Food Trucks

by Heather Shouse

  The karaoke machine, the international phone, the webcam, the Putumayo world music CDs for sale: none of that is too much for Farhad. In fact, it’s just the beginning. It’s all part of his definition of Sâuçá: “a global lifestyle brand that combines food, travel, music, design, technology, and fun into the most interesting new concept to hit the streets.” But to any normal college kid walking between classes, Sâuçá is a food truck, one with a menu of flatbread wraps (“Sâuçás”), Belgian waffles with sweet toppings (“Toffles”), and minty lemonade (“Limunad”). The Indian-inspired Mumbai butter chicken Sâuçá is the best seller, with hunks of curried chicken and toasted cashews tucked into Lebanese-ish flatbread. The ginger- and soy-marinated pork “banh mi” is a close runner-up, the lamb and beef merguez trailing just behind that. True to its tagline, “Eat the World,” Sâuçá’s menu is clearly globally influenced, designed by a consulting company Farhad worked with to execute his ideas. The sauces—white miso soy, Thai coconut, passion fruit mayo—are in the process of being set up to be bottled, branded, and sold as far as Farhad can reach. Ditto for his “Limunad.” But first the busy businessman is getting a second round of trucks added to his fleet, which grew to four step vans only six months after Sâuçá launched in February 2010. Farhad is looking to put Sâuçás throughout the region within a year, throughout the country in two. “In my investment banking experience, the businesses that had the most value were those that created a brand, and a brand means expansion. “This,” he says, waving his arm toward his multimedia boom box/global restaurant on wheels, “is only the beginning.”

  Butter Chicken Sâuçá

  Serves 8

  MARINATED CHICKEN

  ¼ cup finely minced garlic

  ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  ¾ cup plain yogurt

  1¼ teaspoons chili powder

  1¼ teaspoons garam masala

  2 teaspoons olive oil

  1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch chunks

  SAUCE BASE

  4½ teaspoons olive oil

  1½ teaspoons tomato paste

  2 cinnamon sticks

  ½ teaspoon ground cardamom

  1 bay leaf

  2 or 3 Thai green chiles

  1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

  ¼ cup water

  1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes

  ¼ teaspoon chili powder

  ¼ teaspoon garam masala

  ¼ cup very finely chopped salted cashews

  1 teaspoon ground fennel seed

  SUÇÁ

  1½ cups uncooked basmati rice

  1½ teaspoons olive oil

  ¼ cup unsalted butter

  ¼ cup heavy cream

  1½ teaspoons honey

  ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  ¼ teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice

  ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish

  8 pieces flatbread (preferably Kronos), paratha, or roti

  ½ cup chopped salted, roasted cashews

  To make the marinated chicken, combine the garlic, salt, yogurt, chili powder, garam masala, and olive oil and stir to combine. Pour over the chicken and seal in a large resealable bag. Let marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

  To make the sauce base, heat a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the olive oil, tomato paste, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, bay leaf, Thai chiles, and ginger and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the water to the pan and deglaze, scraping the pan to remove any bits stuck on the bottom. Add the tomatoes, chili powder, garam masala, cashews, and fennel seed to the pan. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves from the sauce, transfer the sauce to a blender, and purée. Set aside and keep warm.

  To make the Sâuça, prepare the rice according to the package instructions. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Drain the marinade from the chicken and transfer the chicken to the skillet, searing on all sides until browned all over but not cooked through.

  Add the reserved sauce base to the pan with the chicken and bring to a simmer for 1 minute. Add the butter, cream, honey, salt, and lime juice and simmer on low for

  5 to 6 minutes. Bring the sauce to a boil, remove from the heat, and fold in the cilantro.

  Spoon about ½ cup of the rice onto your favorite flatbread, top it with the chicken mixture, and garnish with the chopped cashews and cilantro. Roll the flatbread around the filling, and enjoy. Repeat to make 7 more sandwiches.

  ( SIDE DISH )

  There’s no Pedro and there’s no Vinny at Pedro & Vinny’s. But there is John Rider, a fifteen-year veteran of the D.C. street food scene who’s famous for a few things: zipping through his perpetual block-long lunch line with the flair of a carnival barker, talking newbies into the mango-habanero “Goose sauce” he now bottles and sells, trusting customers to make their own change from a box stuffed with ones and quarters, and (this one’s most important) being the first D.C. sidewalk cart with the gumption to go through the red tape to get city approval to sell something other than hot dogs or packaged foods. John started vending in the mid-1990s with a coffee cart on the George Washington campus, but in 2000 he got the green light from the city to start selling burritos (hence the Pedro) and pasta (that would be Vinny). He chalks it up to “going through a bunch of stuff with the city and knowing how to write up standard operating procedures,” but essentially he was able to secure a vegetarian-only vending permit that lets him prepare food other than hot dogs on his cart, as long as there’s no meat involved. Fine by him—the line is long enough as it is.

