Food trucks offer quite a variety of dishes as well as some unique takes on traditional ones. At Off the Grid’s weekly Belmont lineup of food trucks, I tried dishes from The Chairman and Rocko’s Ice Cream Tacos.
The Chairman food truck serves Chinese-style buns with a hint of American style fused in. For example, their Coca-Cola braised pork is not something you would typically find in a traditional Chinese food joint. They serve two different sizes of buns; most of the small steamed buns are $4 and the baked buns are either $7.25 or $6.50 depending on which one you order. The baked buns included stuffing, but I was more interested in seeing how filling two of the $4 were.
Whether you enjoy vegetarian or meat dishes, The Chairman has something for you. They serve pork buns, chicken buns, and even tofu.
I ordered a pork bun and a Coca-Cola braised pork bun. The pork was incredibly tender that I barely had to chew it. The bun was soft, warm, and fluffy, and it was almost like eating a savory pillow.
The pork bun was soft, flavorful, and overall just a pillow of flavor.
The pork was flavorful and tasted freshly cooked, not like some reheated and premade meal. The daikon was different, almost like a pickle, and quite bitter too. It was a translucent yellow and loaded on top of the meat. While it was good to balance the pork’s slight sweetness, there were just too much. For the best experience, take off some of the daikon.
The Coca-Cola pork was really good too. I did like the flavor of the other pork bun better, but overall the Coca-Cola pork bun was better. Instead of bitter daikon, crisp cabbage braised with some sauce went better with the pork. I ended up taking only some of the cabbage out, just because it was a little overstuffed. The pork itself was mildly sweet with the tenderness of the other pork. I couldn’t get more than one picture of the Coca-Cola pork bun because I ate it too quick.
Despite their small size, the buns were surprisingly filling. Definitely give The Chairman a try — you may need to take off a bit of daikon, but they do such a good job on the meats that it isn’t worth missing.
[star rating=”4″]
If you don’t feel full after eating your buns, consider having an ice cream taco. While filling, the smaller sized buns still left me with some room for more. Spying the ice cream taco truck, aptly named “Rocko’s Ice Cream Tacos,” I decided to try one. Surprisingly, the tacos can be made dog-friendly. The tacos are made without preservatives, and can be covered with a dog-friendly chocolate substitute called “mocklate.” Not only that, but the ingredients are locally sourced and organic, so you don’t have to feel as guilty devouring one or two of them. Instead of a traditional waffle cone, the ice cream comes in a waffle “taco” shell. Just to break away from my comfort zone, I decided to order something slightly odd. I ended up with a salted-caramel ice cream taco covered with peanut butter and coconut.
Have the ice cream taco your way, but dipped in liquid nitrogen.
What’s really cool is that they dip your taco in liquid nitrogen to freeze the toppings and ice cream together. I was surprised by how good it was. The frozen peanut butter went well with the salted caramel ice cream. Overall it was really good and definitely worth it. Each ice cream taco is about $4, but well worth it.
[star rating=”5″]
