Taqueria El Asadero

This is the long-existing taco bus near the Genesee area Safeway on Rainier Ave. This place has its perks. To begin with, they will make vegetarian versions of most of their menu (and even have vegetarian tamales!) I ordered 3 vegetarian tacos and they were packed with rice, refried beans (likely including lard), cheese, iceberg lettuce and tomatoes. They tacos were very inexpensive.

Once you get your order, there are a few awesome things in the bus. For starters, Taqueria El Asadero still manages their salsa old-school style: in squeeze bottles scattered around the bus and on the outside tables where you help yourself to all you want. For a salsa lover such as myself, this is a real bonus. Second, the radishes, limes, and pickled jalapenos and carrots also exist in a "serve yourself" style dispensary. I love these additions to the taco, and it is very satisfying to have full access!

Flair Tacos

I have a new favorite in the Seattle taco truck department: Flair Tacos in Fremont. This is vegetarian's taco truck dream with two awesome, intentional, distinct types of vegetarian (appear to be vegan) tacos: a grilled veggie version, and a tofu adobado version. Both of them are delicious. 

Two grilled veggie, two tofu adobado.

In addition, Flair makes tasty salsa and adds plenty of radishes and limes to your order. It is also open late, something that I have benefitted from after a celebratory night in Fremont, but the tacos are equally delicious in the sober light of day.

It's not hard to find a decent vegetarian taco around town, but the Flair Taco truck has really taken the prize for creating an intentional, healthy option for vegetarians that looks and tastes every bit as satisfying as the meaty counterparts. As a general indication of taco size, if I'm super hungry, I can probably eat around 5 tacos. A typical light meal might be 3-4 tacos. One taco makes a perfect little snack.

Prices are typical taco truck cheap.

Tacos El Asadero

I have walked past the jumbo bus, Taco "truck" at Othello and MLK, by the Othello lightrail station, countless times and finally stopped in for some tacos. There weren't any vegetarian tacos on the menu, but it was no problem to order them. After you order, you can actually board the bus and and sit inside and eat and watch Mexican TV, but I got my tacos to go.

I ordered three vegetarian tacos. They were somewhere around a buck fifty a piece, and came full of beans, rice, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream. Both the red and the green salsas were delicious and spicy. I think the refried beans may have been cooked with lard.

The one thing that was obviously lacking was the little packet of pickled carrot/radish/jalapeno/fresh lime... on one hand, they are tiny insignificant garnishes, on the other, they are one of my favorite parts of eating at a taco truck.

These tacos totally hit the spot, and are hard to beat for the price. One complaint is the use of styrofoam in the packaging for the tacos to-go. I'd definitely be willing to pay a little more for a compostable option.

Best Corn - Antojitos Mexicanos

There are many emerging intriguing culinary delights at the "Othello Swap Meet" parking lot at the Othello lightrail station at MLK and Othello, including Antojitos Mexicanos, AKA "Best Corn" shack that sells elote (roasted corn on the cob sprinkled with various delicious things), and esquitas (roasted corn off the cob).

On one cold recent evening I bought myself a large sized order of esquitas and it was quite the treat. I ordered mine with everything but the mayonnaise (mayo seems to be a standard part of the dish), and what I received was a big cup full of freshly roasted, freshly decobbed corn layered with butter, lime juice, cheese, chili powder and chili sauce. It was super delicious, and the buttery, corn-y, lime-y cheesy, spicy liquid that remains once the kernals are gone is a treat in itself.

This would be a great snack to munch on while waiting for the lightrail... all the tastyness of a well-dressed elote, but with the tidyness of a spoon.

Beloved Mexico

I have raved about Beloved Mexico before here, but wanted to post a little update with another tantalizing picture. As a quick review, Beloved Mexico is a very special taco truck in West Seattle that takes care to use good quality ingredients and makes healthy and satisfying food for both meat-eaters and vegetarians alike.

I recently had the pleasure of eating a full meal at the truck, and was thrilled with what I got. I ordered a vegetarian enchilada meal (with the special request of filling them with pinto beans and veggies instead of the standard vegetarian filling of potatoes and cheese), which came with my choice of two sides.