  ( SIDE DISH )

  DC Central Kitchen is all about second chances. Among other services, the nonprofit offers a program that provides culinary training for the formerly homeless and/or the recently incarcerated, which has put hundreds of cooks into D.C.’s restaurants. In hopes of turning a few of them into business owners as well, Central Kitchen launched a food cart in 2008, giving participants a taste of the owner-operator life that’s infinitely more accessible than opening a full-scale restaurant. A year later, Stir Food Group came on board, rebranding the cart as Zola on the Go (7th and F Sts. NW) and bringing in the menu of chef Bryan Moscatello, winner of a Food & Wine Best New Chef nod in 2003 for his work at the restaurant group’s flagship, Zola. Now instead of the usual lineup of hot dogs and half-smokes, employees get experience preparing items like lamb meatball sliders with grilled romaine, pepper slaw, and goat cheese aioli, plus they get the crowd that loves them.

  Portsmouth, New Hampshire

  Fresh Local

  KEEP UP WITH IT: www.freshlocaltruck.com

  Plenty of people toss around the dream of escaping to a quaint small town for their own little piece of Mayberry. But Michelle Louzaway actually did it. She had a Northwestern law degree but wasn’t using it. She was living in Fargo, North Dakota, but wasn’t feeling it. She found a book on small towns, picked one, and moved to it. As it turned out, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was exactly what she was looking for. “I didn’t want to live the rest of my life shuffling my kids around in a car, never walking anywhere, living in a place where the food is all white: white flour, white sugar,” Michelle says.

  So she packed up her family and moved to New Hampshire, settling in Newington, a town of fewer than a thousand people next to Portsmouth, where she got to work planting a garden, acquiring chickens for eggs, and, eventually, splitting from her husband. She worked her way through the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking long before Julie and Julia, and even took a cooking school vacation to Julia Child’s former French château. In 2003 she bought a restaurant in downtown Portsmouth and, like many unprepared restaurateurs, she quickly learned she needed help. “My general contractor said, ‘I have a guy who can do odd jobs,’ so he brought this kid in. He was always smiling, but I thought, ‘Why is this fifteen-year-old boy smiling at me?’ ” Michelle says. “My contractor said, ‘You might want to talk to h
im. He’s actually the head chef at one of the most successful comfort food restaurants in Portsmouth, Lindbergh’s Crossing.’ ”

  Michelle’s “fifteen-year-old handyman” was Josh Lanahan, a twenty-nine-year-old CIA grad with a passion for small towns, cooking local, and, it turned out, Michelle. A decade his senior, Michelle channeled her inner cougar and jumped in headfirst. The couple ran the restaurant for two years before itching to do something different. Over a bottle of Patrón one night, they decided to buy a fish taco truck for sale in Portsmouth, applying the “fresh” and “local” mantra that governed their lives to this mobile kitchen. In weeks Michelle was setting up the truck for business, while Josh went to work concocting a menu of falafel using herbs and onions from the couple’s garden, burgers made from grass-fed cows raised just up the road, and breakfast sandwiches of his own eggs, sausage from a local legend nicknamed “Popper,” and Lebanese-style pita from a nearby bakery. Wrapped and grilled to order, these took on the name “Purritos,” and they exploded in popularity when Fresh Local launched in summer 2007.

  In fact, everything was a hit. So much so that the couple added a brick-and-mortar location to their plate. They kept the truck, too, and it’s become a fixture at the Prescott Park Arts Festival, a summer venue for music and plays on the banks of the Piscataqua River. But to operate the truck year-round, Michelle and Josh are looking into buying a 1940s gas station off the highway where they would park Fresh Local, construct a seating area, secure a liquor license, and create a destination out of an old, dusty lot. That’s one way to keep your town in the types of books that inspire life-changing decisions.

  Josh’s Smooth & Smoky Mac & Cheese

  Serves 4 to 6

  1 pound elbow macaroni or corkscrew pasta

  1½ teaspoons olive oil

  1 small onion, diced

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

  2 cups half-and-half

  ¼ pound smoked Gouda cheese, shredded

  ¼ pound American cheese, shredded

  ¼ pound Cabot Cheddar cheese, shredded

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Cooked bacon, chopped, for garnish (optional)

  Basil, cut into thin ribbons, for garnish (optional)

  Fresh tomatoes, diced, for garnish (optional)

  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta, and cook until just a tad mushy (as opposed to al dente). Drain, reserving the pasta water, and transfer the pasta to a large serving dish.

  Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes and half-and-half and bring to a gentle boil. Add the cheeses, stirring until they’re thoroughly melted. Transfer the mixture to a blender and carefully purée. Pour the cheese mixture over the pasta and stir to blend. If the pasta and cheese mixture seems too dry, add a little of the reserved pasta water. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Top with the bacon, basil, and tomatoes, and serve.

