I ate at a food truck last week that did not feature a single fried item on its menu.
“INCON-THEE-VABLE!”
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
]
Seriously, the Vizzi Truck does not sell a single deep-fried item. There are
no fries, no onion rings, no croquettes, no hash browns, no tempura.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
This involves sliders: wagyu beef braised with balsamic vinegar,
skillet-grilled jidori chicken and some intriguing chickpea patties, which appear to be pan-fried (it doesn't count!).
Instead of fries, the sliders (three per order) are served on top of a
generous pile of popcorn that's been tossed with Yakima smoked salt and
paprika. The popcorn is very good while warm; when it cools off, it goes
the way of all popcorn: chewy and cardboardy.
The beef was very good, though I must admit I think using well-marbled, non-wagyu beef would not greatly reduce the richness of the dish but would reduce the price; the
taste so particular to wagyu beef was lost with the balsamic
vinegar, even though this latter was not overpowering.
The meat from the sliders is available in larger portions, paired with
broccoli tossed in grapeseed oil, salt and pepper, the aforementioned
popcorn and black Mission figs.
In place of the standard menu's butternut squash soup (it's about as far
outside butternut squash season as it's possible to get), I opted for an
excellent gazpacho, updated to modern tastes with Meyer lemon, serranos
and cilantro oil, topped with shredded basil. This wouldn't be out of
place in a fancy porcelain bowl in a white-tablecloth restaurant.
Desserts were limited to three kinds of small cookies; I opted for the maple cookies,
since the other options contained white chocolate, one of the few
substances on earth I flatly do not like. These were not a particular
success; the cookie was unappealingly sandy and overwhelmingly sweet.
While this is not a cheap truck ($7 for three chickpea sliders, $9 for beef sliders, $6 for the gazpacho), the portions are reasonable, the food is very good, and it's a valuable addition to the trucks roaming occasionally into OC.
The Vizzi Truck is mostly based in LA but occasionally ventures south beyond the Orange Curtain; check their website and Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter.
