Food Trucks Page 8

  Lunch crowds are steady, but the businessman in Kurt believes the whimsy of eating in the elements, standing next to a massive conversation starter or not, will wear thin come cold weather. And so the pig goes into hibernation from November through March, coming out for the occasional catering gig or to feed hungry families at the Mercer Island football field where Kurt coaches his kid’s team. It returns to a parking lot less than a block from Sugar Mountain headquarters in spring, where Kurt and his employees make good on their promise to eat those pulled-pork sandwiches three times a week. “We do okay, but in terms of success, I can say it’s been successful in getting a lot of free lunches to my employees,” he laughs. “But we still have a long ways to go, figuring out how to turn this pig into a business.”

  Maximus/Minimus Pulled Pork

  Serves 6 to 8

  3½ pounds pork shoulder

  1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

  ¼ cup dried oregano

  ½ cup chili powder

  2 tablespoons garlic powder

  1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

  4½ tablespoons kosher salt

  Prepared barbecue sauce, for serving

  6 to 8 sandwich buns, toasted

  Trim the fat from the pork, leaving a ½-inch fat cap.

  In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, oregano, chili powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and salt. Rub the entire roast with the mixture, massaging it into the meat. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

  Prepare a charcoal or gas grill for direct cooking over high heat. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

  When the grill is as hot as possible, place the roast in the center. If you are using a charcoal grill, place the roast on the grill directly over the white-hot coals. Cook each side of the roast just until it is well browned but not burned, moving the meat to a new spot on the grill each time you turn it, 10 to 15 minutes total.

  Remove the roast from the grill and place in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot. Cover and place it in the oven. Cook until the pork pulls apart easily with a fork, about 3 hours.

  Break the meat into small chunks using two forks. Mix with your favorite barbecue sauce and divide the pork among the sandwich buns.

  Halláva Falafel

  FIND IT: 5825 Airport Way S, Seattle, Washington

  KEEP UP WITH IT: www.myspace.com/hallava

  On a ragged industrial stretch of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, a simple signboard along the side of the road demands “EAT,” scrawled just above a gnarly-horned black ram and a small arrow. That arrow points to an adjacent lot, to a sun-yellow truck sporting that same ram and the words “Halláva Falafel.” The gravel lot holds a motley lunchtime crew of clean-cut airplane techs from nearby Boeing Field, dusty laborers on break from surrounding factories, a few burly members of the Magic Wheels Motorcycle Club next door, and a handful of hipsters coming and going along this small stretch of salvation, which includes a café, a vintage shop, and dive bars with names like Nine Pound Hammer. Rick Baker is in the thick of it all, a one-man show taking and filling orders, working smoothly and calmly, nodding his head to the Danzig song blasting from a small radio inside the truck. The metal anthem “Mother” screams out its chorus of “Muhhhthurrr/Tell your children not to walk my way.” Scruffy, tattooed, and generally stubborn about everything from the food he serves to how fast he serves it, Rick has earned the nickname Beet Nazi for good reason. “You’re not allowed to not have beets,” he says. “That’s the way I make it. The falafel comes with fucking beets, a Russian beet relish, and I’m going to do a new menu that says that clearly so these people don’t think the toppings are optional. Fuck that.”

  He’s dead serious. The man is passionate about the sandwich he’s created, from the salted cucumbers, another required topping (“They’re Armenian and they’re wild, which is a totally different thing than some regular old cucumber”), to the freshly fried falafel (“I don’t like fava beans or the color they turn falafel, so I use garbanzo, but the key is a ton of fresh parsley when you’re grinding the beans”). The result is a memorable explosion of flavors, textures, and temperatures, the warm falafel, cool toppings, and cumin-heavy spice blend combining with perfect synergy.

  Reversing the Burger King motto and making it his way is Rick’s method of quality control. “Let’s say you heard about this sandwich, then you come here and tell me how to make it without all the stuff on it … it will be a mediocre sandwich. Not happening,” he says. “Once they’ve had it the right way, I might allow them to modify it, but nobody does. Probably 99.9 percent of people eat it and like it and come back. One guy said it was Americanized, but he thinks falafel is microwaved balls and tahini and tomatoes and shit. He doesn’t know the possibilities.”

