• offbeat eats,  street food

    What I Ate at the OC Fair

    My boyfriend’s family has lived in places like Iran and Idaho and Ohio but thankfully settled in California, giving me an excuse to visit once a year for sunning, beaching, and stuffing my face with his mom’s fine Persian cuisine. This year, we happened to pass some signs advertising the Orange County Fair on one of our many drives between his parents’ house and In-N-Out and decided to go one night. We rode the skyride, just like my sister and I used to with our mom as kids at the Ohio State Fair, until the year she happened to accidentally kick off her flip-flop while we were still up in…

  • cheap eats,  korean,  restaurant reviews,  street food

    Go to Big D’s Grub Truck for the Bulgogi, but Stay for the Dumplings

    From the Vault: I went to Big D’s Grub Truck so long ago that it’s not really fair for me to rate it, but I also don’t want my meal to go unnoticed and forgotten. Here’s why Big D’s is great: 1) They actually come to the lower bowels of Manhattan, the Financial District, unlike so many of the trucks that hang out in Midtown or only come as far as Fulton Street. 2) Their truck is bright yellow, so I can spot it in the morning even while half-passed-out on the bus so I don’t go out in the cold later for no reason. 3) They serve tacos and…

  • cheap eats,  prospect heights,  street food

    Prospect Park Food Truck Rally

    The problem with everything in NYC is that it’s hip and that hip people live here and that hip people do hip things. Our friends Christine and Eric invited Dr. Boyfriend and me to Bravo’s “Top Chef: The Tour” cooking showdown back in May, but we ultimately decided that it’d probably involve arriving super early, standing around for hours, and maybe not getting to see or eat anything at all. So instead, we went to the Food Truck Rally in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park! Which turned out to involve crowds and standing around and not getting to eat anything, too! But at least we were together. We arrived at Grand Army…

  • 4,  cheap eats,  pure carbs,  restaurant reviews,  street food,  sweets

    Cupcake Crew Has What Might Be the Best Cupcake in NYC

    While out trying to find a decent banh mi the other day, I happened to spot a food truck I’d never seen downtown: Cupcake Crew. Black with a giant pink cupcake on one side, I knew it was going to be my kind of truck. The menu was small–six cupcake flavors–but that’s great for someone like me who can’t make decisions. I’m usually a vanilla cake/vanilla icing kind of girl, but the cream cheese icing on the red velvet was calling to me with its perfect dollopness and its tiny sugar sprinkles. It was a really good cupcake. The cake was the right amount of moist, and although my first…

  • austrian,  restaurant reviews,  street food

    “Restaurant” Review: Schnitzel & Things Street Food Truck

    You’ve no doubt seen the Schnitzel & Things food truck on a T-Mobile commercial without even realizing it. And little did you know that your subconscious spotting of it made us thisclose, because the schnitzel truck is one of my favourite lunch spots and one of my favourite things about New York City right now. The menu is concise: a few kinds of breaded and fried meats, a burger, a sausage, a handful of sides. The line from the truck’s window can be a half-hour long, and it’s not cheap by street food standards–$8 for a sandwich and $10 for a platter with two sides–but the food is huge, comforting,…