Pi In The Sky

I’ve been laying off the food trucks as of late. The new year brought a renewed self sense of worth which included exercise, less booze, and a healthy diet. BORING. Looking for nearly any excuse to break my diet I came across a wonderful tweet today from @PiTruckDC

“We’ll be in Penn Quarter, near F & 9th, around 5! We’ll have 36 free whole pizzas. Each Pi feeds 2. Hope to see you & sorry if we run out!”

Free pizza 3 blocks from my office?!?!?! On it.

I arrived shortly after 5 with the line roughly 15 people deep. Roughly 10 minutes later I was loaded up with an entire deep dish pepperoni pizza gratis.

Well what do we have here? A delicious pizza built for two. For the record, that’s not grease on the bottom of the box. Since it was 20 degrees out I had to hop on the train home to enjoy (deep dish pizza is messy, right?). 20 minutes of steam later and the bottom of the box was a tad soggy but, it didn’t harm the pizza.

The crust was exactly what I like in a deep dish pizza. Crisp and sturdy to support the ingredients with a subtle sweetness. The sauce delivered a tangy kick with a sweet undertone and the spices were well balanced. At the base you had layers of gooey cheese and a generous portion of pepperoni.

I also did a couple of tests to see how sturdy an individual slice was (this is street food after all!). The slice held up well and can be consumed while standing without fear of a mess landing on your shirt. What’s even better, the box converts into 4 paper plates and then can fold into a carrier for leftovers. You’ll notice perforated lines on the box with a set of instructions for folding near the top in the image below.

In short, this is an excellent pizza. They will be offering several options including some for vegetarians. It’s also the perfect amount of pizza for two people. If you can’t catch the food truck, try and hit their restaurant, District of Pi, coming to Penn Quarter soon.

Now that I’ve had my momentary lapse in diet-reason, it’s back to the regularly scheduled program.

DC’s ever expanding food truck scene received a new addition this week in the name of CapMac. While this week is considered their soft opening, you can count on them very soon to get you through the upcoming Winter season with their menu of creative comfort foods. I happened upon their Twitter account this afternoon and was fortunate enough to have them serving in my neighborhood.

While their menu will be rotating several items (click image above for readable menu), I decided to go with the namesake dish of CapMac’n Cheese. For $6 you get a medium sized container which after inhaling, is more than enough for lunch.  Other items were Chicken Parm Meat Balls and Beef Bolognese both served over Rigatoni for $8 a piece. Creatively, those two items were served in Chinese-style takeout containers.

Without a doubt, CapMac serves up a well balanced Macaroni and Cheese. The cheddar offers just the right amount of sharpness while the pimento provides the extra dimension to make it stand out on your palate.  The pasta is appropriately cooked to al dente which avoids the most common disaster in mac ‘n’ cheese. Adding crumble cheese-it as the crust is a nice touch to make the experience reminiscent of being a kid again.

With so many food trucks in the DC area, it’s getting harder and harder to make a decision about lunch. With CapMac now on the streets, I will likely be returning all Winter long when they’re in my neighborhood to shake off the Winter blues.

Food truck culture is in full swing in Washington, DC. I got my first exposure while visiting friends  in Los Angeles with Kogi BBQ in 2009. While the culture has been flourishing in LA for quite some time, DC has only recently been exposed to the wonders of gourmet food vending. DC now has (or soon will have) lobster rolls, pizza, korean tacos, Cuban sandwiches, and empanadas coming at you from a tricked out catering truck. These are the only the ones I can think of off the top of my head! Each day it seems a friend is telling me of a new one.

I had grand aspirations of eating a lobster roll today, however; when I stepped out of my office I noticed Yellow Vendor conveniently parked a block away. Seeing as how I hadn’t had good Korean food since I lived in Los Angeles, and the Lobster Truck was a 15 minute walk, I opted for Yellow Vendor.

Their menu is simple. For $7 you have the choice of bulgogi (spicy or regular), bibimbab (with egg and choice chicken/beef), and chicken teriyaki. Lunchboxes are served with a white rice, kimchi, and side salad.

What you see above is a spicy bulgogi lunchbox. The beef was sweet and tender with a good amount of spiciness. There was significant heat to the bulgogi but it did not overwhelm the other flavors. The kimchi was excellent and the salad was dressed in a sesame ginger vinaigrette. It’s enough food to induce a coma along with belly rubbing and contemplation of loosening the belt.

Does the chef recommend? Absolutely.