Apparently, street food is all the rage. As with most trends, I’m late hopping on the bandwagon. It reminds me of the year I asked for a Cabbage Patch Doll for Christmas months after the cool kids had requested theirs, leaving me holding a homemade “Cabbage Patch” with a head made from stuffed nylons. True story. In retrospect, I now realize my doll was more awesome.
Back to food trucks. I’ve known of the Lobster truck, with its butter-soaked lobster rolls ($15), for at least a year. Of course, I haven’t actually tried one yet, because I’m so cheap I can’t justify a double-digit lunch, but I’ve at least seen it before. Maybe if I ever have cause to celebrate, I’ll go bananas and find a friend to split a roll with me. Because I’m just that wild!
Today I didn’t pack a lunch with the express purpose of treating myself to some sort of truck cuisine. I wasn’t disappointed. Around noon, I pulled up the food truck tracking website, which features a Google map that begins populating with real-time locations of food trucks based on the location of their tweets. (Note: Twitter actually does serve a purpose!)
I saw that there was a solid concentration of six trucks about a block from my office, lining the north side of McPherson Square. So I ventured up and surveyed the land. My options included: BBQ, Indian, Middle Eastern, Pizza, Pies, and a completely out of place ice cream van of the variety generally driven by pedophiles.
I skipped the molester-mobile, and instead chose Dangerously Delicious Pies, completely at random. This Baltimore-based eatery rewarded me with a menu that perfectly matched my (previously unarticulated) craving: slices of sweet or savory pies for $7.50 each, with options like sausage-fennel-tomatoes or spicy cilantro chicken on the savory side, and key lime for dessert.
I opted for the S.M.O.G. — steak, mushrooms, onions and gruyere — which I (making sure everyone understood me to be the virgin I was) ordered by stating each letter: “I’d like the S-M-O-G.”
From inside the truck, I heard someone say, “Another smog? I’m on it!”
Damn. Kind of like how I named my fake Cabbage Patch Kid, “Jillian,” thinking it sounded exotic enough that people might be fooled into thinking it was the real deal, because who would name a doll that, if not a factory (prepared to give you street cred by providing a bonafide, factory-produced doll birth certificate)?(Apparently I haven’t gotten any slicker with age.
When my SMOG was handed to me, it filled every nook of the triangle-shaped container. Although it was a gorgeous day and there were plenty of open benches in the Square, I rushed back to my office so I could eat it without the risk of a bird shitting on it. Wise.
The verdict? Excellent. (A blend of spices would’ve made it a bit more interesting, perhaps, but as-is, the flavors all worked together so well that it was solid in its simplicity. I guess if I want spices, I’ll have to try the sausage or cilantro chicken next time – a challenge I’m definitely up for!)
Tonight I was telling Alan about my lunchtime exploration, and whenever he mentioned my lunch, he kept referencing pizza, and I would gently correct him. Finally, near the end of our call, as I mentioned that I needed to cook dinner, he said something like, “Oh, that pizza didn’t fill you up at lunch?”
And with some passion completely out of scale for the topic, I replied, “For the last time. It wasn’t a goddamned pizza! It was a pie! a pie!”
“Like a pizza pie, right?” he pressed. And because I was too tired to realize he was now just trying to get a rise out of me, I responded. “No! It was an actual pie. A savory pie with a crust. Like a shepherd’s pie.”
“Oh, so you mean it didn’t have a bottom crust?” Alan continued, with the same pleasure Henry VIII probably derived from bear baiting.
I finally wised up. But I’ve filed this away and begun plotting my revenge. When Alan gets back to the U.S. and decides he wants to try one of these tasty pies, I think I’ll bring him a slice of pizza instead. And I’ll name it Jillian and see if he can tell the difference.
pithypants 
The pie sounds awesome (though I’d have gone Indian), but I’m sorry to say, Jillian kinda sucked. I remember the stunned silence in the car when mom (and you?) came out with her. Mom was no doubt fuming (“I paid $xx for this??”) and you were trying to stoically face yet another Christmas gift gone sour.
I had the same Cabbage Patch Doll experience – got the fake (aka homemade) instead of the real one. I still don’t think it was awesome. Didn’t our parents realize that we were smart enough to know the difference?
I think my parents thought that as long as my doll had a belly button, it would be close enough.