Truck Party! (Part I) Latin Burger & Taco

Sorry for the confusion, Mr. Marbury - not that kind of truck party. No, we're talking mobile food trucks, which of late have been establishing a foothold in Miami. This Friday a couple of the new additions - gastroPod, from Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, and Latin Burger & Taco Truck, from Food Network personality Ingrid Hoffman, set up shop in close proximity to each other, and a food truck tour was in order.

My first visit was to Latin Burger, which was camped out off Miami Avenue and 34th Street near Midtown. I managed to drive by twice before spotting the truck in the back of a parking lot behind a furniture store between 34th & 35th Streets, and I felt a bit like Tommy Vercetti trying to hunt down a target in Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

With truck found, I took a look at the menu, which is short and to the point:

You can get a "Latin Macho" burger, or a selection of tacos - chicken tomatillo, chicken mole or pulled pork. You can also add "Plain Jane" fries if you wish. I went with the "Latin Macho" burger and skipped the fries, knowing I was saving some room for a further stop at gastroPod.

The burger uses a grind of chuck, sirloin and chorizo, and while it doesn't taste specifically like chorizo, it is a meaty, well-salted burger with a subtle backbone of spice that probably comes from the sausage in the mix. They use the double-patty approach like that employed by Five Guys, which starts to make up for the decision to cook all burgers medium-well (though not completely). The burger is topped with melted Oaxaca cheese, caramelized onions and jalapeños, all tucked within a soft sesame-seed studded bun. It is an excellent combination of toppings - creamy melted cheese, a lightly sweet-salty touch from the onions backed up with a little heat from the jalapeños - enough elements to give some flavor variety, not so many as to overwhelm.

Though the menu says the burger comes with either "avocadolicious sauce" or red pepper mayo, it in fact came with neither - though another customer had the good idea to ask for the sauces, which were available in squeeze bottles. I topped the last quarter of my burger with some of the "avocadolicious sauce" - a thick, lightly creamy avocado puree - and it completed the package very nicely.

This was a very good burger - maybe not as good as the one I had recently at Burger & Beer Joint (even if I screwed up by ordering one with too many goofy toppings there), but comparable to - naw, better than - a Five Guys burger; similar in style, but with the added bonus of more exotic and interesting flavors to the burger and the toppings (and at a comparable price).

It is worth hunting down this truck if it's in your neighborhood.

Next - a shiny object beckons - the gastroPod!

Latin Burger & Taco Truck
on twitter: @LatinBurger

In case you just won the lottery ...

The Grill at the Setai (not to be confused with the Restaurant at the Setai), which had briefly closed down over the summer and then recently reopened with a new menu (which, I will note, looks mighty tempting), is offering a seven course "Black Truffle Tasting Menu" for the jaw-dropping price of $360 (edited to add: per couple). What you'll get for that sum:

Seven Course Tasting Menu

Truffled Scrambled Eggs

Toasted Brioche

…………………

Truffle Foie Gras

Confit Duck, Haricot Vert, Mache

Truffle Vinaigrette

…………………

Maine Scallops, Black Truffle

Iberico Ham, Baked in Puff Pastry

Truffle Butter

…………………

Serrano Ham Consommé Tagliatelle

Slow Cooked Hen Egg

Shaved Alba Truffle

…………………

Black Truffle Risotto, Parmesan Foam

White Truffle Ice Cream

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Surf & Turf

2 oz. Kobe Tenderloin, Seared Langoustine, Cauliflower

Black Truffle, White Truffle

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Apple Tart Tatin, Green Apple Sorbet

Black Truffle Crème Fraîche

If you're not quite rolling in that kind of cash, but still have a hankering for the fungus, you can also add shaved truffle to any dish on the a la carte menu ($6.50 / gram for black truffle and $21 / gram for white truffle).

CSA - Catching Up

As a result of travel and other distractions I've sort of fallen off the wagon with my CSA updates. There's not been anything revolutionary going on in the kitchen anyway, so you're not missing out on much.

Possibly my favorite item from the Week 6 delivery were adorable French breakfast radishes, pointy little guys with a pinkish-red blush on one end and white on the other end. They needed nothing more than some good butter, good salt, and good bread. The betel leaves were used in a successful repeat preparation of the bò lá lốt, with bok choy leaves serving as an effective substitute wrapper when the betel leaves were used up. The canistels from Week 6 finally ripened (like the black sapotes, they need to be really soft - seemingly ready to be thrown out - before they're ripe enough to eat) and I've harvested the flesh on these which is in the freezer, potentially turning into a flan this weekend. A word of warning - I wouldn't use your best knife with these, the skin has a sticky substance that really doesn't want to wash off the blade. Nothing particularly exciting happened to the rest of Week 6.

I was out of town this past weekend and Mrs. F did the pick-up, so no picture of Week 7 (though Redland Organics has the newsletter online). This was the "freeze" week. While the greens and cabbage looked none the worse for wear, the citrus was spotty - and sour! Unfortunately the carambola was too. Mrs. F cooked off the kale with some andouille and white beans, and it was delicious. I've got some more ideas for the black sapote. And the avocado may get used for a sample of the Alton Brown "sardine and avocado sandwich diet."

It will be interesting to see how much the cold snap is going to affect the rest of the season's harvest.