Culinary adventures, street (and restaurant and kitchen) style

Last Friday for lunch I ate food from a truck.  A street vendor.  Dallas doesn't have these.  Fojol Brothers of Merlindia.  They play crazy music, make a delicious chicken curry and stewed pumpkin with basmati rice, and throw out blankets on whatever green patch happens to be nearby their temporary parking spot to encourage patrons to sit and stay a while to enjoy their food.  It was really tasty.  I didn't take any pictures of this experience because (1) I was really hungry, (2) the only camera at my disposal was contained in my Blackberry, which tends to be a little subpar, and (3) no one besides me really cares about that.  So...I bring you a shot from the depths of Flickr, courtesy of Dave Kleinschmidt, just so you can get an idea of the food joy those Fojol Brothers emanate.

Saturday I found myself in the depths of Virginia (ok, not exactly the depths, but enough in the depths that a shopping center composed entirely of Vietnamese offerings presented itself, which isn't necessarily a "depths of Virginia" experience, but really, how else am I going to describe this?), and when I found myself remarkably close to Eden Center, I had to drive around for 20 minutes to find a parking spot and have a lunch adventure.  I got a little scared.  I kinda felt like I might actually be in Vietnam, given my general paleness and speaking of English in comparison to the general crowd around me.  After a near miss where I ducked into a bakery in search of bánh mì and discovered that I could probably only order things by pointing at mystery objects, I found some comfort - the Washingtonian "hey, this is a good place to eat!!" sign of approval hanging in the window of Huong Viet, so I went in and grabbed myself a spot for one.  I ordered a coconut water thing and something involving rice noodles and a pork egg roll with other assorted stuff strewn about the bowl (apparently including something that generally frightens Westerners, because my waiter expressed some concern over my menu choice, but I assured him I could handle whatever he brought out - I'll try anything once!).  It was really tasty, especially once I added enough vinegar and soy sauce and sriracha to bring it to an Erin-level of spice.  I could really get into this "we're going to bring you something and you season/garnish away" thing.  I captured a couple of shots with my old camera because it's what I had on hand.  And it made me love the fancy camera that much more. 

Oh, and Sunday I busted out a strawberry pie to share with friends for Memorial Day festivities involving smoked meat.  I can assure you that the pie is completely gone at this point.  Jazz it up with a chocolate shell inside the crust and a chocolate drizzle on top and it disappears even faster than you thought possible.  Behold the power of chocolate.

You know how I love food.  Deal with it.