Durham Food Truck Rodeo Recap

Durham Food Truck Rodeo

-->What a sight! 45 food trucks, sound of generators mixing with music, exhaust, grease, people and all, filled up the streets and the pavilion at Durham Farmers Market on Sunday, September 2, 2012. The lines were about 30 minutes long before I got to taste the food (that I gobbled up in a few minutes). The experience was quite different from what I am used to, roaming the outdoor street vendors in Thailand. How hungry people in the triangle are for food on the street, rain or shine! The question is, was it worth it?

I am not an expert on outdoor vendor by any means, but I can tell you, growing up eating from outdoor vendors in Thailand, I found some drastic differences:

Menu Board at Bulkogi Truck

Bulkogi Truck and the Line

1. There was no display of the fresh ingredients. I did not know what goes in my food. All I saw were pretty pictures. It did make me feel like looking at a menu in a fast food joint.
2. There was no display of cooking. All I could see was the window. I am used to seeing a grill, frying pan or a stockpot with the fragrance of the food floating in the air. That's the part when the mouthwatering process entices you to buy...must have food even if you are a mile away!
3. The wait was 30 minutes just to order and another 15 min. before the food arrives. That's way too long. I can go to a restaurant, sit in a comfortable chair, be served and pay the same price. The same can be said to visiting an outdoor festival in Thailand. Thais may be full of patient, but when it comes to food...you better make them quick.
4. The flavors were good. I did see a lot of meat...meat and meat. Is the demand all about meat and grease or is there no food truck that serves a good vegetable dish. Why can't we have both?

Porchetta Truck

Porchetta Menu

I also found good food, which I would not find in Thailand nor many places in the US. North Carolina is known for whole hog, vinegar based BBQ. You will find plenty of that at the Rodeo. The Porchetta and the Bulgoki trucks were an exception, deliciously great finds. I skipped the dumplings and the taco truck since I know where to find authentic Asian dumplings, Hispanic lengua and Chicharron tacos locally. (That's for the next blog.).

A Porchetta Sandwich

Porchetta, an Italian pork roll is made with pork loin wrapped with pork belly and seasoned with herbs, slow roasted, sliced and served on bread as a sandwich. You cannot go wrong with Pork in North Carolina. What pushes it over the top was the fact that it was not a BBQ...but so much more.

Kimchee Hotdog and Spicy Bulkogi

Bulgoki is a Korean marinated BBQ beef/pork taco. Typically it is served with rice, bean paste, and kimchi and wrapped in lettuce leaves. This food truck, however, serves the spicy kimchi bulgoki and kimchi hot dog. The heat ranges from 1 to 10 levels. I found my taste buds satisfied at 9, crunchy and pickle delicious.

The flavor of the food is one note from each truck. A combination of a few trucks at a park can easily make a band. A 45-food trucks rodeo like this one in Durham ought to produce a symphony. Though, all I experienced was the music off tune and a herd of cowboys trying to tame the wild horses. With more practice, I am sure the wait will be less, the aroma will be of food and not exhaust, and the food will show up tasting so good with fresh ingredients from the local farmers market, perfectly arranged and displayed.
It may not be Thailand, but with the global warming in affect and more fine-tuning...we might as well become tropical and rehearse for the perfect rock band!

Cheers,
Teera 

Summer Family Affair

Thai Sukiyaki Hot Pot

Summer is a great time for a family gathering. Eating outdoors makes the food taste better, especially after the sun goes down and the heat dissipates. I love visiting street vendors in Thailand. I considered them the outdoor food court of the Thais.  There seems to be 3 sets of street vendors each day--one set caters to the breakfast and lunch crowd, the second set caters to the dinner and after midnight crowd, and the third set caters to between meals serving snacks/fruits. I prefer the dinner and after midnight street vendors. Many streets are closed after dusk through dawn, to give vendors area to set up tables and chairs. There are many types of grilled seafood and meat, stir-fry, noodles, plus it is cooler to eat after the sun has gone down.  I cannot bring the street vendors from Thailand to the US, but I can make a similar feasts that my family can cook together and fast. Two dishes my family and I made --Grilled seafood and Thai sukiyaki.