  INDEX

  A

  Abdur-Rahman, Fauzia

  Aguascalientes

  Alarcon, Flavio

  Albizo, Jose

  Algarme, Enzo

  All Fired Up, 3.1, 3.2

  All Natural Hot Mini Cakes

  Angela’s Chocolate Pudding and Cookies

  Antojitos Mexicanos la Tia Julia

  Antojitos Mi Abuelita

  Apples, Shaved, French Toast with Bacon Beer Brats and

  The Arepa Lady, 5.1, 5.2

  Arepas de Queso

  Arlington, Virginia

  Armstrong, Karleton

  Asociación de Loncheros

  Assari, Farhad

  Athens Gyros

  Austin, Texas, 4.1, 5.1

  Azzah, Fred

  B

  Bacon Jam

  Baitinger, Scott

  Baker, Rick

  Balsamic Onion Marmalade, Thomas’s

  Banh Mi, Lemongrass Pork

  Battle of the North Shore Shrimp Trucks

  Bayer, Laura

  The Bayou New Orleans

  The Bay-View Pizza

  Beecher’s Handmade Cheese

  beef

  The Bay-View Pizza

  Beef Empanadas

  “The Burger”

  GastroPod’s Sloppy Jose

  Irie Food’s Oxtail Stew

  Myriam’s Yellow Burger

  The Only Market Burger

  Beet Salad, Rick’s F@*#ing Russian-style

  Beijing Hot Noodles

  Bennett’s Pure Food Bistro

  Benson, Nancye

  The Best Wurst

  Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

  Big Wave Shrimp

  Blackberry Lavender Ice Pops

  Blank, Jeff

  Bobby Flay’s Throwdown (TV show), 4.1

  Bool BBQ

  Border Grill

  Bork, Adam

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Bottger, Brian

  Boucherie

  Boudin Balls, Que Crawl’s

  Braised Lamb Cheeks Sandwich

  Brats, Bacon Beer, French Toast with Shaved Apples and

  Braun, John

  Brisbane, California

  Brooks, Zach

  Brother Bob’s Bakery

  Brown Chicken Brown Cow

  Bubba Bernies

  Buckingham, Jaynie

  Bulkogi Korean BBQ to Go

  Bull City Street Vendors Rodeo

  Bullfrog, Jeremiah, 4.1, 4.2

  Buraka

  burgers

  “The Burger”

  Myriam’s Yellow Burger

  The Only Market Burger

  Burlingame, California, 1.1, 1.2

  Burmeister, Brett

  Butter Chicken Sâuçá

  Buttermilk, 1.1, 1.2

  C

  Cabral, Javier

  Café Costa Rica

  Calbi

  California

  Brisbane

  Burlingame, 1.1, 1.2

  Half Moon Bay

  Los Angeles, fm.1, fm.2, 1.1, 1.2

  North Hollywood

  Oakland

  Pasadena

  Redwood City

  San Francisco

  San Jose

  Venice

  Cano, Maria Piedad

  Capitol Square (Madison, Wisconsin)

  Caracas Empanadas

  Carlson, Lisa

  Cartopia (Portland, Oregon), 2.1, 2.2, 2.3

  Cavazos, Amanda

  Cemitas Poblanas Junior’s

  cheese

  Arepas de Queso

  The Bay-View Pizza

  “The Burger”

  Josh’s Smooth & Smoky Mac & Cheese

  Kimchi Quesadilla

  Ode to Magic Carpet’s Tofu Meatballs

  The Only Market Burger

  Pear Crepes

  Potato Champion Poutine

  Chef Shack

  Chen, Macky, 1.1, 1.2

  Chen, Ming-Cheng

  Chen, Shao

  Chen-Lu Shrimp Farm

  Chez Spencer

  Chicago, Illinois

  chicken

  Butter Chicken Sâuçá

  Fojol Bros. Butter Chicken

  huli huli, 1.1

  Karel’s Chicken Paprikash

  O’Neil’s Jerk Chicken

  Rana’s Chicken Kathi Roll

  Soul Patrol Buttermilk Fried Chicken

  Thai Chicken Karaage, 4.1, 4.2

  Chimichurri, Food Chain

  China Cottage

  chocolate

  Angela’s Chocolate Pudding and Cookies

  Pear Crepes

  Choi, Roy

  Chojnacki, Zbigniew “Ziggy” and Krystyna

  Cincinnati, Ohio, itr.1

  Clam Chowder, Sam’s New England

  Coffee-braised Pork Shoulder with Chiles and Sweet Potato

  Cohen, Matt

  Cold Cure-All, Moxie’s

  C
ole, Tyson

  condiments

  Bacon Jam

  Food Chain Chimichurri

  Rick’s F@*#ing Russian-style Beet Salad

  Thomas’s Balsamic Onion Marmalade

  Cookies, Angela’s Chocolate Pudding and

  Crème Brûlée Cart, 1.1, 1.2

  crepes

  Flip Happy Crêpes

  Pear Crepes

  Crockett, Drew

  Curry Up Now

  Cutie Pie Wagon

  D

  Daisy Cakes

  Daley, Vi

  Dammeier, Kurt Beecher

  The Dandelion Vegetarian and Vegan

  D’Angelo’s

  Day-Boykin, Andrea

  DC Central Kitchen

  Delicias Isabel

  Deneroff, Leena

  Dogfeather’s

  Dolinksy, Tanna TenHoopen

  Dominick’s

  Dominic’s

  Don Chow Tacos

  Dosa, NY Dosas’ Special Rava Masala

  Dosa Truck, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

  Drake, Ian

  Dumplings, Karel’s

  Durham, North Carolina

  E

  East Side King

  Eat Real Festival