spongier, smaller balls of fried chickpea flour that soak up the sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney Muhammed ladles over them before sealing the foil package like a stuffed purse. Fatima snuck these two Trinidadian specialties onto the menu to spice things up for regulars who might be tiring of chicken and rice—although if you ask any of the dozen or so people in line about their chicken and rice habit, the words “crack” and “addicted” inevitably come up.

  Spiced hunks of chicken or lamb over rice are served at just about every halal cart in existence, so ubiquitous in this par
t of the country that it’s earned its own nickname: street meat. The phrase might turn the stomachs of the uninitiated, but it’s almost a term of endearment among Manhattan’s nine-to-fivers. (In fact, Zach Brooks, founder of the exhaustive blog Midtown Lunch, has conducted a “Street-Meat-Palooza” for three years running in which he and a crew of iron stomachs sample around a dozen different chicken and lamb on rice dishes.) Linger near any of the Midtown halal carts for a few minutes and you’ll overhear regulars sticking to their usual, ordering as nonchalantly as mumbling a “bless you” to a sneeze. “Chicken on rice, lotta hot, lotta white,” is the mantra at Trini Paki Boys, the “hot” referring to the blazing orange sauce of puréed Scotch bonnet peppers, vinegar, and water; the “white” a request for a thinned yogurt and mayo blend; and the chicken, well, Fatima isn’t exactly the kind to cook and tell.

  “It’s just regular seasoning, you know? Nothing special,” she says. “The most important thing in food is salt and pepper. If you don’t have salt and pepper there, forget it. You can put a million seasonings and you have no taste.”

  Pulling a recipe out of a fifty-five-year-old career cook who has never owned a measuring spoon and has no use for one takes a bit of time. Eventually though, Fatima warms up and lets on that she marinates the whole chicken thighs in an oil-based rub spiked with garam masala, curry powder, and, of course, salt and pepper. After Muhammed greases up the cart’s flattop, the thighs hit the surface with a sizzle. Stained yellow-brown by now, the chicken is ready to be chopped into hunks with the sharp edge of a metal spatula as it cooks. Once the edges crisp and each bite cooks through, a towering mound is transferred to a container waiting with a warm pillow of rice. Curried chickpeas and potatoes are sloshed on, one ladle each; a tiny green salad brings color; and generous squirts of the hot and white sauces finish the dish—the signature in the corner of a masterpiece.

  ( SIDE DISH )

  Thomas Yang learned the food truck biz with two of the busiest operations in town: Endless Summer and Rickshaw Dumpling. Firsthand experience of running a mobile kitchen is valuable—an uncle’s authentic Taiwanese recipes are priceless. Before launching NYC Cravings (www.nyccravings.com or twitter.com/nyccravings), Thomas and his sister Diana talked their uncle Steven into giving New Yorkers the one truck it hadn’t seen: true Taiwanese. Steven, a native of Hualien, turns standard meats into home-style succulence with a marinade that’s at once sweet, salty, and slightly sour. Both the chicken and the pork chop are fried after being brined, then plated over fluffy rice with tart pickled greens and what’s cryptically described as “pork sauce.” The Yangs know better than to divulge its ingredients (“uh, soy and herbs and spices” was the repeated description), as their bamboo-decaled truck depends on those flavors for survival. Looks like Thomas also learned Trade Secrets 101.

  ROOSEVELT AVENUE (Jackson Heights/Elmhurst) Queens

  Most carts and trucks operate in the evenings, often staying open very late if not 24 hours on weekends. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is selective.

  Sammy’s Halal NYC’s ubiquitous cart dish chicken-and-rice is the name of the game here, but Sammy’s stands out for über tender chicken, nicely spiced rice, and fierce hot sauce. Order “chicken with hot and white” to get both the red hot sauce and the thinned mayo-yogurt, but tack on “green” to that request for the secret sauce with punchy brightness.

  Potala Fresh Food For an Eastern escape from the plethora of Latin American eats in this neck of the woods, make a quick pit stop at this Tibetan cart, which sits just a few feet from the Roosevelt Avenue subway station. Stacked silver steamers hold freshly formed momo, plump dumplings filled with oniony ground beef that come in orders of eight.

  Quesadilla Sabrosa Taqueria The cart operators might hail from El Salvador, but they have a way with Mexican-style quesadillas nonetheless, using just enough margarine to soften the tortilla while crisping the edges. As usual, the huitlacoche (a.k.a. corn smut, prized black corn fungus) is canned, but combined with fresh farmer’s cheese and pickled onions, this quesadilla stands out.

  The Arepa Lady.

  Guayaco’s Comida Ecuatoriana One of a handful of Ecuadorian trucks along the strip, Guayaco’s is known for its supremely fresh shrimp ceviche, chock-full of raw red onions and steeped in a slightly sweet and tart mix of orange and lime juices. It goes fast on weekends, but the braised goat stew is a respectable replacement.