North Carolina Snapper and Shrimps

Grilling seafood is the easiest method of cooking, I think. As long as the seafood is fresh, with herbs and a good sauce, you are good to go. I use lime, lemongrass, Kiffir lime leave to stuff the fish, then wrap the fish in banana leaves. The leaf not only gives the fish a subtle smokiness, but it also prevents the fish from sticking. The herbs and lime helps dressed the fish with another layer of perfume. The shrimps are grilled whole.  The family can peel shrimp themselves, saving prepping time. The flavor is in the head of the shrimp and the shells seals the flavor...so suck the heads up!  The dipping sauce is a combination of fresh garlic, fresh Thai chili, lime, fish sauce and fresh coriander. Sweet seafood becomes even sweeter when contrasted with the lime chili dip.

Sukiyaki is a good family gathering dish for an overcast day. It has been raining almost every afternoon for the past weeks, perfect weather for hot pot. Essentially it is a one pot-Asian fondue that everyone gets to participate in cooking. Originated from Japan, the Thais adopted it and did to it what Thais do best...spicy transformation. Chinese also has a similar version of the hot pot. An American version will show up soon, I am sure. May be, there will an international Hot pot competition in the future. 

Thai Sukiyaki Assembly

Start off with a good chicken broth in an electric wok. The rest is up to your liking though good sauce is the key. Typical ingredients are mung bean noodles, sliced meat, eggs, seafood (no fish), vegetables (Chinese celery, watercress, Napa cabbage), and dumplings. Everything is cut to bite size. Each person cooks their own choosing at the table, in the same pot filled with broth. There are many versions of the Thai sukiyaki sauce, as many sukiyaki chains exist in Thailand. The most famous chain is "MK Suki". My version of the sauce is made with pickled garlic and 10 more ingredients. You can find bottled sukiyaki sauce in your local Thai/Asian grocery stores.  By the end of the meal, the soup broth will be full of flavor.  Find a table under a veranda, drink the broth and let the heat rise!

I hope your summer is going well. Stay up, make noise, watch the stars and create yourself an outdoor, midnight restaurant with your loved ones. You will feel like being in a Thailand night Market in no time.

Cheers!
Teera  

Chinese Heat

Shichuan Pavilion "Diced Chicken with Pepper"

Heat, to me, is Comfort. Growing up in Thailand, Chinese food was always considered as bland and fatty. China is a grand country. From Peking duck of the north to Mongolia, Cantonese, Sichuan and Hong Kong, there is such a variety. With its thousands of years of food history, to succumb to a stereotyping and General Tso chicken, seems rather naive. Plus, is it really true that Chinese cannot handle spices? I soon discovered after meeting one of my Chinese friends who was from the Sichuan province that I have gotten it all wrong.
There are Chinese who are addicted to spicy heat as much as the Thais...

In Southwestern region of China, the Sichuan pepper is the key ingredient of any Sichuan dish.  Grown from shrub of the citrus family, the seeds are held by pods similar to cardamom. The flavor however is lemony and peppery. You will see them cooked together with whole red chili in a typical Sichuan dish.

In the DC area, I discovered 2 places for Sichuan cuisine--Hong Kong Palace (7 Corners, Falls Church) and Sichuan Pavilion (between Farragut North and West metro stations in DC). Once you make a visit, you must order the following dishes: diced chicken with pepper, cumin lamb, Dan Dan noodles and tea smoked duck. After a visit, you will realize that you have entered another realm of Chinese cuisine.

C&T Wok "Cumin Lamb"

I crave for the Sichuan heat and almost lost hope until I tried a couple of places in the Triangle area (Morrisville and Cary, NC)--C&T Wok and Super Wok. Not all restaurants are created equal.  Thank goodness!  I find the C&T Wok cumin lamb closest to what I had in the DC area. Tender lamb, stir fried with cumin, onion and pepper. The white board is covered in both Chinese and English of the day special...beef, shrimp, Grouper, scallop and Chinese vegetable.

