Summer Means Truck Eatin'

Guapos Truck

 

I admit, the Guapos Truck is not my favorite. To me it's something to fancy in a guise of a lunch truck. Before I realized it was a Garces Truck ( and I LOVE Jose Garces mind you ) I thought it seemed a little tooo nice, and it was fishy that the people inside weren't excited about the line of people wanting tacos.

And of course its because its not their truck.

What makes a lunch truck so so so great, is that it's cheap, and it's so so so good because the people in it, LOVE their food, and maybe can't afford a restaurant. So you get excited people serving you what they love. it's a whole experience.

With my lunch truck theory said, the food was a little too expensive for what it was, BUT it was delicious and beautiful and made with care. Skip the guac and chips and get the warm corn salad instead and spoon it onto your tacos. YUM.

Corn Salad, Fish Tacos, Chips and Guacomole, and Pork Tacos

 Memphis TapRoom Beer Garden

This charmer of a place really kicked my crush on summer and Philadelphia hardcore.

Charming, well done, beautiful outside seating and totally loyal neighborhood place. Nothing is better than hot dogs and canned beer in the sweet warm nights of Philadelphia.

Memphis Taproom

2331 East Cumberland Street
Philadelphia, PA 19125

215-425-4460

La Copine Brunch Truck

This now, is killing the brunch game. These charming charmers Clare and Nicki run this darling little truck every Saturday and Sunday at 2nd and Poplar across from the Standard Tap. The patio area is absolutely lovely and I can't say more about how great of an experience this is.

I love love love supporting people who want to make something awesome happen through hard work and passion. I would do anything for these ladies. They still have day jobs and then work all night long prepping the truck for the weekend. I told them pretty soon they are going to have to quit because the word is out, the food is toooooo goood.

 Homemade Hibisicus Tea and Iced Coffee 

VIP seating.

Homemade breakfast sausage with local pork from Meadow Run Farms. Hash Browns cooked in butter and spicy tomato jam. Killin' the game. Best Hash Browns in the city hands down.

Grilled Homemade banana bread with peanut butter and jam. SOOOOO secret genious.

And with that this summer is too rad.

Tamales Benedict

Caroline's delicious leftover tamales from today's Cook The Book recipe out of the awesome Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.


Topped with ultra fresh local-pastured-organic eggs from Your Family Cow that made the most beautiful poached eggs I've ever seen in my life. Some herbs from the garden and a dash of Texas Pete. Best breakfast ever.

New Prints!

New hot dog prints!!

•Yesterdog
Super cool hot dog place in Grand Rapids, Michigan that's been there since the 70's. No burgers and trying to order a "plain hot dog" might get you kicked out. Big thanks to photographer Mike Donk for tipping me off and sending awesome photos.

• Blackie's
Old School Connecticut hot dog joint, one of many featured in the documentary A Connecticut Hot Dog Tour. Blackie's will also be selling these prints at the restaurant in a few weeks!

• Rolf's Pork Store
Mind blowing traditional German sausage shop in the middle of Albany. Hand made frankfurters, kielbasa, ring bologna, everything smoked in house. Amazing.




• Fricano's Deli
Awesome sandwich spot in Austin, Texas. Great sandwiches and a bunch of signature dogs including Chicago style and the Reuben Dog. They also do specials every once in a while like a pretty damn authentic Venezuelan Dog. The Reuben dog as well as a few of my other prints are available for sale at the Deli itself, thanks guys! My buddy Garrett Morlan has also done some awesome posters for them, which I'm fairly sure are also available to purchase.

All of these and more are available at hawkkrall.net.


•Taco Prints
Also - these limited edition prints are only available at LATACO.COM! Only a few left!
lataco.bigcartel.com

Broad & Morris Hot Dogs

Thanks to Tim Gough for tipping me off to a hot dog cart that appeared out of the blue. Nothing fancy just some dudes selling hot dogs on Broad Street. The vendor told me they were moving around the corner to Morris (apparently food carts are not allowed on Broad?, or at least that stretch. He also thought I was from the health department after I took a picture ) but they will be there all summer.


