Portland Food Carts: The Gaufre Gourmet & Koi Fusion

Portland had the most food carts I've seen in any city. They are everywhere in town, and they offer a wide diversity of foods. While I was in town, I managed to squeeze a few in during the days I was there.
In Old Town, I dropped by the Gaufre Gourmet, which made Belgian liége style waffles. The waffle uses brioche style dough not batter, and ends up denser and more rich than regular waffles.
I ordered their ABC Waffle, which is topped with fig jam, camembert cheese, bacon, and arugula. It was really good, particularly the fig jam with the waffle.




Kitty corner to the waffle cart, Korean taco truck, Koi Fusion was parked, so I popped across to give them a try as well.
I ordered their kalbi, short rib, taco and the spicy pork taco. Both were really delicious. The tacos reminded me of the ones from the Kogi trucks in LA, but they were cheaper, and the corn tortillas were more fresh, so they did not have to cook them like they do on the LA truck. Portland win.

The Pambazo at La Fiesta Mexicana, Rosedale, MD

I dropped into Fiesta Mexicana, a small Mexican eatery in Rosedale, just outside of Baltimore for lunch.
I ordered their Pambazo, a sandwich that is thought to have originated from Veracruz. It started with a roll brushed with a red guajillo suace and then pan seared. It's stuffed with chorizo, potatoes, lettuce, crema fresca, & queso fresco. It's really hearty and filling.
I also enjoyed a small lengua taco. I like Fiesta Mexicana also because they do not pull punches on their salsa.

8304 Philadelphia Rd.
Rosedale, MD
(410)686-0134

Tröegs Beer Tasting Menu at Bluegrass Tavern, Baltimore

After attending a Dogfish Head beer dinner at Bluegrass Tavern last year, I was excited when they announced a Tröegs beer dinner held a few weeks ago.
Even better, Chef Patrick Morrow planned a nose to tail meal using a heritage pig he recently acquired. The breed he used was a Large Black, sourced nearby, which was over 300 pounds.

We started with an assortment of piggy snacks at the bar while enjoying a pint of Tröegs Pale Ale.
Already on the bar were bowls of housemade pork rinds.
Chef then brought a plate of sous vide pork with mustard. I've always been a fan of Chef's skill with sous vide technique, and this pork was exactly why. It was juicy and flavorful, really celebrating the pure taste of the pig. Will a small dollop of mustard, it was just wonderful.

I then tried a few dishes made with the more "nasty bits". On small toothpicks sticking from a small pig, there were chunks of kidney with a pearl onion. I'm still a little neutral to kidney, but these were good.
He also brought out yummy pig heart tacos, using sliced beets in place of the tortilla. This lightened the dish, and good thing, as dinner was really yet to start.


The last bar snack was pork skirt steak marinated in Dr. Pepper. It had a similar consistency to beef, and with the marinade, it was delicious.
We then made it to our tables, and started with a massive charcuterie plate accompanied by some housemade pickles and whole grain mustard.
It included chicken liver mousse, pork rillette, bockwurst, andouille, sopressata, speck ham, tasso ham, bacon jam, and trotter terrine.

My favorite was the chicken liver.
The second course was hog's head ragu with spinach parpadelle, shaved gran queso, and preserved lemon gremolata and accompanied by a glass of Dreamweaver Wheat beer. The lemon contributed a sourness that really elevated the dish.

Course three was a massive slab of crispy pork belly on a bed of Anson Mills blue grits, pickled pear and sauce foyot. Foyot sauce is hollandaise sauce with a meat glaze, which was in this case, bacon. We drank the Hopback Amber with this dish. Chef noted that this breed of pig was particularly fatty, and it showed in the pork belly's marbling.

The fourth course was a sous vide pork loin wrapped in bacon with sunchoke puree, sunchoke chips and a rosemary bruised pineapple. It reminded me of ham with pineapple. We drank Tröeg's Nugget Nectar, which was my favorite beer of the night.

For dessert, we had a Tommenator cheese souffle with brown butter ice cream. This was accomanied by a glass of Tröegenator which was made for this course as the cheese is made using Tröegenator beer's yeast and sediment.