The enchiladas were delicious... warm corn tortillas filled with tasty fillings and covered in a fresh green enchilada sauce, a little sour cream and a sprinkle of queso and cilantro. I chose sauteed onions and peppers as one side (well seasoned), and a house salad with lime dressing as my second.

I left, as always after a visit to Beloved Mexico, feeling full, healthy and happy!

Pai's

I came across Pai's food truck late in the evening at the South Lake Union Block Party. Most of the cuisine related components of the event had long shut down, and the masses of hungry late-comers were hanging out in a parking lot surrounded by soft glow and smokey allure of the food trucks.

I have long coveted the Hawaiian plate lunch, and was thrilled to see the Pai's has a vegetarian friendly plate. It is a pretty far stretch from the traditional meat/rice/mac salad type of affair, but the deviations made it that much more awesome for me as a vegetarian.

I got a "plate special" with lemongrass tofu and bok choy over rice, and my two sides were sesame coleslaw (no mayo!), and vegetarian kimchee.


Thank you Pai's for creating such a rad option for the vegetarians! (And vegans too, far as I can tell).

Beloved Mexico

Beloved Mexico is a taco truck in West Seattle that stands immediately apart in both appearance and conscience. The truck itself (more like a trailer) is shiny black with glossy cursive writing, and the family (owners) working inside pride themselves on quality ingredients and healthy preparations.

There are many vegetarian options, including a satisfying veggie taco with large, fresh corn tortillas, refried beans, and a big pile of grilled peppers and onions. They also have multiple cheese and potato dishes, burritos, tortas, etc. The salsa are freshly made, spicy and delicious. The pickled jalapeno that came with my taco tasted home-pickled with subtle hints of delicious spices.
My meat eating dining companion is especially thrilled to be getting his taco truck favorites from a place that uses good locally sourced meat, and as a vegetarian, I am happy to support businesses that make those sorts of choices too.

The prices are all taco truck cheap.

Stopping at Beloved Mexico used to be an occasional treat, but after hearing a KUOW radio show about people living "without a net" that featured Beloved Mexico's Guerrero brothers, we tend to stop every time we pass by, hungry or not. You can listen to the feature here: https://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=22719

I get complicated feelings around this... part of me wants to support the heck out of small, local restaurants making good food with good ethics. The other part of me feels like it's futile... that there are too many restaurants to each get enough of our city's collective "eating out" budget to survive. But then I think: But what the F about all the money spent at Applebees? And the Olive Garden? And the Cheesecake Factory?? These places aren't cheap, and every time I've ever had anything to do with them they've been packed with people complacently stuffing their pieholes.There is PLENTY of eating out budget, it's just being used in the wrong (IMHO) places.

It makes me angry that Beloved Mexico, with healthy, artful, delicious, reasonably priced food and carefully selected meat is just barely surviving (possibly headed to extinction soon unless business kicks up) while people will plunk down $13 at an Azteca for a mediocre cooperate meal without a flinch.

What the hell is wrong with us?? Go get some Beloved Mexico tacos before it's too late.

Safeway

And to finish off my tiny, frugal culinary tour of Maui, I've saved the best for last: picnic dinner on the beach.

My dining companion was really excited about eating some Poke (a raw fish salad that has all kinds of variations) on the trip, and we'd heard that the huge poke selection in the Safeway deli was actually pretty good, and so we went there to supply our picnic.

I was THRILLED beyond expectation to find that there was a vegetarian poke in the midst! It was made of marinated tofu, seaweed (very mild), green onions, garlic, and rich dark, savory toasted sesame oil and fresh greens of some kind. Oh my goodness it was good!


We also had a bagged salad, a warm sunset and a giant beer to round out the meal. (Well, truth be told, salad, sunset, and beer and a nice greasy bag of jojo potatoes. Somehow those didn't make the picture!)