Super Wok "Chili Crabs"

If you crave for dice chicken with peppercorn, no one else can do it better than Super Wok, in the triangle area. Though the specialty dish is Chili Crab. I cannot get it in the DC area...not this good. The crab was battered and deep fired before stir-frying in the spicy chili concoction. Every morsel was covered in a pile high of chili, lemony goodness. With an order of steamed rice and chopstick, you are good to go.

Specials @ C&T Wok

You will hardly see anyone else, but Asians in these two joints, a great sign of authenticity. Neither will you see anyone ordering egg rolls or fried rice. I suppose you can go to a local Chinese express for that.
Next time you have a craving for Chinese food, ask yourselves which regional flavor of China do you want to try and skip the Kung pao chicken. Sichuan will not disappoint your spicy taste buds. Just like the difference in regions in China there are differences in the US, I sure don't want foreigners to think that a Hawaiian luau is the same as a North Carolina pig pickin'. Southern comfort has a lot more than Mac and cheese and collard greens but the definition of comforts needs to change. Heat and spices fit the southern climate like a glove.

Cheers!
Teera

Beating the Heat Part II: Tropical Crunch

King Narai's Summer Palace

Imagine sitting under a shade of a Charmjuree tree (another name for Kampoo or Rain tree) with a light summer breeze passing through. The white plastered, tall wall of King Narai's summer palace seems to not only keep the hustling and bustling of the city center away, but entice one to step back in time, to walk and to talk softly with a respectful gesture to the spirit and the past. Old and new, everything one touches has a spirit that lives in it. You may hear a whisper or simply a deep silence as one passes by.

Khmer Ruin Near the Summer Palace

In the mid 17th century King Narai spent most of his days in this palace, north of the city of Ayutthaya (Thailand) where he reign. He befriended the French who helped him plan the city layout. Before King Narai's time, the city of the summer palace (Lavo) was the center of the Khmer (Cambodian) and Thai civilization, dating back to the 6th century. You cannot help but feel its history in the air, walking through the palace and the city.
The summer palace is now a museum with a couple restaurants servicing small crowds. It was a place that I escaped to, to hang out with my friends. There was no Internet cafe back then, but you could always find papaya salad, sticky rice, or some sort of grilled meat to hang out with. More importantly, the place was peaceful and had shade.

Papaya Salad with Grilled Honey Chicken

Eating papaya is as tropical as you can get. It can be eaten as salad, curry, and when ripe, dessert. During raining season, you can see them ripen and practically fall of its tree daily. A midnight snack can easily be had. My aunt caught me one night after I had picked a young papaya from the garden, carved, and pounded it and was mixing a salad. Fruit of the craving was well worth the commotion that night.

Below is a simple recipe for the salad:

In a large clay mortar, pound:

1/3 cup of dried shrimp, 2 cloves of garlic and 3 Thai chili
Add 3 cups of julienne young papaya, ½ cup of cherry tomatoes, ½ of green beans.  Pound and mix lightly.

Add the flavoring: Fish Sauce, Palm sugar, and Tamarind, lime.

Sprinkle with ½ cup of ground peanut.

Lotus Stem Salad at Pho Far East, Raleigh, NC

If the spicy papaya salad is not your thing, I invite you to try the lotus stem salad at a local Vietnamese restaurant in Raleigh--Pho Far East. The fresh, crunchy lotus stem is quite refreshing. It was dressed lightly with fish sauce, lime, onion, shrimp, pork and fried shallots. Vietnamese food is mild, in comparison to Thai food, but gives your taste buds of the tropical palate that will help you cool down.

I hope you sink back through time when the sun is blazing outside and find yourselves a shady spot. Sweat it out with a tropical salad and feel the breeze. At least that's how I am planning to cope with the heat...

Cheers,
Teera