The Flying Deutschman

Food Truck
Media, PA
(610) 333-7908
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2SP is a new-ish DelCo brewery complete with a canning line and they have gotten quite a bit of publicity recently. They focus on beer, and typically have a different food truck serving hungry drinkers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I have been wanted to try the Flying Deutschman for quite a while, after seeing it zipping by on the highway many a time, and it JUST HAPPENED to be at a brewery, so I decided to take one for the team and go drink some beer and eat. Selfless, as usual.

The truck is painted like a ship, and is quite cool. They offer a variety of specials mixed with standard menu items, of a German variety. There is a tablet for paying, so you don't need cash. Always a big plus in the old PP book.

You can get a couple types of schnitzel and wurst, and all can be served sandwich style. This means put on a roll for those with comprehension issues.

The truck has a nice clean work space. You can see the ordering tablet in the below shot.

I tried the currywurst sandwich, the jaeger schnitzel with mushroom sauce, and a side of cucumber salad.

I loved the currywurst. The curry sauce was packed with flavor, the wurst was juicy and had a great snap to the casing. I like the toast marks on the roll. My complaint is on the price. The sandwich was $8 I believe, but the side of cucumber salad was a whooping $5. It was a small portion for the money. I DO believe that this is some extremely fresh, homemade German-style food, on par or better than most any German restaurant in the area. So it does even out. But be warned, this isn't a cheap food truck meal.

I could have easily eaten two of these delectable sandwiches.

The jaeger schnitzel was another winner, with a thin, well fried and seasoned cutlet smothered in mushroom gravy. You can see the black pepper flakes speckled throughout the creamy sauce below. It was served with a roll, which coincidentally made quite the sauce mop for anything left behind.

The thin cutlet was was easily sliced with a plastic knife, and the seasoned crispy breading soaked up the indulgent creamy sauce. It was a great schnitzel, even though white sauces tend to be not very photogenic.

And the beer at 2SP was not bad at all either. I will be back and even if it's not the Flying Deutschman, I'll be happy to give another contender a try.

Magic Carpet Foods

34th and Walnut
Philadelphia, PA
Website


 Magic Carpet is one of the legends of the West Philly food cart scene. They have been around forever, and consistently crank out some seriously vegetarian delicious food.
 

The owner is really nice, attentive, and humorous.

I usually roll with the falafel on pita sandwich, but decided to dabble, as I was writing this trip up.

Once you place an order (they take cards!), you can wait around the side of the cart and creepily stare at people.

The "Sloppy Jason" consists of vegetarian chili, cheese, and salad on a pita. It will run you about $6, and is a damn fine portion size for the money.

The veggie chili was surprisingly complex, and had a nice flavor to it, reminiscent of a chili with extra tomato base.

They certainly don't skimp on the cheese.

I also went with my usual, the falafel with hummus, feta, and hot sauce. These special requests bumped my sandwich up to $7, which the owner kindly warned me about, but I was willing to bite the bullet for salty cheese.

As usual, the sandwich was great. Fresh ingredients, attention to detail, and delicious falafel all made for a winner.

I love giant chunks of feta.

If you are looking for a cheap, healthy, vegetarian friendly meal to go, you really can't go wrong here. Also, you can find where you are going with this sweet map.

The Dapper Dog

Food Truck | Special Event
Moore College of Art & Design
Website

I don't know how many people are familiar with Parking Day, but it occurred all over the world on Friday, including Philadelphia. To celebrate being part of the action, The Galleries at Moore hosted an event focusing on urban greening through a 'parklet' design competition and they invited The Dapper Dog to cater the event.

They're usually posted up at their small, stationary unit at 3rd & Poplar in Northern Liberties on the weekends, but for special occasions, there's a mobile unit that was recently put into action. Owners Harry & Seth:

The truck is outfitted with some fresh, killer artwork by local illustrator, Adam Smith.

For this occasion, they offered three menu items: a Coney dog, a Chicago dog and an Italian sausage. Because it was a catered event, there were no prices - the host set up the contract for 100 dogs and paid the invoice in advance. In order to recoup something, they sold food tickets for the wallet-friendly cost of $3, which got you a dog + drink.

The Chicago dog had fresh tomatoes, relish, pickled sport peppers, chopped red onion, a dill pickle spear and yellow mustard. Although this wasn't truly a classic Chicago dog, it was pretty delicious. It was missing the bright green sweet pickle relish, which lends an extra pop of (fake) color that I love – not to mention that tangy sweet flavor. Also, red onions? They have too much punch when raw, and in this situation, were a bit aggressive.

The buns definitely make their presence known in these constructions, and although they're quite good, it was difficult to get a bite that contained beef AND toppings. It was either one or the other. Maybe splitting & grilling the dogs would have taken care of the distribution issue. That said, all of the ingredients were high quality and well worth the struggle. Next stop, Coney Island.

Sort of. Dapper Dog's take on the Coney consists of an all beef dog, beef chili (Coney sauce), shredded cheddar and sliced green onion.

Again, they're really exercising their artistic liberties in the interpretations, but that makes it interesting, right? I really liked this dog, but it could use some more contrast in textures. Maybe the definitive crunch of chopped onion... but with all of the onion on the Chicago and given the limited menu, I can understand their decision in differentiating the two through varying ingredients.

I had no interest in the Italian sausage, but I'm sure it was also pretty good. All in all, the dogs were definitely dapper in appearance. The consumption part – not so much. Sloppy eating aside, they're tasty and worth consideration, especially for an affordable, catered event when you're looking for a gourmet spin.

Cucina Zapata

Food Truck, University City
S. 31st & Ludlow St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Twitter

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this truck, and after I heard that it was Asian/Mexican fusion, I figured it was worth a try. Oh, and they have a Cap'n Crunch crusted tilapia burrito for $6.

The line is longer than every other truck on Drexel's food truck row. Of course every other truck only offers regular Chinese food, cheesesteaks, hoagies, or all of the above.

When I was looking at the menu, I just couldn't figure out what to get. So I went kind of nuts.

I started with a chicken satay taco (top) and a short rib taco (bottom).

Both had an amazing amount of components for the price tag. The avocado was fresh and plentiful, the slaw crisp, and the Sriacha sour cream on the satay was absolutely delicious. The green chili sauce on the short ribs was also a winner. Of the two, however, I think I liked the satay just a bit better. The rich marinade cut through the rest of the ingredients, and was about perfect. The short rib itself was just a bit chewy, which was one of my few complaints.

The Cap'n Crunch crusted fish burrito was the best value of the meal. It was quite hefty, certainly a steal at six bucks, and made with the same love as the tacos, and although it had many of the same components, it tasted totally different. Crunchy, slightly sweet breading, with flaky fish inside. The spicy sauce mixed perfectly with the slaw, diced tomatoes, and avocado slices. I was probably most impressed with this offering, overall.

The chicken Katsu, which is a traditional Japanese dish, for anyone who is going to dispute my saying this truck is Thai/Mexican fusion, was also pretty good. An extremely crispy, thin flat cutlet of chicken, served over a bed of slaw, with a fried egg, rice, and Sriracha drizzle. My only complaints were that the egg yolk could have been just a bit more runny, and this dish could use a side of one of their amazing sauces. I ate a lot of plain white rice that was hiding under the egg, and needed something to jazz it up a bit. I am sure the owner, who was ridiculously accommodating, polite, and funny, would be more than happy to fulfill my diva-like requests for extra sauces in the future.

This is now one of my favorite trucks in the city. If you liked how good Tyson Bee's USED to be, you will LOVE Cucina Zapata. Get the fish, get a Thai tea, hell, you can't really go wrong. Just get something.