Here's a close up of the vegetarian poke, yum:

Disclaimer: There was some (after the fact) discussion about this salad possibly having Oyster Sauce in it, which could explain why I was hit with an almost obscene savory deliciousness that I didn't recognize as I ate it. The mystery remains.

Dante's Inferno Dogs

Dante's Inferno Dogs has a cart in Ballard that is open late to feed the drunken masses. I recently went on a dark and rainy night and was quite pleased to see that they have two veggie dog choices: Spicy Chipotle and Apple Sage. I chose the Spicy Chipotle, and from a nice list of toppings selected cream cheese, grilled onions and peppers, banana pepper and jalapeno slices as my toppings. My 3 other dining companions got the same dog with their individual topping choices.
I inhaled mine, enamoured by the toppings and not paying much attention to the dog itself. My dining companions, all of whom were of the "conscientious omnivore", sometimes vegetarian persuasion, were not exactly enjoying theirs. One went back and got himself a meat dog. The other two ate their Chipotle dogs, but felt pretty immediately gross and had lingering upset stomachs that lasted into the next day. These friends all love spicy food, yet there was talk that the Chipotle dog was just too danged spicy to be enjoyable.

I seem to be winning this hotdog race

It is kind of a mystery that I didn't experience this myself, especially considering mine was covered in hot peppers... I'm thinking that maybe I was so relieved and thankful to have a vegetarian option to shove in my piehole I didn't pay enough attention to whether it was actually good or not.

Los Potrillos

I had heard good things about the taco truck at Rainier Ave and Graham, and recently, in the pouring rain, checked it out.

Nice horse painting on side of truck

The menu is relatively short. They have tacos, burritos, tostadas, tortas and a variety of plates including seafood. They have all of the various meats cooked all of the various ways, and the captain of the truck informed me that they are willing to make vegetarian tacos, quesadillas, tostadas and burritos, even though they aren't on the menu.

The tacos are $1.10 a piece, and I ordered 2. My meat eating companions ordered chicken tacos, asado tacos and tacos al pastor. It is indeed possible to eat *at* the truck, at the busy intersection in the parking lot of the 76 station in a military-esque canvas tent, but on this extremely rainy day we opted to take our tacos and eat at home.

Turned out that a $1.10 taco is pretty tiny! Should have known it. I had my 2 tacos, and my companions ordered 3 and 4, and we all found ourselves not quite full. I think 3-4 would have done it for me, and the other two speculated they would need 5-6 and 7-8 to make a satisfying meal.

Cute little chicken tacos with beer for scale

The vegetarian tacos were decent. On top of the very cute little corn tortillas was a good smear of refried beans (in retrospect, possibly made with lard? they were awfully savory and delicious...), rice, cheese, chopped tomato, slice of avocado, sour cream. We were each given a little foil packet of lime, radish and carrot (neither of which were as spicy as I would have preferred), and a couple tiny containers of salsa, one green and one red. The salsas were both excellent, but there wasn't enough of either. In the future I think I'll offer to pay for larger quantities of both.

Veggie tacos

The boys reported that their meat tacos were good too. Greasy, savory, richly colored little tiny baby tacos.

Rancho Bravo

Rancho Bravo is a taco truck that parks in the Winchell's Doughnuts parking lot in Wallingford. There are a couple of things that are immediately notable about this place, the first of which is an extremely vegetarian friendly menu. The menu consists of all the inexpensive taco truck standards: tacos, burritos, tortas, and the addition of bowls (more or less a burrito sans tortilla). For any of these, the customer is given a choice of various meats, or a vegetarian mix that includes grilled veggies and mushrooms (and beans if you ask).

Photo courtesy Stephanie P.

I ordered two tacos with the veggie mixture + beans, and for around $4, received a huge gorgeous plate overflowing with soft warm corn tortillas, big piles of colorful veggies and black beans, fresh cilantro, radish slices, and juicy lime wedges. I slathered them in all three of the self serve salsas, which turned out to be hotter than I expected (I like spicy stuff, but almost ruined my tacos by adding too much without testing it out first), and sat down to eat.

