Holy Mole

We had grand mole plans, and like many before us we failed miserably. I am convinced this stuff can only really be made by septuagenarian Mexicans and Rick Bayless. So I shall buy a cookbook of his tomorrow that contains a mole recipe, cause ours tasted like dookie. Just what it looks like actually. Often with food you cannot judge a book by its cover, but in this case that would be a fair assumption.
As much as we were disappointed about the Mole I want to set the record straight. It did not taste like dookie. More like cardboard with a little onion and some chocolate. Luckily there are many different recipes. Aphra gave me a recipe out of the Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook. It is a great series of cookbooks that look like coffee table decorations but is actually traditional and informative. If you ever have an opportunity to pick any of them up(sometimes bookstores sell em for nuttin) I highly suggest it. They have China, Thailand, Italy and some others that I can't remember.

The Jerk Pork is coming along. There is something missing from it that makes it as delicious as it should be. I cant seem to find that one thing that makes Jerk seasoning. I am taking all ideas. Joel and I have a good idea to put a green mango pickle/topping with the jerk. I think it will do him some good.



We are working on some belly variations, that one pictured is braised then grilled with a glaze made from the braising liquid and some secret sauce we stole from MickeyD's.

I wish that sandwich was ours, but we got it from the formidable Garden State cart on Mississippi. Thigh meat, preserved lemons, asparagus, radicchio, and some secret sauce that he also stole from McDonalds. Great sandwich, my favorite that i have tried from him so far, but all have been good.




Two different batches of shoulder confit ready to go.









Roasted garlic and another iteration of that pork, a new batch we are fooling with.

Monster shopping run today. 8 stores in 6 hours. We are getting good at this. Spending a grand in a day that is. We actually bought 50 lbs of onions today. You could stone a healthy, robust man to death with that kind of quantity. I, on the other hand, could be downed with two shallots to the spleen. Cases of salt, Thai soy. Big ass bags of garlic. Floor mats. Spices. And a $300 pair of Ipod speakers. We have gotten a noise complaint at the apartment already, we have been pumping it out of the bedroom into the kitchen, maybe it will now be a little more localized in the kitchen. And I'll be damned if I don't have music at the cart on the day to day.


We have now fully packed two fridges with all our crap. The black one came with the apartment, the white is our recent purchase. The white one on the left is "Bessie" the black one on the right is nameless at the moment, we are working on it.



Metal.



Hip-Hop.

Hangovers and Bunk

Yes, the two greatest eaters of all time, the sultans of swine, the idiots who drive an hour and a half to go to some restaurant that is just a rumor on the lips of their fellow foodies, the constantly overfed, and completely unsatiated are presenting you with a blog. A blog which we will begin with showing you a pic of us eating Popeye's. Yes, Popeye's. Oh so sad. You want to see us eating oyster ceviche, drinking fine Portland beers, chowing at Korean BBQs, sipping marvelous cappuccinos. Tough shit.


We were busy today purchasing 25 pounds of pork and an extra fridge to put it in. More importantly we were nursing hangovers on no sleep. We are assuming you can forgive us our for our very first food pics being Popeye's. We GUARANTEE this will get better. And moreover Popeye's is amazing hangover food. And we can pick it up in five minutes. And while driving I can reach blindly behind my seat, cop a leg from the box and shove it in my face.

So we actually have eaten some non-fast food products in the recent past, and will be eating our way through this town.


Upon receiving 6 sandwiches, 3 sides, and 2 mexi-cokes at Bunk, we were told that we hold the record for most food ordered by two people. They hooked us up with two free tarts because clearly we still looked hungry. Super nice guys over there, and great food to boot. One of my favorite restaurants in town. The pulled pork was just crazy, hints of BBQ, but not actually Cue. Roast Beef was a kick in the pants, hell everything was stunning. I have been a few times in the recent past and felt the quality was going downhill a bit, but this just reaffirmed how damn good this place is. Yeah Yeah Yeah a sandwich is a sandwich. I think that is the opinion of most people that live in a bad sandwich town(my DC peeps will empathize). Bunk exeeded my expectaions even with one of the cooks putting them together like I spell. Each sandwich had a specific bread and was warmed/toasted/sauced to perfection. We left there knowing that we had to make as good or better.

Our goal with this blog is to show you what we are doing to open up our food cart. We plan on posting what we are cooking, where we are eating, and general info about cart progress. The cart is being constructed right now by the nice fellows at Northwest Mobile Kitchens, it should be completed by early April, and we are hoping to be open later on in the month. We are shooting for 5 really bad ass sandwiches the likes of which Portland has never seen. We are going to post details on various recipes we are hashing out, successes and failures both.