Mi Viejo Pueblito, Baltimore - A Postmortem

I feel bad about posting a review about Mi Viejo Pueblito in the Highlandtown area of Baltimore now because just in the past week, the chef-owner Iveth who made all this great food has moved on. I see this now as a tribute to her former restaurant. I certainly wish good luck to the new owners.

I was lucky to have eaten a few times at the place for lunch. I really enjoyed their tortas and tacos. My favorite was the Tacos Árabes, braised fatty pork & skin wrapped in tortillas and dipped in Árabes sauce, a spicy chipotle based sauce with a lot of smoke and heat.
I also really liked their Oaxacan style tamale filled with chicken and delicious mole sauce.

Last month, I helped organize a dinner for local Chowhounders, and Iveth pulled out the stops. I told her to make authentic Mexican cuisine and she introduced us to some amazing new Mexican dishes.
We started with some snacks including Chapulines, grasshoppers fried up with just lemon and salt. It was my first time trying this traditional Oaxacan snack. They reminded me of small shrimp and had an earthy spicy flavor. We also tried some homemade Mexican candies that were chunks of dried fruits.

Chef Iveth was excited to make Esquites, a favorite dish for the winter. I is a soup made with kernels of corn, butter, and lime served with a glop of Mexican mayo and chili powder. It was like a soup version of the Mexican style roast corn on the cob.
We had picaditas, which are corn tortillas topped with different salsas, queso cheese and crema. They were like Mexican pizzas.
For the mains, we had several items: Lengua (tongue!) with your choice of salsas, an unforgettable Mole Poblano and Chicharron en Salsa Verde. The chicharron was soft and reminded me of the texture of tendon in pho.
I also had my first taste of Moronga, Mexican pork blood sausage, served in a tortilla boat.
I've been in touch with Chef Iveth, and I will be sure to let readers know when she returns to the kitchen, hopefully soon.

R&R Tacqueria, Elkridge, MD

I read on Howchow's blog about the R&R Tacqueria recently, and, being a fan of tacos, I decided to drop by. It's located inside a Shell gas station off route 175 in Elkridge, MD, just up the road from Jessup.
On my first trip out, I ordered 2 tacos: al pastor and carnitas. ($2 each!) Both were very tasty.

I also ordered their fish & shrimp ceviche, which was set on a freshly fried corn tortilla with avocado.
For such simple environs, they were putting out very delicious and inexpensive food.
I recently stopped again one evening, and they had a mole poblano special for $8. I had to get it. It was a quarter chicken smothered in a slightly oily mole sauce with rice, beans and cheese. Pretty impressive for takeout.


7894 Washington Blvd
Elkridge, MD
(410) 799-0001

Revisiting Some Baltimore Favorites

There are several restaurants that I love going back to again and again to try out new items on the menu, so even though we have posted on these places in the past, I wanted to provide some updates.
One of the true great discoveries in the past few years is Grace Garden in Odenton, MD. Chef Li's place has now been rated the Best Chinese restaurant 2 years in a row in the local City Paper, and just recently, he updated his menu to include some items he's made for special dinners only.
I last had the Szechuan Dan Dan Noodles, a dish with warm noodles with sweet sesame sauce, but then covered with Szechuan spicy pork and veggies.
The Phoenix Purse is an item Chef Li often made for Chinese New Year, but it's now on his permanent menu. It is a delicate dumpling that uses a thin sheet of egg white for the skin, filled with chicken and vegetables in chicken broth.
He's also added pork chops to the menu, including the savory salt and pepper pork chop. I'm going to need to get back to try several new seafood items including conch and Cantonese seafood treasures with shark fin, shrimp, & scallops.


After a couple more visits to Columbia, MD's Bangkok Garden, I've found a few more items on the menu that I just love.
The first is Pla Muk Pad Kra Pow, or squid cooked in spicy Thai basil. My favorite item is Yam Makheua Yao, a salad of warm smokey Chinese eggplant with shrimp. It is particularly good to eat on a warm summer day.



Yet another spectacular dish at Catonsville's Hunan Taste is their fish head with red chili peppers. It is a 1/2 head of large fish, so you get to have parts of the cheek, the collar and some of the neck- all the best bits.



