Dat roast pork sandwiches (Taylor's Gourmet)

If you've read my blog consistently - which admittedly is probably pretty difficult lately given my ass-clown posting frequency - you probably realize I have no real love lost for Philadelphia. Most of my memories about the city are pretty shitty. Philly drivers are entirely assholes towards cyclists, and while the riding is absolutely sick - I had more than a few close encounters with cars, the 'subway' system smells like cat pee and weird handsoap, and the city all-in-all shuts down at 10 pm unless you plan on getting hammered as if you were stuck in colonial times. Freakin' Quakers. That said, to be entirely fair - it's also home to a dope-ass Korean-Japanese food truck that pimps a bulgogi cheesesteak (with the nicest old couple running shit ever) and a couple of the best burgers I've eaten in my short cholesterol-laden life (which is actually serious praise considering how many burgers I put away thus far)... but most of it is shitty. That said, one area that Philly absolutely killed at was sandwiches. Maybe it's all the old-fashioned Italian delis... or maybe it's all fo the old-fashioned Italian bakeries churning out some seriously sensual bread fumes... but mash those two components together and you have something absolutely magical. One of the few things I legitimately miss about Philadelphia: Italian roast pork sandwiches.



Look at that rod of hot Italian pork. Not unlike Gary Oak - this is a sandwich where you "can't ignore its girth." Don't be deceived by the generic deli look here - the amount of meat packed inside the core of the baguette is unbelievable - it's almost as if someone hollowed out the bread beforehand to violate the center pocket with an additional quantity of pork. I don't remember how much it was (it has been over a year since I've eaten one of thes fuckers), but I would most certainly pay a bounty of gold to taste that sweet porcine folded meat right now. Goddamn.



There's something distinctly indescribable about the flavor combination in these sandwiches. Roast pork au jus, a very distinctively sharp provolone, garlicy olive-oil laden broccoli rabe, and a seeded hoagie - there's absolutely no complexity in the construction, but the depth of flavor it brings is like getting punched in the face while wearing braces. Except in a good way. Less painful, more delicious. Taylor's Gourmet manages to deliver on nostalgia like a boss. Their roast pork is as moist as my pants just thinking about it, the bread softer and fluffier than Jigglypuff. Shit... that's soft. Despite the their location in Washington DC, they've forgotten absolutely nothing about the OG roots that make this sandwich the crown tit's of Philadelphia (honestly, it deserves to be held in higher regard than the cheesesteak). Good on ya' bros.

tl;dr - writing this post reminded me of how much I think Philadelphia sucks. Except for the food, they got that shit locked down. In spite of how much their subway system smells like a delightfully pungent combination of homeless pee and cheap handsoap, I think they're really good at making roast pork sandwiches. Taylor Gourmet makes them pretty good.

Taylor Gourmet
485 K St NW Washington, DC 20001
Read more...

2011 in review (five things I ate that are the tits)

Note: I meant to publish this yesterday... but I passed out from NyQuil.

So what happened to me in 2011... a tl;dr version would be - I started out stuck in a grad program that I had absolutely no interest in and promptly bailed/failed(?) out, I ended up doing a buttload of interviews for an assload of jobs that I had absolutely no interest in, but somehow frauded my way into the sweetest gig ever, got hit by not one... but two cars while biking (all in the span of three weeks), moved from Philadelphia back to New York, and probably took 10 years off my life with half the shit I consumed (which include a ghost chili cheesesteak, a pie eating contest, and a hot wing eating contest). Now I know what most of you are saying - "Shut up asshole! I don't care about your life! I only visit this blog to see if you've developed diabetes or had a heart attack." Well jokes on you, not only am I still alive... um, I'm still alive? Well, I'm gonna cop-out a bit this week since coming up with new things to say about food is surprisingly harder than an 80 year old man who's accidentally swallowed a hand-full of Viagra. That's pretty hard. Instead of writing about new stuff I ate, I'm going to regale you with tales of the top five things I ate 2011, or a list I like to call "Five things I ate that are the tits."

