Triangle Good Eats

Last Thursday was the Food Truck Harvest at Big Boss Brewing Company. It was great to have a food truck gathering here in Raleigh. There was live music, a pumpkin carving contest, and of course, beer. I’m not a beer connoisseur but we had a Hell’s Belle and a Harvest Time Pumpkin Ale, I liked both, but Jad liked the Hell’s Belle better and I preferred the pumpkin ale.

Some highlights:
We had Kogi tacos, which were tasty, but I always wish they were bigger!

We split a burger from Only Burger (next time, we’re each getting our own. These are too good to share!). They didn’t have their special pimento cheese and fried green tomato burger that night, which we’ve been dying to try, but we asked for pimento cheese along with bacon and are so glad we did. This is one juicy burger and the pimento cheese is the perfect gooey accompaniment. Easily the best thing we ate all night.

We had a chicken Indian taco from the Indian food truck:

The flatbread on the outside was tasty and the chicken had some heat to it but the flavor was dominated by cumin. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some cumin, but the chicken’s flavor was too one-note.

We tried a slice of pan pizza from Klausie’s:

We got a pepperoni slice and were persuaded to add some red onion, because they were touted as “beautiful”. Maybe I’ve just become a New York style pizza kinda girl, because I just wasn’t won over by the pan pizza. It was cheesy and saucy and not very memorable. The red onion was almost raw and as is always the problem with toppings added after the fact, they weren’t integrated into the cheese and sauce.

The last truck we tried was Valentino’s.

Nothing on the menu really grabbed me but I do like a good pepperoni roll so we tried one of those. To be fair, at this point I was pretty full so that may very well have affected my enjoyment, but the roni roll was not memorable. I would try their meatball sub next time though, since another customer gave it the thumbs-up.

Could not have asked for more beautiful weather for being outside and food truckin’ it up. It was such a good time and I hope it is the first of many of such events.

Tags: food trucks // 3 Comments »

Yesterday Andrea Weigl tweeted a link to this Carolina Journal article; Raleigh’s city ordinances basically send the message that food trucks are not welcome in the City of Oaks. My response? Raleigh needs to take the stick out of its ass.

The City Council would be wise to note that food trucks are incredibly popular right now. People love tasty, portable, affordable food and the casual fun of getting that food from a cart or truck. It makes us think of festivals and carnivals and being a kid, and makes eating even more of a social event. Food trucks have a long history – the first diner, which dates back to 1872, was actually a horse-drawn wagon in Providence, Rhode Island, where the owner sold warm food to factory workers. Sounds like a good truck to me. The all-American chuck wagon started just a few years earlier, around 1866.

I can’t understand how food trucks hurt local restaurant business. Getting a bite from a food truck and sitting down to a nice, leisurely meal in a restaurant are two distinctly different things. The presence of food trucks is not going to cut in on my patronage of excellent Raleigh restaurants. The food truck round-ups in Durham have been hugely popular, which should tell you something. I’d love to have more reasons to go to downtown Raleigh instead of always driving to Durham. City councilors, If you’re concerned with Raleigh’s popularity and well-being, be concerned with letting Raleigh’s food scene be as dynamic and thriving as those of Durham and Chapel Hill.

Want some food truck action here in Raleigh? Then make sure to come to the Big Boss Food Truck Harvest tonight! Beer, live music, pumpkin carving contest, and food from Only Burger, Mom’s Delicious Dishes, Klausie’s Pizza, Indian Food on Wheels, Kogi, Valentino’s, and Kona Ice. Trucks will start arriving between 5 and 6. Don’t miss it!

Big Boss Brewing Company
1249 Wicker Dr.
Raleigh, NC

Want to know more about Triangle food trucks? Read this excellent Indy Weekly guide.

Tags: Raleigh // Add Comment »

Two years ago today Jad and I rolled into Cary, NC with two cars full of stuff and two very tired cats. We didn’t know it yet, but we had finally found a place to call home. I grew up in Austin, Texas, which is a really fantastic city but by the time I had finished college, I was itching to go elsewhere. I found myself going to grad school at the University of Iowa. Iowa City would not have been my first choice of a new town but I grew quite fond of it during my years there, as it is a great little college town. By the time I was done with school, though, after surviving several brutal winters, I was ready for warmth and palm trees. Jad and I packed up all our things and moved to San Diego.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone in North Carolina has asked me why the heck we would leave San Diego to move here. Well, as gorgeous as San Diego is, it wasn’t the place for us. Too expensive, too crowded, too loud, too MUCH. I never got comfortable there. I didn’t feel like I lived there, just that I was on a long working vacation. I don’t think San Diego wanted us there.