  But Rick does. Originally from Tacoma, a blue-collar city about a half hour southwest of Seattle, he wound up in Russia after a string of events unraveled from a trip his father, a photography teacher, took there with a group of students. Pops returned with a sort of foreign exchange student, Yuri. But the trouble was, Yuri spoke little English and the Bakers spoke no Russian. Rick decided he wanted to “get in his head and know what he was thinking,” so he learned Russian, which he found easy, comfortable even. So comfortable that he soon decided he wanted to become an interpreter, so off to Moscow State Linguistic University he went. Shawarma shops were as common as hot Russian girls, and Rick was attracted to both. In time, it was his attraction to interpreting that waned, as he decided it was “not very fun. You’re just a conduit. It’s not like you’re someone’s advocate, looking out for them. You’re just repeating what the other person says, but in another language.”

  Eventually he wound up in Israel, where he went “just to live, to check it out.” Again, falafel and shawarma became part of his daily diet, and he learned to discern the good from the really good. Time passed, Rick grew restless, and he found himself back in Washington, working at a scooter shop in Seattle. He came across an ad for a Bajaj, a three-wheeled scooter from India, sort of a motorized rickshaw used to haul goods and people, and he instantly decided he wanted to build a business around it, mainly because “it’s the coolest thing ever.” Based on his opinion that Seattle was hurting for some good falafel, he put together a plan for his falafel Bajaj biz and submitted it to the city health department. Turns out, only coffee and hot dogs are permitted on carts that aren’t covered. So Rick shifted his focus to a former DHL delivery truck, borrowed some money from a friend to buy it, then maxed out his credit cards for the supplies to turn it into the mobile kitchen it is today, complete with a deep fryer for falafel, a rotating rotisserie spit for shawarma, an oven for warming the pita he sources from a Middle Eastern bakery, and a prep counter where he concocts sharp tzatziki (yogurt sauce), a tomato-zucchini spread, a mayo-thick curry sauce for the shawarma, and, of course, those fucking beets.

  His lunch crowd is so good that most of the year he’s only open from about 11 a.m. until he’s out of falafel, typically around 2 p.m. He sells close to eighty sandwiches a day, making a dent in paying back the $30,000 investment that still makes him wince to say aloud. The falafel sandwich, loaded up as it is with toppings, and the shawarma, a two-hander filled with a full day’s supply of spit-roasted lamb-beef blend, both go for $6.50, the top end of what Rick feels he can charge in good conscience. “I can’t really charge more.… I mean, the name of the truck is Halláva, which is a Russian word that basically means ‘unexpected deal,’ something you say when you go to a party and there’s a bunch of free food, or when you buy one and get one free.”

  He’s just sold his last falafel of the day, so he pauses to tell a girl who looks like she walked ten miles to get here, “Sorry, all out.” She has the look of Dorothy when, after a long journey to Oz, she discovers that the wizard has no power at all. “Call me next time you’re on your way and I’ll save one for you,” Rick says as the dejected girl walks away. After this brief demonstration of his softer side, he returns to the conversation, not missing a beat. “Yeah, so H
alláva, pronounced khal-AH-vah, with the accent on the second ‘a,’ but the problem is that a lot of people don’t understand linguistics and see the stress mark,” he says, making an accent in the air for emphasis. “So people think it’s Helluva, and it drives me crazy, because that would be such a stupid name. I mean, it is a helluva good sandwich, but give me a fucking break.”

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

  Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish

  You can use this as a condiment on sandwiches, or, if you’re serving it as a side salad, you could add ¾ cup chopped walnuts, ¾ cup Russian-style farmer’s cheese (similar to cheese curds), or ¾ cup chopped prunes.