  Raspado Lady (seasonal) Come summer you’ll spot wide-eyed kids forming a line at this tiny cart, waiting and watching as the raspado (snow cone) lady methodically shaves down a block of ice to yield the base for a dozen flavored syrups. Many flavors (bubble gum, blue raspberry) are clearly synthetic and ultra-sweet, so stick with the few she makes herself, like coconut, tamarind, and mango.

  Delicias Isabel As reliable as a 7-11, this cart is always open. Standard Mexican fare is advertised, but the cart owners are actually Salvadoran. Order a pupusa and the masa is hand-formed to order, filled with a layer of beans, cheese, and (by request) a few crunchy chicharrones, or pork rinds, before it’s tossed onto the griddle.

  Antojitos Mexicanos la Tia Julia Barbacoa de chivo is the specialty of this massive truck, goat tacos confusingly listed on the menu yet only offered as a special but on no particular days. If you luck out, order a couple to start (you pay at the end of your grazing) and pile on a few sprigs of papalo offered near the window; the peppery herb is perfect for the ultra-rich and tender goat.

  La Caserita Don’t be scared off by the whole roasted pig sprawled across the many platters crowding this rickety cart’s griddle. It’s the signifier of Ecuadorian authenticity, intended to be hacked to pieces and dished up over corn cakes, an indulgence only outdone by the chicharrones, wide strips of deep-fried pig fat.

  El Guayaquileño With a handful of stools and a flatscreen showing Ecuadorian videos mounted to its exterior, this truck intends on its customers staying a while. Regulars make a meal of standout specialties like conch ceviche topped with crunchy corn kernels, pork sausage soup (caldo de salchicha), and hen stew (seco de gallina).

  Pique y Pase El Pepin Sporting a nearly identical lineup to its fellow Ecuadorian competitors parked nearby, this truck seems to do a better business in roast and fried pork (hornado and fritada, respectively), as well as tamales steamed in banana leaves and thick links of blood sausage known as morcilla. When the truck is open for breakfast, try the morocho con pan y nata, a warm corn drink sold with a thick slice of bread drizzled with cream.

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  If Portland is the ever-evolving hipster of the mobile food scene, Philly is the grizzly old man, content with its standbys, a bit battered and bruised, and far from concerned about perpetual motion, let alone Tweeting any movement. Parked in clusters in two main areas of Philadelphia— City Center, a.k.a. downtown, and University City, home to Penn, Temple, and Drexel—boxy, white, warhorse Grumman trucks have served sustenance to hungry nine-to-fivers and students alike for decades, under regulation since 1975. Grumman, a military aircraft manufacturer based across the state line in New York, also churns out UPS-style step vans, plenty of which were converted into mobile kitchens throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Second-generation Greek and Italian immigrants set their trucks up like roving delis, the fridge stocked with all the usual cold cuts and sliced cheeses, warmers holding thin shavings of “steak,” all to be piled onto split buns for hoagies and the city’s namesake cheesesteaks. Scrapple, that Pennsylvania specialty of spiced pork scraps and cornmeal seared to a crispy puck, anchored the trucks’ breakfast offerings, joined by pepper-and-egg sandwiches, sold with or without a couple of thick rounds of sagey sausage. Likewise, hot coffee, shot out of the same insulated urn that brewed it, carried no pretension, just good and strong, and as cheap as the plain white Styrofoam cup it was served in.

  Fast-forward to the present day, and not much about Philly’s food truck landscape has changed. Walk the streets in the city’s “special vending districts” and it
’s tough to differentiate truck from truck, the impossibly lengthy menus blurring together into one big hoagie-chef’s salad-gyro affair. Chinese trucks, most of which arrived in the ’80s, are just as indistinguishable, each plastered with a roll call of chop suey classics at least forty dishes deep. Egg foo young, lo mein, fried rice, beef with broccoli, cashew chicken … all as gloopy and oddly satisfying as ever, handed over in Styrofoam squares nearly buckling from the weight of thick white rice. The ’90s brought similarly stout portions of Caribbean soul food to the streets, with a handful of Jamaican and African American proprietors outfitting their Grummans with steam tables, each slot a natural extension for the day’s menu at their brick-and-mortar restaurants. Double batches of stew chicken, braised oxtails, and collard greens heavy with potlikker meant half would be loaded onto the truck, the other half staying behind for a carryout lunch crowd. Mexican arrived next, along with a couple of Indian options, the random Korean and Southeast Asian truck, and plenty of small carts hawking freshly cut fruit, the operations nearly camouflaged by bushels of produce stacked high in crates on all sides.

  What Philly has lacked in creativity it’s made up for in volume and value, with many trucks (around 165 at last count in 2010) strategizing to compete by offering the exact same thing, but a bit more for a bit less. “We’re not a trendsetting town generally,” says Craig LaBan, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s restaurant critic for more than a decade. “Food trucks have long been a part of our culture, but it’s just that the selections haven’t been that inspired. I find that most aren’t especially good, and I really wouldn’t go out of my way to eat at most, but they serve the purpose of serving hearty food at a good price. I’ve been waiting for somebody to bust out and do something high-grade, and that’s really just starting to now. I believe our revolution is going to happen this year.”