Why five? Because I'm too lazy to think of 10 things that I enjoyed eating in 2011 and then summarizing them... but three felt like too few. I thought about doing eight, since it's a lucky number in Chinese and everything - but then I realized I was just thinking too much. Five seems like a good amount. Anyway, in no particular order (or so you think...):



1. Cheeseburger at Race Street Café - When I was growing up, cheeseburgers were pretty much the only thing I would eat (along with ham sandwiches and chocolate milk)... don't ask me why, I was not a very adventurous kid. After years and years of eating cheeseburgers, I consider myself something a cheeseburger connoisseur... or maybe just an average fat person. I prefer how the former sounds. Anyway, moral of the story - I've eaten a disgusting number of beef, cheese, and bun creations over the course of my lifetime, and very rarely am I legitimately impressed with any of them. That's not to say none of them are delicious, I just don't think there's anything special about most of them. The burger at Race Street Café completely wafflestomps the notion that all burgers are created equal. It's not so much that they do something completely out of left field (like frying the bun or something similarly stupid) - this is a burger built on the simple premise of bun, beef, cheese, onions lettuce, tomato, bun... in that order - it's just that they do everything right. I don't have anything to justify that statement, so you'll just have to trust me and get one.



2. Roast pork over rice at Wah Fung - Fuck. I've discussed this ad nauseam already. If you don't know why I love this little aluminum box full of carcinogenic pork, then you probably don't read my blog enough. Let me just put it this way - if you buy this pleasure box of porcine sensuality three times, you will definitely have explosive diarrhea at least once. There's no way to sugarcoat it. It will happen, and you will not like it. Has that stopped me from returning repeatedly? No, because contained in this small rectangular box of syrup-laden fatty pork is the smiles of a thousand children, double rainbows, and an endless loop of nyan-cat. Everything that is good to me. Plus it's only $3, so if you want to think about it a different way, it's really just a moderately effective laxative that also doubles up as a meal. Double win.



3. Wontons in chili oil from White Bear - I eat a lot of dumplings. Way more than the average Asian person does. Probably more than most Asian families do. So you should probably believe me when I say... I've fucked a mermaid, by which of course I really mean that the guys at White Bear have produced one of the finest interpretations of pork in carb wrapper that I have ever tasted in the world. You like thin snappy skins on your dumplings? Fuck yeah you do. You like little pockets of pork that explode with juices? Like a rhino with a raging erection. Do you enjoy having your lips seared with an ever-so-thin layer of sweet-ass chili oil? I don't know what gets more extreme than a rhino with an erection... but one level past that. That's what White Bear does with their wontons in chili oil. The dumplings themselves would be pretty fantastic alone - just dip them in some soy sauce vinegar and I'd be pretty stoked - but when you pour on that semi-sweet mixture of scallions, chili oil, and soy sauce? It's pretty much gg for every other dumpling place.



4. Ice cream doughnut sandwich from Frangelli's Bakery - Seriously? I don't think I really have to explain this one (it's a huge block of ice cream inside a freshly fried powdered doughnut for Christ's sake...), but I will anyway. Take the notion that Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme serve good doughnuts and throw that out the window. This is not something that's just an opinion, that is just plain wrong. Frangelli's Bakery makes everything OG style - as far as the powdered doughnut goes... the dough is made on premises, fried in-house, and powdered on purchase. You would be probably be hard pressed to find a finer doughnut in all of Philadelphia as it is. But what if I told you that I could fuck a giant block of ice cream in between there too? Piping hot powdered doughnut + giant block of ice cream = blown mind. Yes, I realize this is in the middle of assclown nowhere in the south of Philly, but it's probably worth visiting anyway.