  2 or 3 fist-size beets (about 2 pounds total)

  6 to 10 cloves garlic, minced

  2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

  2 tablespoons sour cream

  Place the beets in a large stockpot, add enough water to cover them by a couple of inches, and bring the water to a boil over high heat. Once it’s boiling, let it continue to boil until a fork slides into the beets with little resistance, about 30 minutes. Remove the beets from the water and rinse with cold water. Once they’re cool enough to handle, lop off the ends and peel them. Next, shred them (a food processor makes quick work of them).

  In a bowl, stir together the shredded beets with garlic to taste and the black pepper. Stir in enough sour cream to turn the salad a nice violet color, but not pink. (If it’s pink you may have overcooked the beets, not drained them well enough, or used too much sour cream.) Serve as a side salad or use as a condiment.

  Marination Mobile

  KEEP UP WITH IT: www.marinationmobile.com

  “Weather forecasters have the easiest job in Seattle. Nine months out of the year you’re hanging out surfing the web, then, ‘Oh, it’s my turn to speak? Cloudy with a chance of showers!’ And that’s pretty much it.”

  That’s Kamala Saxton, and she’s not exaggerating. Weather history will tell you that it rains in Seattle more than 50 percent of the time, meaning this is not the kind of city that brings to mind hopping patios and picnics in the park. Still, Kamala opened a Korean-Hawaiian food truck in Seattle during the summer of 2009, with a plan to stay open twelve months out of the year with nothing more than an awning over the order window to shelter customers. “I didn’t say I was the smartest person in the world,” Kamala laughs. “But I’m hedging my bet on the fact that Seattleites aren’t chickens. I’m hedging my bet on my community and their toughness.”

  A look at the line gathering under the Safeco Field pedestrian walkway before a Mariners game on a drizzly Thursday night could be proof of that toughness, or it could just be a testament to the Aloha sliders and kimchi fried rice bowls this massive, gleaming truck (nicknamed “Big Blue”) has quickly become known for. Marination Mobile’s menu is a direct descendent of Kamala, who is part Korean and part Hawaiian. But manning the grill to execute Kamala’s creations is business partner Roz Edison, who adds to the multicultural mashup as a Chinese-Filipino born in Greece and raised by a Japanese mother. The duo met at Boston’s prestigious Match Charter Public School, where Roz was teaching after earning an education and business degree from Harvard and Kamala was consulting after wrapping up business school at Silicon Valley’s Menlo College. After Boston, both moved around a bit but eventually landed in Seattle. And how did two business smarties end up running a food truck? “I lost everything in the market,” Kamala says. “I had $8 left and had to find some place that would accept a postdated check for lunch. Ultimately I felt so out of control, so far removed from my money that people on Wall Street were making poor decisions with, so I became my own hedge fund manager, hedging my bets on this city and our work ethic.”

  She presented the idea to Roz, who went to work on financial spreadsheets, loan applications, and truck sourcing while Kamala went to work on recipes, bringing in a few Seattle cooks for support. The Aloha sliders she came up with are derived from Hawaiian-style kalua pork, but given the impracticalities of going legit and burying a pig in a hole lined with banana leaves and filled with lava rock, the pork shoulders are wood-smoked in a commissary kitchen (a home base required for all Seattle food trucks). After a lengthy smoke, the tender meat makes its way onto the truck, where it’s piled onto Hawaiian sweet rolls (think egg bun with added sugar) along with a scoop of signature Asian-leaning slaw: cabbage and carrots hot-wired with Sriracha, lime juice, sesame seeds, and cilantro.

  Korea enters the picture via the tacos. Bulgogi-style beef short ribs and kalbi-style pork get classic ginger-soy marinades, with a bit more heat via red chile paste for the kalbi. The meats share grill space with ginger-miso chicken, and all three get tucked into soft corn tortillas and topped with that crunchy, tangy slaw. Almost everything that doesn’t get slaw is served with kimchi, that funky, flavorful, fermented Korean cabbage concoction of endless variation. “Every Korean church has the go-to Korean elders, typically women, who make kimchi, and each church always claims to make the best,” Kamala says. “I tracked down my favorite kimchi to a church in the Seattle area, but after long deliberation the elders decided the volume of kimchi that we go through was too much for them to make. But they sent me to a distributor in Tacoma that’s Korean church-lady approved!”