My hot dog was sort of gray but the hot sausage was decent. Interesting system of topping your own dogs from plastic deli cups of chopped onions and relish. The meatball sandwich looked good, they do hot roast beef too.

Apparently this corner is street food central in the summer with Cambodians frying whole fish and all sorts of "stands" that are not much more than a flame and a piece of metal to cook stuff on. I really see no reason for me NOT to go out there with a grill and a sack of Sahlen's hot dogs, or maybe one of those awesome German grillwalker suits.

La Copine

 

Nikki Hill from Barbuzzo and her sweet babe Clare Wadsworth are starting a sweet supper club soon and kindly asked me to help out with my crow quill penmanship.

Anything for these guys.

Atlantic City Dirty Water Dog

After the Atlantic City Beer Festival, half drunk from a few dozen 2oz glasses of Harpoon and Chimay, on my way to losing 30 bucks very slowly by betting 1 cent per spin on the slot machines. Couldn't resist this dirty water dog cart.



Delicious Sabretts dog for a whopping $3.75. The "red onion sauce" was a little sketchy and more like chopped onions in some tomato juice. Not as good as New York, but better than Philadelphia.

Taipei Town

Taipei is a fun place to eat. This happened to be the most Chinese food I had eaten in a while, but not the saucy fried Chinese food we know as Chinese food. But more I suppose Shang Hai style Chinese food, like soup dumplings, smokey silky tofu, and peanut noodles. Either or it was awesome and I dream about it.

Tyson Bee's Interview

 I recently raved about my food truck dreams being lived by Tyson Bee's and they were kind enough to grant Drawing For Food an interview. Thanks sweet Dudes.

DFF:Where are your favorite places to eat in Philadelphia?

TB: My favorite spots to eat in PA include:
       Girasole  restaurant
       Sketch burger
       Dim Sum Garden 


DFF: Who did the sweet artwork on the food truck?

TB: Yis Goodwin aka  NoseGo did the beautiful artwork for Tyson Bees truck.

DFF: Where did you get the idea for these dishes and what to include on the menu?

TB: The menu was created by my partners and I.  We came up with the menu by cooking what we like to eat.  Just naming some of our favorite foods we like to eat included Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican, etc.  Thus, decided to come up with a menu that would satisfy our appetites for such ethnic foods.  There are things that didn't make the cut, but might show up later on the menu.  We want to keep our menu seasonal, but of course there will be main staples that will stay on the menu.  But we want to keep the menu exciting and different.

DFF: Where do you get your kim chee?

TB: We get our kimchee from the H- Mart  in Upper Darby.  We were testing out the different kinds, but we like this particular one we got from H mart. We would make our own kimchee, but u know very well that good kimchee takes time to make.

DFF: Where are you originally from?

TB: Originally, parents are Chinese, but I was born in Laos.  Grew up in France, worked in New York for 20 years, worked in West Coast for four years, and now ended up in Philadelphia.


DFF: Why start a food truck in Philadelphia?

TB: City is manageable, cost of living is reasonable, opportunity is still growing for hard working people like us. Plus, Philadelphia is a very sport oriented city, which I enjoy very much.  Philadelphia is also known for their education in not only fine arts, but music as well.  In the future, I would like to go back to school after I make it out here in Philly and study music to learn how to play the violin. 

Sorry Dearests

 

For not updating this darling Food Blog. We've been busy with personal projects and Hawk has turned writing about food and drawing hot dogs into a real job. YES!

But more food projects and news and eating eating eating soon. Because we still love drawing and food.

Koreana

Tucked away in a University City parking lot, sandwiched in between an Indian buffet and a strip club is Koreana, a tiny counter service Korean place catering mostly to Penn students. It's a barebones, family run operation serving a full menu of Korean standards including kimbap, mandoo, omurice, and lots of hot pots.


