Dim And Den Sum – The Original Cleveland Food Truck

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Asian, Food, food truck, Meat, Review

The first ever food truck to hit the streets of (Greater) Cleveland was Dim and Den Sum, run by chef Chris Hodge. That name seem familiar? That would be because his second food truck is none other than the Hodge Podge Truck of The Great Food Truck Race of Food Network fame. Dim and Den Sum launched in may 2010 and was an instant success, paving the road for some of the other trucks I’ve already reviewed.

And as mentioned before, my wife’s work does a great job recruiting food trucks, and so we managed to catch Dim and Den Sum right before they shut down for the cruel Cleveland Winter.

Dim and Den Sum offers an eclectic menu of interesting choices with an Asian twist that usually is announced ahead of time online, on Twitter and on Facebook. My wife chose pork pot stickers that were so tasty, they were gone before I had a chance to take a picture. However, they were also a bit steeply priced. I, on the other hand, settled on the PBLT sandwich:

Pulled pork, bacon (missing in this photo, sorry!), lettuce and tomato with a Sriracha aioli that had a pleasant kick. (Though my wife points out that that’s spinach, not lettuce…) The sandwich was huge, and in those bites where all flavor components came together it was delicious. Unfortunately the pulled pork was heaped on so generously that you had to separate the halves of bread, and only one side had the aioli, so the other side came off a bit bland.

The food was great, and would have deserved a pretty high rating, but unfortunately I witnessed a rather unfriendly rebuff to a customer ahead of me in line, and bad service has always been a pet peeve of mine. The other people manning the truck were very friendly though.

Bottom line? Well, it’s the original Cleveland food truck, don’t miss it! Great Dim with really interesting Sum, but due to the service issue mentioned above I’ll rate the experience a 3.75/5. Nevertheless, I’ll definitely give it another try come Spring!

The Nosh Box – A Comfort Food Truck!

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Cleveland, Confort Food, Food, food truck, Meat, Nosh Box, street food, United States, Vegetables

That’s right, Cleveland has still more food trucks to offer. Today: the Nosh Box, a truck serving mid-Western comfort nosh with a Tex-Mex twist to hungry Greater Clevelanders.

 

The Nosh Box is owned by Sandy and chef Kelly Waddell, who post the day’s menu and location the night before or morning off on Facebook and Twitter. Unlike some of the more exotic menus I’ve highlighted before, the Nosh Box is all about those indulgent comforting items:

 

They’re most famous for their Clevelander – fried bologna on Texas toast with all the fixin’s and the legendary Double Wide – Texas Toast topped with two kinds of cheese, bacon andmac’n cheese! Not necessarily a truck to recommend to dieters and health food lovers, but great for that indulgence we all need sometimes. Or as the Nosh Box chef put it: “Someone asked my if I had a lean body type. 🙂 I told them yes I do, I lean on anyone that gets in my way !”.

For my first nosh experience, I had a naan-bread pizza topped with fresh marinara, parmesan and mozzarella, onions, tomatoes and mixed greens:

 

It was

One of the greatest things about this truck is their special deal: bring back a reusable container and get a free drink! Now that’s a wonderful and generous offer to reduce waste.

Bottom Line:

Thanks to Kelly and Sandy for serving in freezing temperatures!

MotorMouth Food Truck – Globally Inspired Gourmet Dishes On The Road

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Cleveland, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Local, Meat, MotorMouth, street food, United States, Vegetables

My love affair with Cleveland’s food trucks is intensifying, and so I bring you yet another gem on wheels: the MotorMouth Food Truck, another less-than-a-year-old truck serving (Greater) Cleveland. Their menu and location gets posted the night before or early in the morning on Facebook and Twitter.

This truck, owned by Chef Rusty James Phillips, serves globally inspired gourmet dishes, and when they say gourmet, they sure mean it. Just have a look at their menu when I visited!

I mean, come on? Roasted duck tacos? Butter-poached cod? Normally way above my price range for a casual under the week lunch. I was very, very torn on what to order, but finally settled on the butter-poached cod, served with tamarind-spiked black beans and yellow rice:

The cod was buttery, flakey, melting in your mouth, but what really made this dish was the contrasting side – Spanish style yellow rice with black beans, onions, red peppers and a very healthy kick of tamarind. Incredibly flavorful and spicy, I probably could have eaten 3 to 4 servings, easy. One of the best rice dishes I’ve had in a long, long time. Absolutely excellent.

Of course I couldn’t resist dessert. Enter their famous Mexican brownie:

This pretty much blew my mind. Not at all your typically intensely sweet brownie, it reminded me of chocolatey gingerbread, probably due to the spices. These treats were made by Becky’s Pantry with Abuelita chocolate (unsweetened Mexican chocolate, quite different from what we’re used to here) and smoked chilli powder and topped of with toasted slivered almonds. Very, very intriguing, and a huge serving to boot.

MotorMouth tries to buy as many of their ingredients from local farms, and always has a vegetarian option available.

Bottom line? Generous portion sizes, very fair prices, and out-of-the-ordinary gourmet foods with unusual ingredients prepared by a very nice team. 5/5 from me, with brownie (haha) points for enduring the rain to serve hungry mouths like mine. I hope I get a chance at those duck tacos soon!

Thanks to the MotorMouth Food Truck team for serving University Circle folks!

Which menu item would tempt you? What not so common dishes would you love to see at prices like these?

Umami Moto Revisited!

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As, Burger, Food, food truck, Meat, street food, UmamiMoto

Remember my gushing review of Umami Moto, the Asian-inspired food truck roaming the streets of Greater Cleveland? Well, I couldn’t stay away. Or rather, they were outrageously nice and dropped off my order on their way back from their location for the day because I couldn’t get away from work. Now that’s dedication to service!