About midway through our unhappy year in San Diego, we did some research on places that we thought might suit us and North Carolina kept popping up on lists of best places to live. The funny thing is, Cary is someplace we considered before moving to San Diego, but I decided it sounded too boring (and that was before I moved here and found out some people call it Beigeville). We flew here to check out Chapel Hill. We got in at night and I will always remember that drive to our hotel on winding roads through dense thickets of trees. After being accustomed to the always-on city lights and noises, I felt like we were entering Twin Peaks territory.

We thought NC was gorgeous but decided that even though Chapel Hill was really pretty, it didn’t feel right for us. We checked out downtown Raleigh and that particular Sunday afternoon, things were absolutely dead. It felt like a ghost town. I know now that we just caught it at an off time, but in that moment, it was disheartening. We just barely drove through the edge of Cary before going back to our hotel and then flying back to California the next day, figuring we had to start all over again in searching for a new place to live.

A matter of weeks later, we were kicking ourselves for not bothering to check out Cary while we were here, because on paper, Cary seemed to fit the bill. So we flew back out here, this time to properly check out Cary. We’ve learned that somehow we never do things the easy way. We were only here a few days before we decided what the hell, let’s move here. So we scrambled to find an apartment before we had to fly back. A matter of months later we had arrived, cats in tow, this time to start the next chapter. We got our first meal from the Cook Out on Walnut Street near Crossroads, the first of many, many times we’d do so.

Now I’m a born-and-bred Texan but as most Southerners would agree, Texas isn’t quite Southern in the traditional sense. It’s a whole ‘nother entity. So the joys of sweet tea, hush puppies, collard greens, banana pudding, sweet potato pie, and NC style BBQ were all new to me. Since living here, a whole new world of culinary pleasures have been opened up to me. I have eaten with gusto and wondered where North Carolina has been all my life. And what better place to live than the Triangle, with a thriving food scene that just keeps getting more interesting. Cary is not a hotbed of excitement, it is not a funky, quirky, colorful place like the one I grew up in, and no one’s going to be making “Keep Cary Weird” bumper stickers any time soon. However, for all it’s dullness, Cary works as a home base for us and the joy of the Triangle is that there is always something interesting to do somewhere.

I know I’m just another transplant (and that I have a lot to learn about Southern food) but I feel like I belong here. You can never quite predict what will make a place feel like home, you just know it when you find it.

Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »

Did you see last night’s Mad Men? We didn’t, because we were busy working at Cary’s Pocket Community Garden, and grilling up some grub for the next week. There was, however, a fascinating story on NPR today about an original Madison Avenue ad man, Sid Lerner, and his Meatless Monday campaign.

Sid is the man behind the memorable “Don’t Squeeze The Charmin” ads, among many others. Like Sid and other people in the article say, we love to eat meat, but we prefer to eat it in moderation, and to know that it has been raised conscientiously, and if at all possible, locally. Here’s the article.

We’re definitely looking forward to trying the Quinoa-Stuffed Zucchini Boat recipe mentioned in the article. For this week’s Meatless Monday, we’ll be having one of our classic go-to summer meals: Grilled Marinated Vegetable Sandwiches. The sandwiches are that much better when we add Rosemary and Garlic goat cheese from In The Red Farm and Dairy, which we always get at the State Farmer’s Market.

Tags: American // Add Comment »

The first Durham Food Truck Round-Up was a big hit, so naturally there will be a sequel. This one will be at the Durham Farmer’s Market pavilion, on Foster Street, from 4 PM to 7 PM. The truck lineup looks to be similar to the first event, which is a good thing.

My recommendation – start early, and have a plan. If you’ve got four people, figure out what each person wants, and get in four lines right away. This is prime time for delicious, affordable food, so spend liberally and support local good eats!

Tags: Uncategorized // Add Comment »