Quick service combined with affordable pricing and homey offerings makes Koreana a campus restaurant through and through. Be prepared for gaggles of Penn students involved in intense conversations about coding and grad school. But if you can get around the collegiate atmosphere there are some great Korean eats to be had.


A recent lunch of of soondubu, a spicy stew of soft tofu and pork, was a touch spicier than I've had before, with a heavy dusting of chili powder lining the lip of the stone bowl that it was served in. The soup had an almost wood-fired smokiness to the broth, making the spice even more pronounced and wonderfully warming. The chunks of tofu in the bowl were soft and custardy and slices of pork were fork tender. A quick poke around the bowl uncovered a poached egg just below the surface, ready to be broken up into the soup.


The mandoo weren't the best I've had, most likely frozen. The soy-sesame dipping sauce that accompanied made up for some of the blandness. But then again that might be my fault for ordering them steamed instead of fried.

I suppose my one qualm with Koreana is the lack of banchan, just a tiny cup of kimchi to accompany the meal. Other counter service Korean joints including the H-Mart in Elkins Park serve at least a three small dishes along with your main. But banchan aside, Koreana is a great option for quick fix Korean.

Koreana Restaurant
3801 Chestnut Street, Phila, PA 19104
(215) 222-2240

Tyson Bee's

These guys are living my food truck dreams. Tyson Bee's food truck, is delicious, and perfect to be parked on Bainbridge and Broad on New Year's day.

Smartest peeps. Which I think they might be parked here every Saturday, so get in line. Or normally during the week on 33rd and Spruce.

The Endamame Taco, even though I am not an endamame fan by far, was really delicious and surprising. Mack got 2!

Of course I got the pork belly bun, which was a braised pork belly in hoisin sauce and cilantro, super yum.

But we ran into our friends who got the Thai Basil Chicken bowl and The Korean Beef Bowl, both looked  and smelled awesome.

What I loved about these guys serving it up on New Year's Day on Broad Street, was a moment when a police officer came up the the truck and said:

" I dont know what a Thai Basil Chicken Bowl is, but I want to try it"

Which made me smile hard.

Cafe Chau

check out the jar of fresh chili peppers

I love getting tea in this little guy

That's right drop ceilings and tiling, ahhh reminds me of my grandma's.

Bo Kho

Bun Rieu

 

No Cafe Chau is not my house, it's WAY better because it has flourescent lighting and a widescreen TV. Which every delicious Vietnamese restaurant should have at least one or the other.

Adam Erace wrote about Cafe Chau in last week's City Paper and as soon as I saw the article:

1) um it's called Cafe Chau, I mean I had to know
2) I whipped out my phone and mapped how long it took to get there from the apartment.
3) Hey more places to get a banh mi, Holla at me.

And the people there were the nicest sweetest people. The Bo Kho, Vietnamese Beef Stew, was stellar. The bread was really good and just toasted hot, and not everyone makes this dish which is great in the winter. The Bun Rieu is the tomato broth and crab meat soup, which I have to say I prefer the Nam Son version of this dish. But the iced coffee, um it's love is like whoa.

Cafe Chau
7th and Jackson St.
(215) 463-1095

Daily News

Check out this article in the Philadelphia Daily News about Drawing For Food and a bunch of other awesome Philly food artists - Mike Geno, Matt & Gina and also Martha Rich who Chau interviewed here a while back.

Great article overall although I cringed a bit at the gratuitous use of the word "foodie" (my hatred of the term a relic of my restaurant days, when it meant "those annoying people out there taking pictures of the bread, talking about Bobby Flay and pronouncing things wrong" which pretty much describes me now anyway).

We also talked about the "Best Of Philly" post that we did in 2008 and basically committed to doing another one, so watch for that in the near future. There's even a video where we ramble on about hamburgers and Chau draws an entire mural in about 5 seconds. Enjoy!