The order in question consisted of their Umami Burger. Now, I should explain this thing about me and burgers. They don’t really attract me too much. I mean, I appreciate a burger every half year or so, but that’s it. I don’t crave them, I don’t seek them out, I tend to be underwhelmed when I order one. Heck, I didn’t even eat my first burger until the tender age of 19. My brain just doesn’t seem wired for love of burgers.

Enter the Umami Burger, which benevolently smiled at my wiring and ignored it. It blew me away!

(Forgive the low quality picture, I was unprepared for this awesome delivery and had to use my iPod camera.)

Now, this is a burger to dream about. Perfectly cooked lean all-beef patty (nicely thin to my taste, I’d estimate 2.5 to 3 oz, just the right amount not too overwhelm the experience) with Southeast Asian flavors, topped with a truly kickin’ prik pao chili sauce, a hint of mayo and onions, on a fresh, perfectly crisp toasted brioche bun. Holy moly, I couldn’t stop! The bun was perfect, and I usually despise burger buns in my haughty German bakery-spoiled ways – the brioche wasn’t bland, soggy or cardboard-like at all. It was warm, slightly sweet and had a great texture. And that chili sauce! I wish all my lunches were this great!

So here I stand, with The Burger To Beat in my mind, courtesy of the awesome Umami Moto team. What’s your take on burgers? Love them? Hate them? Have a special one that will forever be burned into your memory?

StrEAT Mobile Bistro – A Gourmet Food Truck Set On Feeding You!

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Food, food truck, Local, Review, Soup, StrEAT Mobile Bistro

Have I recently mentioned that my wife’s work is awesome? Yes, well, it is even more so, now that a second weekly food truck visitor has been established: the StrEAT Mobile Bistro.

There are actually two food trucks run by a team (Manager Izzy Schachner, Chef Kelly McGlathery and Daniel Talty) that came together to launch this enterprise in early Spring 2011 and have been serving ravenous (Greater) Clevelanders faithfully come rain come shine. They offer a variety of dishes inspired by locally produced ingredients, which is always a plus!
So today I braved the rain as well and made the trek to meet for lunch.

We were welcomed by Dan and a most promising menu, which had been made available online one day in advance on Facebook and Twitter.

My wife zeroed in on the four cheese Mac-n-Cheese, a pretty tasty dish topped with breadcrumbs. Maybe our expectations were too high – it was a very solid, creamy Mac-n-Cheese dish, but not necessarily a revelation as to what all other Mac-n-Cheese should aspire to be.

I could not make up my mind between the two soups offered, and Dan immediately accommodated me and offered me a sample menu of both. And am I glad he did – because both dishes were absolutely delicious.
I started off with the harvest stew (winter squash, white beans, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, & Moroccan spices), a slightly sweet, hearty stew topped with golden couscous. It was wonderful! With the couscous stirred in, it had just the right amount of bite.

But I think my favorite dish of the day was the spicy, creamy, perfectly balanced tomato lentil soup. I could have consumed buckets and buckets! The only way to improve upon this dish would have been warm flat bread to dip into it. Oh wait! That was supplied as well. Literally one of the best things I’ve eaten since our China trip in May.

The dishes left me very sated and kept me warm and cozy all the way back to work through the rain. Perfect rainy Cleveland Fall weather food! And very portable as a “to go” meal.

Bottom line? Find them so they can feed you! Good to amazing food, fair prices, beautiful use of produce and an incredibly friendly and gracious crew. 4.5/5 from me.

Thank you so much again to Dan and Kelly for the treat and the eye-opening lentil soup! Man, I wish I even knew where to start on trying to make it myself…                      

Umami Moto – An Asian-Inspired Foodtruck on a Mission!

Tags

Asian, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Poultry, Review, UmamiMoto, Vegetables

My wife’s work is awesome. Why? Because once a week, Umami Moto rolls in during lunchtime and feeds the hungry masses!

Umami Moto, owned by Jae Stulock and Sandy Madachick, is an aptly named foodtruck (loosely translated from the Japanese as “savory car”) that has been on the prowl in Cleveland, OH and surroundings since last winter, bravely weathering lake effect snow (which lasts a good 5 months a year) without a hitch. As you might guess from the name, most of their offerings are Asian-inspired, with an emphasis on Thai and Vietnamese cuisines. Obviously I had my wife treat me, no?

We actually went on two different occasions (yes, it was that tasty!), and here’s what a menu will look like:

The menu varies daily, and gets posted on facebook and twitter in the morning, messing with my poor little head and making it hard to focus on my work rather than which dish to try.

On our first vist I ended up going with fish tacos (not on the pictured menu) with a lime aioli that was absolutely divine and changed my world view concerning all things fish taco. Co-owner Jae Stulock informed me that the secret ingredient is lime simple syrup!

My wife chose a Vietnamese chicken curry served over rice (see the menu above), that reduced her to repeated “Man, this chicken is great. No, it’s so good!” comments in between bites.

So when I returned today (armed with a camera rather than an iPad), I decided to give the vegan snap pea and mushroom stir-fry served over white rice a try, and it was wonderful. The seasoning was spot-on and complemented the earthy mushroom flavor perfectly. I could have easily left the rice for a few more servings of the veggies alone!

I tip my hat to the chefs! Another great thing about Umami Moto is their efforts to use locally produced ingredients, plus all their food containers are made from recycled materials. A+ for responsible business.

Bottom line? When in Cleveland, try to catch Umami Moto. Great flavors, creative dishes, friendly personnel and fair prices. 5/5 from me.

I’ll leave you with a picture co-owner Stulock, who was gracious enough to pose for me with his tasty, tasty vehicle.