South East Asia

This weekend the South East Asian Coalition held their Street Food Festival and I couldn’t pass that up.

The festival was on Central Ave in the Plaza Midwood section of Charlotte.  They were using a parking lot for the festival and there weren’t really any provisions made for other parking so it was mainly street parking often in areas that weren’t really designed for it.  I found a spot I felt wouldn’t likely get me ticketed or towed and parked.

As I said they were using the parking lot and had three food trucks and several tents set up to serve food and a dozen or so other tents with crafts, organizations and drinks.  I have to say I was expecting more from a street food festival.  Two of the food trucks I was familiar with and have eaten at one already and the other was serving up only bubble tea.  The three tents that were to serve food were still setting up and didn’t start serving until after 12:00 and then it was nothing I couldn’t get at most Asian restaurants around town.  I overcame my disappointment and decided to go ahead and try the Yummi Banh Mi food truck.  Specifically I got their Vietnamese rice bowl with lemongrass pork and the free range egg add on.

For the record I took several pictures of the truck and in every single one someone walked in front of the logo.  Once I waited until the coast looked clear and just as I was pushing the button a kid ran through the frame so here’s the best of the lot.  More importantly though the rice bowl was very tasty and very generous.  It consisted of steamed jasmine rice with cilantro, pickled carrots, daikon reslish, cucumber, jalapenos, the fried over medium egg and the lemongrass pork served with a vinegary dressing.  The lemongrass pork was sliced thin and cooked tender with a hint of the lemongrass flavor and some other mild spices.  I added a pack of soy sauce and that really made the whole thing just great and it alleviated some of the initial let down.

To drink I decided to try bubble tea since I’d never had it in spite of seeing it in quite a few Asian restaurants over my lifetime.

The Boba Café truck was only serving bubble tea but they had quite a few flavors to choose from.  My choice was mango because I just love mangos.  The drink looks small if you use the normal concept of a straw to inform your perspective but this straw was huge in diameter.  It was like one of those plastic pixie stix straws we’d get as a kid when we were flush with cash and needed a sugar rush that would last all day.  It had to be big because the boba are apparently tapioca balls about the size of a sweet pea that they put in the bottom of the drink.  If you’ve never had them they’re kind of soft and chewy without much flavor except being a little sweet.  The tea in this case was a little bit of green tea and the flavorings they used were powders that went in along with ice to form a blended ice concoction they dumped on top of the tapioca balls.  It had a good mango flavor and the tapioca made chewing your drink a thing so it was cool.

On my way out I saw a sign for Viet Coffee over one of the tents and thought I could go for a swig of coffee after that rice bowl.  So it turns out a nice, smiling older Vietnamese lady was sitting there making iced coffees, mixing them one at a time.  She had her strong brewed coffee, she’d add a little sugar, a couple of teaspoons of Eagle brand condensed milk, whisk them up add a little water and ice before giving it another good stir and you were good to go.

It was nice and strong and a nice way to wrap up the visit to the street food festival.  So after my initial disappointment I was able to finish with three positive experiences and that has to be a win for the afternoon.  Next weekend I have Food Truck Friday and Octoberfest Saturday so that should be good for a couple of posts.