I feel so lucky that the Bluegrass Tavern is walking distance from my place, and I surely take advantage of that. Chef Patrick Morrow continues to change up the menu weekly with local, seasonal items that respect the nose to tail ideology.
He's started making taco trios which include items like beef heart, pork cheek and tongue. One week, I tried a wonderful venison heart tartare for an appetizer.
One of the most impresssive dishes is his fried chicken. In the spirit of Airline chicken, his fried chicken is completely deboned, the white meat is wrapped by the dark meat, and the whole cut is fried, and served cut into 4 large slices. The result is meat that remains juicy and delicious with a wonderfully crispy skin. The feat is just awesome.


Grace Garden
1690 Annapolis Road
Odenton, MD
(410) 672-3581

Bangkok Garden
5810 Robert Oliver Place
Columbia, MD
(410) 992-9553

Hunan Taste
718 N Rolling Rd
Catonsville, MD
(410) 788-8988‎

Bluegrass Tavern
1500 South Hanover Street
Baltimore, MD‎
(410) 244-5101‎

Tacqueria La Placita, Hyattsville, MD

The menu at Tacqueria La Placita in Hyattsville, MD is funny. For some reason they chose to have pictures of every taco they make, but considering the size of the menu, every picture could basically be the same.
However, their tacos are some of the best I've had in the MD/DC/VA area. I ordered the pig cheek, pig ear, and lamb barbacoa tacos for lunch one afternoon. Because of the World Cup, the place was packed.
The meats were served on seared corn tortillas, and came with a green and red sauce as well as a side of spicy pickled onions and carrots.

There was a cart making Raspados, Mexican snow cones.
I ordered one with mango and strawberry, and dried fruit in between- perfect for the hot day







5020 Edmonston Road
Hyattsville, MD
(301) 277-4477

DaMoim Korean Restaurant, Annandale, VA

Korean fusion food can be great. Eating at the Kogi taco trucks in LA was one of my favorite eating experiences last year. When I heard that the Korean restaurant DaMoim in Annandale, VA was trying to serve Korean fusion cuisine, I had to give them a try.
We started with an appetizer of summer rolls. They came with rice paper loaded with vermicelli noodles, shrimp, mango and veggies. I particularly liked the spicy dipping sauce.
We ordered two sets of Korean tacos: the galbi (beef rib) and jaeyook (spicy pork). I was disappointed that the tacos were more like those from Taco Bell than from a tacqueria, using flour tortillas and loaded with shredded cheese and lettuce. I liked the spicy pork a lot, but would have liked it better with a fresh corn tortilla and possibly kimchi rather than the toppings they chose.
On the other hand, the DaMoim sliders were outstanding, and actually quite good sized. They were topped with cheese and yummy caramelized kimchi.
We also tried an order of their Korean style fried drumsticks. They only had a straight soy flavor, but their frying was just the right crispiness I love about Korean fried chicken.

7106 Columbia Pike
Annandale, VA
(703) 354-3211

Back at the Brooklyn Flea

I'm determined that this summer I will make it up to the Brooklyn Flea as often as I can. While I do always like a good flea market, we've got bigger and better ones here in New Jersey. No, the reason to frequent the Flea is the food.

This past Saturday I met my friend Catwalker there. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs unfortunately... thus necessitating the need for repeat visits!

We started off sharing a Lobster Roll from the Red Hook Lobster Pound - to die for! We got the traditional Maine lobster roll with cold lobster salad on toasted bun, but they also make them with hot lobster, which I guess is Connecticut style... Next off was a pupusa from the Red Hook Ball Field vendor -- we were disappointed here -- first off they accidentally gave us chicken instead of beef, and it was on the cold side (though granted it was an unseasonable cold day). The best part of the pupusa was definitely the slaw.

We moved on to the next Red Hook stall for pork tacos. I loved the spiciness of these, excellent limey guacamole too -- though I think there could have been a tad less sauce - would have made them easier to eat.

We had planned on moving on to a fish taco from Choncho's, but just didn't have any more room... Next time...

After some walking around and browsing for $5 and $10 costume jewelry, Catwalker got some sweets -- a Linzer cookie and a mini cupcake from Kumquat Cupcakery. I opted for a gruyere paprika pretzel from Sigmund's.

Brooklyn Flea
Fort Greene every Saturday, 10am-5pm, 176 Lafayette Ave
One Hanson every Sunday, 10am-5pm, 1 Hanson Pl. (at Flatbush Ave.)
www.brooklynflea.com