5. Bulgogi cheesesteaks from Koja - Futurama got it right when Professor Farnsworth said "I'm sure no one's ever said this before, but I must get to Philadelphia as quickly as possible!" While the city of "brotherly love" is certainly not my favorite place to be accosted by homeless people, there are a few things that I hold dear to my heart about Philadelphia. One of them being Wawa, and the other being the food trucks at Penn. Especially Koja. What is obvious to everyone is that the old couple running the Koja food truck are the nicest people ever. What isn't obvious to everyone is that they're fucking geniuses deserving of MacArthur grants. Since they already make assloads of bulgogi per day, they inevitably realized the glorious business opportunity of extending their humble little truck into the sandwiching industry. Stuff some hoagie rolls full of sweet marinated beef or spicy-ass pork, charge $3 per, ???, profit. What was easy to foresee was the amounts of ass they would be getting from these dope as shit sandwiches (by ass, I mean money). What they could not have foreseen was that one Asian kid would single-handedly drive revenue by returning several times a day. Seriously, this shit is worth eating for multiple meals a day, several days a week. If there were ever a reason for me to go back to Penn to finish my PhD, it wouldn't be out of love for research... it would be because I miss these motherfuckers too much.

Anyway, enough about food, back to me. As for 2012, I don't think I have any good resolutions... ultimate first world problem: my life is too good, I can't think of any legitimate things I want to do. I guess one of them would be to not get hit by cars and my second one would be to continue blogging? Ha, we'll see how long I can keep this up before I just get insanely pissed off at food blogging in general. Also, dodging cars. Gonna get good at that too.

tl;dr - My 2011 for food (and I guess life) was pretty good all things considered (I didn't get a heart attack or diabetes). If however, those are two things that interest you, here's a list of five things that you might want to consider eating in large quantities.
Read more...

Korean-Vietnamese tacos and sandwiches (Tyson Bees)

When someone first suggested I go to Tyson Bees food truck for some Korean tacos, I was really confused. The first thing I think of when someone says the name Tyson is usually Mike... or the chicken company. After purging my brain of the idea of Mike Tyson taking my order, handcrafting Korean tacos, and then taking a bite out of my ear... I did some research on this truck. As it turns out, a former Iron Chef contestant by the name of Tyson Wong Ophaso decided to try his hand at a food truck based on Asian-fusion. Korean-Vietnamese-Mexican flavors. Can't get more serious than that. I mean... the flavor combinations can definitely work together (bulgogi cheesesteak anyone?), but it's also been screwed up a lot. Color me skeptical.



First things first... their truck. It is baller as fuck (hey that rhymes!). I'm not entirely sure where Tyson came up with the whole bee theme, but whatever. It's his truck. He can do whatever he wants with it. If I made a truck, it would be plastered with action shots of Kevin Durant and Godzilla. It would also be awesome, but that's not the point. The point is, when all the other trucks go rolling around the Penn campus looking all crappy and the like, Tyson is ridin' dirty in his flamboyantly fluorescent truck plastered with cute bees and hearts. Also, that blue thing looks like it's licking someone's butt. Like a boss.



I actually did not get tacos. Korean tacos has gotten so played out over the past few months that it's not even fresh anymore. Everyone and their grandmother is in the Korean taco game. Instead, I tried their "Grilled BBQ Lemongrass Pork Banh Mi." At $5, it's more expensive than most of the banh mi you could get in Manhattan's Chinatown, but goddamn was it tasty. Sweet bbq pork is accented with the crisp flavor of cilantro and just a hint of lemongrass. My only gripe would be that they give you too much pork and not enough bun since the bread kind of falls apart. Seriously though, that's not much of a complaint... I would never tell a food truck to give me less meat. That's just stupid.



I also got a Korean kalbi and kimchi burrito, because my ass... it is not fat enough yet. Yeah I took a bite of it to take a picture, what of it? Anyway, it is what it is. It is stuffed with marinated beef short ribs (and yes, they are juicy and flavorful), kimchi, lettuce, and rice. Super simple construction, but the final product definitely surpasses the sum of its parts. Not too spicy, which was somewhat disappointing, but pungent indeed. Also costing $5, I would get it again. At first I thought it was a tad expensive for the size, since I was left wanting, but I realized that somethings are worth the price. This is one of those things.
Read more...

