The last time I went to cart after waiting in an unusually long line a lady came up to me and asked me about the different options. After I explained the intricacies of the cart she told me she read about the cart on yelp and they where the highest rated vendor in the area. So I went back to the office to check out the cart’s yelp page and indeed they are blowing up.
I recently went to the cart with one of my friends who writes for We Love DC. She was helping out with a post about the stellar food carts in DC. Check out the back of my head in the bulgogi cart pic.
Anyway, I liked introducing the cart to people and in those first couple of months being one of the few frequent visitors but now I guess have to share…
I tried to pick up my favorite doughnuts from the Fractured Prune the other day to share with my whole office, just to find out that they shut down! My wife first discovered these doughnuts in Ocean City and we have been hooked since. The shop that closed was super close to our house but luckily I found another shop about 15min away.
We are going this Sunday!
Why are they so good?
I would have never considered myself a doughnut fan before… I’ve been jaded from years of nasty, cold, 10hr. old, Dunkin’ Doughnuts consumption. But the Fractured Prune’s doughnuts are made fresh to order and hand dipped in deliciousness.
If they are so good why did the shop around me close?
Bad Marketing
They cut their hours when times got tough and expected to build a customer base solely with word of mouth. Not going to happen with their hard to find location! They should have had a free doughnut day or had that big stuffed prune guy stand out on route 40. Too late now!
My first bulgogi experience was during college in Baltimore. We went to Nam Kang, a fantastic Koren restaurant that is a steady winner for the City Paper’s Best of Baltimore – ‘Best Korean Restaurant’ and ‘Best Late-Night Dining’. My wife and I end up eating there about once a year (we don’t get out much). Then, belly full of bulgogi, you can walk next door to the Rainbow Music Studio and partake in some karaoke in your own private room.
Kinda like the scene from Lost in Translation:
Here is a pic of or food from my wife’s 30th B-day dinner at Nam Kang.
You can see my wife’s spicy chicken bulgogi on the left and my beef bulgogi on the right. Also you can see the delicious shrimp pancake in the center of the table.
Well, since I fell in love with bulgogi, I have ordered it all over the place. And when a bulgogi cart opened by my office in D.C., it quickly became a regular stop. Now I knew the cart bulgogi was phenomenal, but I quickly began to take it for granted. It wasn’t until I took my wife this past weekend to Nam Kang for some bulgogi that I realized how fantastic the cart bulgogi is!
The cart is run by a Mother and Son team (I think), who are at 14th and L everyday for lunch. They were even there when google maps took this pic!
Food from a cart? I know right! But D.C. has some of the best cart food around. The burrito man is the best example of this! Click Here for a good blog about the burrito man. I will talk about the burrito man another time, I just wanted to exclaim in this blog how fantastic bulgogi is, and if you want the best stop… by the yellow cart in D.C.
I came across this New York Times article before the Super Bowl and knew I had to create this monstrosity for the big game.
There are a ton of recipes out there, so I’m not going to put any instructions up here just a bunch of pics from the Bacon Explosion’s birth.
As you can see, we didn’t use a smoker. It worked fine in a confection oven @ 225 degrees. My Dad’s fancy oven has a thermometer built in that reads the internal temp. It took about 2 and a half hours to reach 165 degrees.
It didn’t taste as much like dying as I thought it would…but it was delicious.
I was super excited to find out a Fatbuger was opening up in my Costco’s shopping center. It was a long wait watching other stores going up around it and driving by the empty store every Saturday. But then, out of nowhere… they were open. So my wife and I went to try the famous Fatburger.
The inside was way more cookie cutter than I expected. But I should have known since it’s next to a Stride Rite and in the same shopping center as a Costco and Best Buy.
I was ready for a FATBURGER, so I decided to go with a double kingburger.
Due to an ordering snafu, I only had meat and cheese. But, that is one of the best ways to get a feel for a place’s burger so I dug in.
Lets start with the fries… just not good at all!
And now the burger… It was alot to handle, but in the end I thought that it had too much seasoning and not enough natural burger flavor.
Over all my experience was unsatisfactory to say the least, and I was left wondering, why do people like these burgers???
So I decided to give Fatbuger another try.
A few days later, I went back for the Fatbuger with all the fixings and chili. This time despite the greasy patty exterior, the inside of the patty was all dry. So that is that. I do not like Fatbuger at all. And I love burgers hard!
I would much rather go to a Five Guys any day. They are without a doubt my favorite fast burger.
I’m no burger connoisseur, like some out there, but I do enjoy a tasty burger and my whole family loves burger night. We’ve perfected our recipe to now include onions and Gorgonzola in the patty instead of adding them on top.
The Gorgonzola melts through the entire burger filling it with flavor.
Every Christmas Eve growing up we went to my Nonna’s house for the feast of the seven fishes. In recent years with families in different states it’s been hard to keep up the tradition but I always include some element of the meal around Christmas. This year we picked up our supplies at Talluto’s as always.
Talluto’s is a fantastic Italian shop that normally has a line out the door but this was an icy morning. Despite the weather they still had a live accordion player and wine for the people waiting.
My Dad picked up some Baccalà Salad and since I had to go back to Maryland that night I took all 7 fishes with me.