The second item of note is that the food is remarkably unsalted, which is a detail that I immensely appreciate. And it seems that they intentionally left the salt level low and instead supplied a large container of little salt packets to allow self-salting, which I did to my taste, and which contributed to a home-cooked healthy feel to the meal.

As with any taco truck, there seemed to be a wide swath of society coming through ordering up a cheap dinner. And as with any taco truck, the furnished plastic dining table wasn't the cleanest surface in the world, but all of that is to be more or less expected. For me, it is the generous accommodation to vegetarians that is the most noteworthy!

Rancho Bravo
Wallingford
211 NE 45th St
Seattle, WA 98105
www.myspace.com/ranchobravotacos

Vashon Saturday Market

Vashon Island has a wonderful summertime Saturday market located at the Village Green. In addition to various crafts and art and fresh fruits and veggies, there are often at least two excellent options for buying hot cooked-to-order food.

One booth makes made to order omelets with local farm fresh eggs, a veggie lasagna, a tofu scramble and other interesting fully vegetarian (and some vegan) options, and the other booth is sort of Asian themed and makes (in addition to some non-vegetarian dumplings and hum bow and smoked salmon sushi) a vegetarian curry and a bowl of thin noodles in a vegetarian mushroom broth with green onion and pickled daikon.

I was unfortunately not super hungry, and the bowl of noodles was all my appetite really desired. They were simple and tasty and $3.

Noodles and Lazy Jane Slippers

I'll know next time to go with a bigger appetite because some of the tofu options looked fantastic!

Vashon Island Saturday Market

Jai Thai

Jai Thai on Broadway has a rather attractive lunch special at their walk up counter: Red Coconut curry for $3. The version advertised on their chalkboard is made with chicken and fish sauce, but they have been happy to oblige my request for tofu and have offered on every occasion (so far) to make me up a special batch of the rich curry that excludes fish sauce.

What you get for $3 is enough food to make you full, for sure, though a large amount of the bulk is rice. The vegetarian version comes with a pile of veggies, mostly cabbage, a few large cubes of tofu (they asked if I preferred soft or fried), and a good douse of creamy, savory, slightly spicy coconut red curry sauce. It doesn't exactly feel like ratios that the food pyramid would approve, but it still tastes good and is cheap.I like to spice it up with some chili sauce, which is available on the lunch counter

On the days with nicer weather, they put one little table out on the sidewalk for anybody inclined to sit. I tend to just walk away food in hand, and recently suffered a casualty when one of my three jiggly tofu cubes tumbled to the ground. Got to be careful with precious resources!

Sorry, no 5 second rule for you

In addition to the red coconut curry, the lunch specials also include salad rolls and spring rolls (including tofu options), for $1, and Thai iced tea for $2.

Jai Thai

(206) 322-5781

Capitol Hill
235 Broadway E
Seattle, WA 98102
www.jaithai.com

Pista sa Nayon

Smelled the unusually delicious smell of something being grilled wafting through the trees as I jogged around Seward Park this morning, and ventured up the hill to find this: Pista sa Nayon, a big Filipino event that has something to do with Seafair.
A perusal of the food booths led me to understand the following: It would be tough to be a vegetarian in the Phillipenes. Each booth had a delicious smell and sold more or less the same thing: Some grilled meat, lumpia, and pancit noodles. The plan was for my friend to order a combo plate and share his noodles while he ate the meat. We choose the longest line and waited patiently. First bite of noodles: Yum. Second bite: Huh, wait, what... oh... dang. Meat. At least two kinds.
There were also two kinds of noodles: fat opaque noodles and skinny clear noodles and a garlicy sweet spicy sauce to accompany them. I was hungry from my run and so appetized by the delicious smells that I made an attempt to eat around the meat, but it was a labor intensive affair.

After our meal, we checked all of our pockets and rounded up enough money for a Halo Halo, the omnipresent dessert of the day.

Halo Halo is an interesting dessert that goes something like this:

• Boiled beans, maybe a couple of different kinds, and other boiled fruit (in this case lychee and young coconut), in the bottom of a cup in a sugary starchy bean syrup.
• Big Scoop of shaved ice
• Pour of sweetened condensed milk over the ice
• On top a small jiggly wedge of flan, a ball of brilliantly purple ube (mashed purple yam) and a scoop of ice cream.

