I decided to go with the flow of the weekly blog post and add Friday Favorites to the lineup! Before Nina offered her Mix Tape Monday idea, I was tossing around the idea of a regular feature here. The problem was, I didn’t know exactly what to write about. First, I wanted to talk about travel. Then it was random things about Philly. Or wait! How about writing about food? After a few rounds of back and forth with Chris, I came up with Friday Favorites. That way, I can talk about travel, Philly, and food. :)
It was about 100 degrees yesterday. It was also Night Market Philadelphia, which is a “celebration of the city’s ethnic restaurants and gourmet food trucks.” In other words, it was a street food festival. In other words, AWESOME. I love me some street food because it’s cheap, fresh, and fast.
We braved the heat (and, as you can see in the photos below, poor Chris was in a long-sleeved shirt since he came straight from work) and tried all sorts of food from trucks we don’t normally get to try. Here are my favorites!
Guapos Tacos is Jose Garces’ food truck– if you don’t know who Jose Garces is, you’re missing out! He was recently designated Iron Chef, and his food is amazing. We’ve even had the honor of meeting him at one of his newer restaurants; he’s truly a nice guy and even posed for photos with us.
I was particularly intrigued by this truck because of its unique and colorful design: hundreds (possibly thousands?) of bottle caps are glued on the sides:
We opted for the chipotle short ribs taco and the carnitas taco. They also sold Mexican Coke, which got bonus points from Chris (he buys this stuff by the case at Costco). The short ribs had the right amount of heat and the carnitas taco was served with a pineapple salsa– yum!
Next up was Tyson Bees. He’s parked fairly close to my work, so my coworker and I were able to grab lunch there the other day. I absolutely LOVE the Thai Basil Chicken Tacos and the Steamed Pork Belly Buns! That hunk of goodness you see on the right side of the tray (under the cilantro) is the slab of pork belly. I should have taken a better/close-up photo but I was drooling already. ;)
For dessert we got macarons and creme fraiche cheesecake (!) from the Sugar Philly Truck. I didn’t care too much for the hazelnut macaron (though this may have something to do with the filling totally melting off and smearing all over the bag– darn heat), but the dulce de leche one was delish! Chris gobbled up the cheesecake. My taste buds were shot from the dulce de leche but he says the cheesecake was very good.
Ah, street food. Despite roasting (and having the good luck to leave RIGHT BEFORE a huge thunderstorm hit), we had a good time wandering around and critiquing the goodies. I can’t wait for the next Night Market!
