**** 4.5 stars ****…read more
These guys started slinging their product on the rough streets of PG County before earning their way up to the even more competitive locale of DC. But this isn't the story you're used to hearing. These guys got grills, and they aren't the ones that come platinum coated accompanied by sick Saint Louis beats. No, this is one of the newest trucks to land in the District with a fresh new permit, and they absolutely deliver some serious flavor for a very fair price.
It's a bare bones operation, no doubt. A solid black truck with a phone number and a decal, and a hand-written menu that I assume changes based on product availability, is pretty much all you'll find here. No fancy graphics, additions (speakers, soda machine, hand sink, etc), or anything else costly that might get passed on to the consumer. There is however a late night banker teller style screen window that gets lifted up from order to order, I suppose to keep the bugs out, and let all the wonderful fried smells waft out into the street. It's a cash only truck, which is one of my only complaints, but considering it's just the two of them running this show they do it faster than I would have expected. I'm not sure how much food the guy handling the money is coming into contact with, due to the screen, but I'm going to lean on the ignorance is bliss side here. Like many other trucks first starting out, they also don't have a very manageable ordering system. The taking orders and randomly calling them out might work fine while selling to a smaller audience up in Maryland, but once you enter DC and start to face these long lines you really need to be more organized.
The menu offerings are seemingly basic, and when it comes to the fried goods they in fact are, but the sandwiches here are over the top, gorge yourself style preparations. I decided to go with a "Killadelphia", which is roasted chicken that is then pulled and done cheesesteak style with gooey provolone and grilled peppers and onions tossed in. It's so unbelievably huge that I'm really sad my picture won't capture the girth. When I picked it up to eat, chicken was literally falling off from every angle, and it was still loaded. This sandwich contains no filler, it is all chicken all the way, with the peppers and onions loaded on the top. I haven't seen a bun this stuffed since Beach Week 1999. All this goodness comes to you at the incredibly reasonable price of $7.50, and like everything else on the menu a generous side of fries. The fries are essentially the frozen bag standard, but given that I would pay that price for this sandwich again gladly, I pretty much consider them free. They also do a chicken salad sandwich that I didn't see anyone order, but the fully loaded turkey burger, known as the Teridactyl, was equally as gigantic, and on one occasion the guy could barely close the lid on his container.
The fried foods, consisting of whiting or butterfly shrimp, were a bit more basic in presentation, consisting solely of the seafood item and fries. Since I ordered the butterfly shrimp as well I was a bit disappointed not only in the size / number (6) of shrimp at $9, but the fact that there was no sauce or anything on the side. The batter itself is really nice and crunchy and there isn't much excess grease, but it would be so easy for them to prepare some kind of dipping sauce to really make this dish complete.
I finished off my order with some of their Crank. This was the part of the meal I really didn't expect to enjoy, but I went ahead and ordered it anyway. They describe it as a sweet tea mix, and I don't actually like sweet tea. However, this tasted very little like tea, and a good bit like orange and/or cherry Kool-Aid with some tea swirled in. It certainly earned the moniker which it has borrowed from street slang. I can't imagine the calories I consumed from this truck, and that's even with eating only half of what I ordered and passing the rest off to my co-worker, but I would gladly return to try out some of the other menu items.