Dig deep to get the beans!

They also sold one of my favorite guilty deserts, deep fried sticky coconut rice balls with a fried, caramalized brown sugar crust, but we didn't have enough money on us to buy any.

Even the free candy was meat shaped

It was a pretty neat scene down there... tons of people and all kinds of entertainment, including kids from the Filipino Youth Activities group who did a dance with some large poles. It included a segment where the ornately dressed young girls did a very passionate stick fight, and I found it to be particularily touching.

Taxi Dogs

I was in need of a quick easy bite while weaving through the crowds in Pike Place market the other day, and was so happy to see that Taxi Dogs offer vegetarian hotdogs. I'm not even sure how much I like vegetarian hot dogs, but the experience of grabbing a hot dog on the street has been so off limits for so long that I relished the chance to ketchup.Taxi Dogs has a nice selection of toppings that you can add to your hot dog for a price (cheeses, grilled onions, grilled peppers, chili, etc), and also a nice selection of free condiments too (both dill and sweet pickle relish, chopped raw onion, all sorts of hot sauces, a couple types of mustard, ketchup, etc.)

I ordered mine with cream cheese and grilled peppers, then garnished with dill pickle relish, black pepper, raw onions, and hot sauce. I think I even felt a tinge of All American pride as I crammed that baby in!

Taxi Dogs
1928 Pike Pl
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 443-1919

Columbia City Farmers Market: GreenGo

The Farmers Market makes me so hungry. Even with arms full of produce ready to be taken home and cooked, it is hard to resist the exciting convenience of something fresh-made and healthy and ready for immediate consumption.

Today at the Columbia City Farmers market I got some food from GreenGo, whose byline is "Fast Food with a Conscience." One way that they express this presence of conscience is by preparing their food with local, organic ingredients, and another is by using compostable bowls and cutlery. They also offer a $0.50 discount for bringing and using your own dish.
Their menu is straight forward: they routinely make grilled polenta and serve it up with varied seasonal toppings. Today it was served under the name of the "Caballero," and came covered in azuki bean chili and served with a fresh crisp slaw that was made from all sorts of good tasting plants. It cost $5 and was delicious.
I also ordered the "Sweet Cakes," which consisted of grilled polenta covered in a rhubarb, apple, raspberry sauce and a little locally made hormone-free whipped cream. It was tart and rich and only a little bit sweet- a wonderful dessert that didn't overwhelm the healthy feel of the rest of the meal.
My meat-eater companion ordered the third and final element of the menu, the Organic Beef Cheeseburger. I don't usually get excited over the smell of a burger, but this one smelled outrageously delicious. He enjoyed it too.

The only complaint would be that the servings were just shy of enough.

I look forward to venturing down on Wednesday afternoons and sampling the various seasonal polenta toppings as the summer progresses!

Green Go
Columbia City Farmers Market
4801 Rainier Ave S, at S Edmonds
Wednesdays, 3pm - 7pm,
April 30 through Oct 22

Roasted Corn El Oaxaqueno

I don't really know what's not to love in this rustic little corn stand. The experience starts with a Oaxacan man who pulls an ear of corn still dressed in its charred husk fresh out of a little red roasting trailer, then quickly shucks it and skewers it and garnishes it as you like it. "Everything" includes a brush of butter, a slather of mayonnaise, grated Parmesan and a good sprinkling of chili powder.
I ate mine with everything but the mayonnaise, and it was just right for me. Real slow roasted corn is always a treat... possibly not always the tautest of kernels, but the piping hot roast-y flavour makes one forgive that detail. The butter and Parmesan added richness, and the chili powder lent a slowly building heat on my lips that was a full on (pleasure) burn by the end.
Roasted Corn El Oaxaqueno is honest to goodness vegetarian street food. What a delight!

(In the parking lot of:)
MacPherson's Fruit and Produce
4500 15th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98108
(206) 762-0115