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Showing posts from June, 2012

Punjabi Bento

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Shame on me. I produced this bento last week and am only now getting to post it. I guess two impromptu posts about trailer food took the wind out of my sails. So I've mentioned before that coming up with new themes after five years gets a little tough. So a friend suggested that I narrow in on specific regions of India as a source of new bento themes. Since my Indian themes tend to be very popular I thought it was a great idea. I decided to start my journey with the northwestern Indian province of Punjab. We start off with our main dish Murg Makkai. It's it's a chicken curry with a tomato based gravy.  Every region of India has it's own signature to the nations cuisine. Punjabi cooking includes greater use of dairy as well as meat. Here we use yogurt to give the curry some tang as well as some thickness. The use of corn is a new concept for me in Indian food I cannot recall the use of corn in any Indian dishes I've eaten in the past. One of the compl

NIAB: NATY Trip 2

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So two days later and we're back at the North Austin Trailer Yard (NATY) because my girlfriend really was craving some more ramen and I was game to check out the other trailers. It was a pretty nice day the only downside was that most of the trailers were closed. That probably explains why there were very few people around. It turned out only Michi and Snarky's were open. And since I was on the low carb train I went with Snarky's. They do slow roasted sandwiches. Since it was a slow day I got a chance to talk with the chef and owner Chuck Watkins. He's been in the restaurant/bar industry for a while and decided to make a go of a food trailer of his own. It turns out he and his business partner were the ones that came up with the NATY idea. He wanted to build on the giant pink gorilla that was already located in the parking lot and go with a "zoo" theme, hence the sculptures you see from the title picture. Chuck said that he wanted to bring in a trai

NIAB: North Austin Trailer Yard

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Ok one of my biggest complaints recently have been the unfair distribution of food trailers in Austin. THEY'RE ALL DOWN SOUTH OR EAST ok they are mostly down south and east, there's a random one or two that go north of downtown. Apparently this has changed, the North Austin Trailer Yard (NATY) opened up officially May 12, 2012. There's a modest amount of food trailers here but it's a great start. My girlfriend and I met with our friends Michael and Tina from Cooking for Engineers specifically to check out the Michi Ramen trailer but since I'm on the low carb thing I went and checked out the Big Fat Greek Gyros so I figure this post will be the start of my experiences at the NATY. So my first stop was the Big Fat Greek Gyros . The owner seemed really nice. I think they're still trying to get their rhythm going. He kept apologizing for the wait, but having done a stint in a trailer and having eaten at a few other trailers waiting is par for the course an