Friday, September 16, 2011

The Muffaletta Report

[ED. NOTE: Today's post is also featured on San Francisco Treats, which is a much nicer blog than what I have going on here. But they asked me to write something and so I did.]

[ED. NOTE PART TWO: It may not be posted there yet, but I'm sure it will be soon.]

Food trucks!!! They’re the black chunky glasses of mid to late 2011! If you don’t own one, you want to. If you don’t eat at one, you’re hopelessly out of touch. FOOD TRUCKS FOOD TRUCKS FOOD TRUCKS. In 10 years, people are going to be like “What was up with the fascination with eating bacon and waffle things on Acme artisanal bread from an idling vehicle in a parking lot? SO WEIRD. Also, I need the hoverboard tonight. I’m going to a Re-Elect Ashton Kutcher for President rally at the oxygen farm.”

NEVERTHELESS, I am a slave to fashion and thus a dedicated food truck aficiondo, by which I mean there are 4 or 5 that appear within 3 blocks of my office every Friday and now it’s like A Thing with me and my coworkers to go.

Today’s lineup at Off the Grid – Civic Center was the usual lineup:

Ebbett’s Good to Go – Fancy-shmacy sandwiches
Curry Up Now – Indian, duh. BLAZINGLY PAINFULLY HOT Indian, I should say
Liba Falafel – What do you think?
HapaSF – “Modern organic Filipino cuisine,” according to the website. I’ve never gone to this one so I’ll take their word for it
Crème Brulee Cart – Man, you guys are phoning it in with the names. It’s supposed to be a funny name! How about “Crème Bru-WAY Cart!!!” or “Crème OKAY Cart!!” “Crème Lisa Bonet Cart!!!”??? THINK ABOUT IT AND GET BACK TO ME.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about food. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get today. Then I was advised that Ebbett’s had a muffaletta today. MUFFALETTA. In case you don’t know and thus by definition have been living an empty and sad husk of a life, a muffaletta is a New Orleans-birthed sandwich that usually features ham of some kind, mortadella, salami, provolone and maybe mozzarella too. Now, all that sounds good, but then it’s topped with olive tapenade, which is the money shot of a muffaletta. Olive tapenade is the Stunt Casting of sandwiches. It makes the muffaletta.



So I go down there and order the muffaletta. The girl who makes the sandwiches says “I made you an extra big one” because that’s the effect I have on women and also I was wearing my Noted Local Blogger smock. Then I ate it.



It was good. The bread was nice and soft, almost focaccia-like, or maybe it was focaccia, which, strictly speaking, isn’t what a muffaletta is supposed to be on but we’ll let it slide. It had the appropriate meats and cheeses. And the olive tapenade was solid.

So, good sandwich! I think it was 9 bucks. Don’t think that Food Truck food is extra-cheap or anything because it isn’t. It actually tends to be pretty steep. But that’s cool. It’s worth it.

SO, IN SUMMATION:

Ebbett’s Good to Go Muffaletta: It’s Like Rain on Your Wedding Day. No, wait, that’s bad.

Ebbett’s Good to Go Muffaletta: Did You Know That the Girl From the College in Your PJs Ad Was Don Draper’s Whore Mother on Mad Men? No, wait, that’s just too weird. Here we go:

Ebbett’s Good to Go Muffaletta: If Sandwiches Were Wu-Tang, It Would Be GZA. There.

2 comments:

Robert said...

I wish I lived in a city that has food trucks. The closest we get here in Ames is an RV on football game day. That muffaletta looks AMAZING!

Tamagosan said...

If the sandwich is the GZA, does that make you the Inspectah Truck? Mastah Eater? Sandwich Killer? Wow, these all suck and that's why my favorite is Method Man. Now I'm craving both 36 Chambers AND tapenade on anything. (Does the food truck say "olive tapenade"? I've never seen any other kind, but that may be how it goes down in France. NOLA pretty much takes any French foodie stuff and adds that missing element --FUNK-- so that could be the reason...)