  After getting a blessing any kimchi would be proud of, the sour-spicy stuff has been put to good use, incorporated into the menu as a quesadilla, sandwiched between tortillas hugging tight to gooey jack and cheddar laced with kochujang (red pepper paste). It’s also the star of a fried rice bowl so addictive it could be classified as a narcotic. “We take the kimchi, dry it out, then we create our own kimchi paste from it,” Kamala explains. “So when it’s ordered, the kimchi paste is folded into cooked rice as it’s seared to create little crunchy bits. Then bits of fresh, not dried, kimchi are folded in, and it gets a beautiful fried egg on top, fresh-cut green onions, and nori (dried seaweed).”

  As popular as the Korean-derived eats at Marination are, it’s been Kamala’s personal mission to turn Seattleites on to her homeland’s most beloved shelf-stable staple: SPAM. Ever since the rectangular-shaped spiced pork product showed up on the island shores during World War II, Hawaiians have been gobbling it up like nothing you’ve ever seen—they’re the reigning champ for SPAM consumption per capita in the United States. Kamala sells SPAM sliders, small hamburger-like patties of grilled SPAM on Hawaiian sweet rolls dressed with the signature slaw and a sauce known as “Nunya” (as in nun-ya business—the sauce is so popular that Kamala is looking into bottling and selling it, along with a couple of the meat marinades, so the recipe is top secret). But the SPAM creation closest to Kamala’s heart is musubi, a mound of sushi rice topped with a slice of SPAM, all tied up into a compact little bundle with a ribbon of nori. Throughout Hawaii you’ll find musubi wrapped mummy-tight in cellophane, sitting on counters of convenience stores just waiting for hungry school kids and surfers to grab one on the go. “SPAM is killing my people one musubi at a time,” Kamala laughs. “I mean, clearly the stuff has mega-sodium, but man is it good! Seattleites just don’t know what they’re missing.” If they can brave the weather to track down Marination, they’ll catch up.

  SPAM Sliders

  Makes 4 small sandwiches

  At Marination they dress the SPAM sliders with their signature “nunya sauce” and slaw with a pickled ginger vinaigrette.

  1 (12-ounce) can SPAM

  ¼ cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

  1 egg

  ½ small onion, minced

  Salt

  1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  4 Hawaiian sweet rolls, split

  Use the grinder attachment on a stand mixer to grind the beautifully pressed can of SPAM (if you don’t have the grinder you can use the beater for this). Once SPAM is ground, add the panko, egg, onion, salt, and pepper then form them into patties. Place the SPAM patties on a flattop or in a sauté pan and sear until golden brown on each side. Serve each patty sandwiched in one of the rolls
.

  ( SIDE DISH )

  Craving Cuban? Pedrito Vargas was too, so he christened a converted delivery truck into Paladar Cubano (8953 Aurora Ave., North; www.pedritovargas.com/paladarcubano.html) and started serving toasted pork-packed sandwiches, tostones (fried green plantains), and crispy yucca in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. Pedrito hands over the goods with a signature “Thank you, my friend,” but you can repay the kindness by checking out his Latin timba band, Grupo Ashé, at their next gig around town.

  Portland, Oregon

  Bring up the topic of food trucks anywhere in the country and inevitably Portland is heralded as a Shangri-La. As the bull’s-eye of the Pacific Northwest’s progressive living movement, the city of a half a million has plenty of green spaces, bike lanes, public walkways, an admirable recycling program, restaurants supporting local farmers, hip bars, alternative strip clubs, and, last but not least, more food carts than they know what to do with. In other cities you might have a mix of trucks, carts, and trailers, but in Portland it’s all about carts—nearly 500 of them, in fact, as of mid-2010. There are four different classifications to the little boxes on wheels or hitch carts you’ll see on the streets. The majority are either “Class 3” or “Class 4,” the only real difference being that Class 4 carts are permitted to cook meat, not exactly a requirement in a town so vegetarian-friendly that the phrase “vegan barbecue” isn’t laughed at.