Daily News - How a hot dog led to their food blog

Daily News - Artists' food cravings become savory creations

Merry Christmas

Everybody gets barbecue sauce!

Made with - delicious Heaven Hill whiskey, vinegar, crushed tomatoes, brown sugar, molasses, vanilla bean, mustard seeds, and 3 different dried chilis.

Buy Our Stuff!!

Just in time for the holidays! Buy some awesome stuff made by us and/or stamped with the Drawing For Food seal of approval.

I've got a bunch of new giclee prints available including a brand new Philly Cheese Steak print and lots of new hot dog designs. Also highly recommended is Mark Kotlinkski's documentary A Connecticut Hot Dog Tour on DVD and a great deal for both the DVD and a sweet print of the artwork.

•Cheesesteak and Hot Dog Prints - $29 each from hawkkrall.net
•A Connecticut Hot Dog Tour - $7.99 from ctoriginals.com.


Chau has some amazing new prints on her site as well including the famous Smoke Monster in a giant poster size for $65 or mini-prints (great Idea Chau) for only $18.. printed by our wonderful friends at Silicon Gallery Fine Art so you can be assured these are pretty much the best prints you have ever seen in your life.

•Smoke Monster Prints - $65 / $18 from krischau.com


Then just released is this wild tote bag I designed for Philly blog Foobooz featuring an illustration of the bustling East Passyunk corridor. Great for carrying home your haul from Green Aisle and Tom's Meat Market.

Foobooz also has a bunch of new T-shirts for sale.Or for even more stuff with my art on it don't forget the Serious Eats reusable shopping bag and VendrTV wallet that I did this year.

•East Passyunk Tote - $15.00 from foobooz.com
•Epic Sandwich Shopping Bag - $10.00 from seriouseats.com
•VendrTV Wallet - $25.00 from vendrtv.com


Earlier this year Drawing For Food interviewed Martha Rich who among other things has been doing these amazing food paintings of cakes, pies, hamburgers, hot dogs, and I think a Filet-O-Fish. There's tons still available at reasonable prices.

Martha Rich original paintings, $100-$300 from cakeandlobster.com


I have this old Tim Gough print hanging on my wall of a hairy dude thinking about hot dogs and coffee. No longer available, but Tim has tons of brand new prints and shirts in his store that he screens by hand in his basement while drinking coffee and probably eating hot dogs. Free shipping until December 20th!

Tim Gough Prints and Clothing, $10-$32 from timgough.org


If you're looking for books related to food other than Bobby Flay's Gluten-Free Chipotle Mayo Christmas or an oversized coffee table book about cupcakes from the discount bin at Costco check out our wish list.

#1 on my list is Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin who is pretty much the Daniel Johnston of the culinary world. Watch I Like Killing Flies, a documentary about his restaurant and life and you will be an instant convert.

Next up is Carolyn Wyman's Great Philly Cheesesteak Book, a terrific guide to the history of almost every notable Steak spot in the Philadelphia area. I have this and love it. Only 11 bucks on Amazon. Another one I own and love is John T Edge's Fried Chicken- An American Story. 8 bucks and absolutely essential.

Or check out Hellbent For Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook which Caroline reviewed earlier this year for Serious Eats. Don't be scared by the cute cover... This is NOT the lame collection of "funny" recipes like "white trash mac & cheese with tater tots" from the backup bassist from Korn that you might expect. These are actual good recipes written by dudes in real black metal, thrash and grindcore bands like Amebix, Gorgoroth, Sepultura, Kreator, S.O.D., and Mayhem. Amazing.

Of course this list wouldn't be complete without a selection of hot dog gifts, so if you're dying to pick up a $7000 european hot dog cooker or a sweet retro Jimmy Buff's T shirt check out my Hot Dog Gift Guide on Serious Eats.