There are days when I walk outside the office and have no clue what to do for lunch. All the trucks along Franklin Square seem cast from the same die. The idea of another salad bowl makes me turn green, and I can’t stomach the thought of a pre-wrapped sandwich that promises a fragrant curry salad but delivers a cold dollop of mayo-slathered chicken between slices of ciabatta.
When that wave of noontime ennui hits, I start walking. Inevitably, if I have patience and a decent pair of walking shoes, I will land on something novel. Like the day I grabbed a bar stool at Momofuku CCDC (1090 I St. NW, 202-602-1832) and spotted the braised fried chicken on the lunch menu. The dish is native son David Chang's homage to a favorite selection from the now closed Wu's Garden in Vienna, where the "braised boneless chicken" was seared into memory, as permanent as the chef's first knife wound.
“The braised boneless chicken is one of the best dishes ever,” Chang told me last fall before he made his D.C. debut. “Most people, I think, are a little scared because it doesn’t look like your traditional thing. But that’s sort of where I’m at: I would rather serve something that is well made and doesn’t have the composition of a traditional dish. But at the end of the day, it’s just good eating.”
The chicken didn’t make the cut on Chang’s opening-day menu, which was no surprise. Despite operating restaurants in three countries — including halfway around the globe in Australia — Chang still obsesses over dishes as if he were preparing a tasting for his first job out of culinary school. Frankly, given Chang’s dark mood last year about much of his food, I wasn’t sure the braised fried chicken would ever make the grade, so I was thrilled to see it among the lunch offerings ($17 per order). It was listed on the menu with a footnote, crediting Wu’s Garden for the inspiration.
Advertisement
Compositionally, Chang’s plating may not channel Thomas Keller, but it’s not exactly moo goo gai pan from Yum’s Carryout, either. Fried, boned-out thighs luxuriate in their braising liquid, a coffee-colored chicken stock spiked with soy sauce and Shaoxing wine. The thighs are topped with scallions for a touch of greenery on a dish that would otherwise trade in yawning shades of brown. The broth has more depth than a mystic, simultaneously absorbing flavors from, and providing flavors to, those fried thighs.
For reasons I can't explain, I never sampled the braised boneless chicken at Wu's Garden, but if it tastes anything like Chang's (and the chef says he got the recipe straight from the restaurant), then locals lost a small treasure when Wu's closed in 2013 after a 39-year run. I advise trying Momofuku's excellent reenactment before Chang changes his mind and decides the dish needs an overhaul.
The first time I spotted Curb Canteen along K Street NW, the food truck was parked next to the tin can from Chick-fil-A. The corporate lunch wagon had a line of customers stretching into Franklin Square. The guys inside Curb Canteen had an empty patch of hot concrete. They had plenty of time to talk.
Advertisement
Jeremiah Mahoney and Slavko Totev are a pair of professionally trained chefs who kicked around various restaurants before launching their truck earlier this year via a parent group, Rock Creek Food Co. The chefs specialize in fresh, handmade sausages, an atypical choice in a mobile industry that often thrives on fast, easy-to-prep ingredients. Curb Canteen offers only two links (both $9 each), one stuffed with chicken and the other with pork. The sausages are born of the streets, but they’re both headed for the bigs.
Share this articleShareThe Hellasausage is easily one of the best bites on the streets of Washington, a stubby link the smacks of garlic, pork, paprika and the craftsmanship of two dudes still striving to make a good first impression. The Hellasausage lounges in a baguette slathered with a smoked eggplant-yogurt sauce and a house-made (truck-made?) ketchup that tastes like ajvar, the Serbian spread built from roasted red peppers and eggplant. The sausage comes topped with a cabbage salad tossed with shaved carrots and scallions. It's a sandwich that, once finished, will make you immediately long for another.
By contrast, the grilled chicken sausage flops down on a lumpy bed of bulgur, sprouted quinoa, greens and pickled beets, a dish that the guys have dubbed the Bird’s Nest. The salad supplies a chorus of contrasting flavors to the meaty main melody, the components arranged with a Mozart-like appreciation for harmony. But should you bite into the link alone, you’ll discover a small chamber piece all its own, a sausage that accents its earthier elements with high notes of dried apple and ginger.
This is a food truck with an eloquent voice. It deserves to have its own line of admirers.
I wish I could say all my lunchtime wanderings have been as successful as those above. The truth is, I've kissed a lot of pigs, too. The fare at Bunna Ethiopian Cafe (1400 L St. NW, 202-827-4952) remains a work in progress, save for the ful-and-egg breakfast dish, an earthy and piquant way to start the day. The cheeseburger I ordered at Bareburger in Dupont (1647 20th St. NW, 202-888-4582) may have been prepared with beef from grass-fed cows, but the patty had been incinerated, at once juiceless and flavorless, a reminder that restaurant concepts are not enough. You need someone who knows how to work a grill, too.
Advertisement
These poor experiences explain, in part, why I found myself back at Momofuku CCDC recently. I was eyeballing the Momo Bap ($14), Chang’s vegetarian take on the Korean beef-and-rice dish known as bibimbap. There was one serious complication: The dish includes a poached egg, and I was planning to walk several blocks back to the office with my lunch. Sri Lankan elephants, I figured, stand a better chance of survival than my poached egg.
But once I popped the lid on my container, the egg remained intact, its thin skin still holding back a tide of rich yolk, which served as a binder for the greens, mushrooms, pickled vegetables and carrots. Goosed with a little Korean chili sauce, the Momo Bap immediately became my go-to salad of the summer. I may never walk into a Chopt again.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLSwtc2gpq6sl6q2pbGOq5ysrJGqv6K606xmraCVYrW2utNmnaiqXZZ6pbHCnqWtZZSkxK%2FAzrClZqSlo7Cpec%2BasKxln5uzbsPIrZ9mrKekeqi%2BxJqrZp6Zo7G0e5FpaG9nYG18coSOm5pxbpWarqR5lWmbcWVhZrJ3ecCfb55lZWmuon7EcWtybGRsrLTAzquwZ6Ckork%3D