Beef bulgogi cheesesteak (Koja)

You might be thinking that this post looks kind of familiar. That's probably because I previously wrote about the spicy pork bulgogi cheesesteak at the beginning of the year. To refresh your memory, it's the simple combination of hoagie roll, melted cheese, onions, peppers, and ass-numbingly spicy pork, all of which is drenched in a sweet and spicy sauce made from gochujang. Oh yes... it is a sandwich I love dearly, but at the same time, fear and respect. As a good friend of mine once said, as spicy as it is... the amount of enjoyment you get from having one is completely negated by the amount of discomfort on exit. I'm pretty sure he's just being a wuss, but if a fiery rectum is not so high on your list of 'likes,' let me present you with a more mild alternative... the beef bulgogi cheesesteak.



Bulgogi should be done with beef to begin with, so if anything, this is more 'authentic' than the spicy pork version... as authentic as a Korean cheesesteak can be anyway. The formula is more or less the same. You take bread, you melt cheese, you grill onions and peppers, but this time... stuff the crap out of it with thinly sliced beef, marinated in a sweet concoction of sugar and soy sauce. Drizzle some sesame seeds all over that bitch and you got yourself a beef bulgogi cheesesteak. Most of the things that made the spicy pork version awesome are still present in the beef version. The peppers and onion provide a certain natural sweetness, while adding a crunchy nuance to the texture. The cheese is fully melted and becomes the backdrop to the main attraction... which is of course the meat. The beef comes off the griddle literally dripping with juices. The fantastic combination of marinate and oil then soaks into the roll, leaving you with a greasy mess of sweet and savory brilliance.

Do I like it better than the spicy pork version? Not sure. They're too different to choose one over the other. One is an exercise in masochism, stimulating your taste buds and digestive system in a way they've never been violated before, while the other is just... plain pleasant. The great thing is, at $3, I don't have to make that choice. I can switch it up as much as I want. I could even... gasp get both for one meal. Crazies.
Read more...

Bulgogi pork cheesesteak (Koja)

Have you ever found yourself torn between choosing spicy Korean pork and cheesesteak? One is a well groomed package of oily convenience, while the other is a deliciously spicy mess of a meal with limited mobility. How can you possibly decide!? Good news... you don't have to. In somewhat of a conflict of interest, I didn't write about Koja (the hybrid Korean-Japanese truck that lives on 38th street) here, but this... I couldn't bring myself to write for another site. It's like I'm cheating on myself or something. Anyway, I present to you... the bulgogi pork cheesesteak.

I don't think I need to really explain this one. You take a regular hoagie roll, layer some cheese inside (I'm guessing provolone?), and layer on spicy bulgogi (or however you want to spell it) pork w/peppers and onions. A stroke of pure genius. Nothing could make this sandwich any better.



Oh wait. Yes there is. It is $3. For just $3, you get a 10" sandwich stuffed with an entire serving of spicy pork with gochujang. If I could somehow quantify taste and value per dollar, this shit would be off the charts. Just consider the fact that you can have 30" of spicy pork cheesesteak for less than a single Hamilton. Fuck, I bet even Kim Jong Il would be down with that. Insane.



But the thing is, even if it were twice the price, I'd still absolutely love it. That's how good it is in actuality. The bread is a plain hoagie roll that gets toasted, but the part that makes it special is the fact that it somehow gets covered in a thin coating of sweet chili oil. Spectacularly flavorful and soft, it's the kind of combination I wish all my sandwich breads used. Inside, the pork is no slouch either. Cooked fresh with a heaping handful of onions and a mix of red and green peppers, the pork is just spicy enough to numb the tongue without going overboard. Adequately tender, the cheapish meat, high in fat content, truly glistens in bright red glory. It's no shabbier than their standard bulgogi, which on its own is pretty good.

I'll put it this way (at the risk of being crucified by traditionalists)... I love my cheesesteaks the original way just fine. Put some peppers, onions, cheese and plain steak on a roll and I'd consider it a fine meal. If you give me the option of having a jazzed up Korean version of cheesesteak? I'll take that 9 times out of 10. Especially at this price. Way to go Koja.
Read more...