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KOREAN & JAPANESE |
Avenue North |
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These food trucks stand out on the crowded streets
by Craig LaBan, Philadelphia Inquirer
Food trucks are a Philadelphia-wide phenomenon.
But in University City, trucks are a way of life, feeding the campus culture's insatiable hunger for good, cheap eats.
Nowhere in the city is there such an intense concentration of food trucks, and the result is a healthy competition, both for rock bottom values and menu diversity. Whether you want kung pao chicken, vegetarian meatballs, incendiary vindaloo curry or a plantain burrito, there is a truck that can feed you for $5 or less. A really good cheesesteak, meanwhile, is getting harder to find.
Are these mobile kitchens any good? I ate at 15 different trucks over the course of two days, chewing my way up Spruce Street by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, across 38th Street to Walnut, then back down to an enclave of trucks on the 3700 block of Sansom.
The verdict is mixed at best.
Filling your belly will never be a problem. But most trucks served up ordinary fare, and some were downright awful.
My best meals were at two Asian trucks on 38th Street:
Aside from having the friendliest service, KoJa, near Walnut Street, served up some extremely tasty Korean fare, including a hearty mound of sesame-tinged beef bul-go-gi, refreshing cubes of kimchee radish and an addictive stir-fried tofu tossed with a chile sauce that made it glow like fire. The truck that houses Yue Kee is so old and beaten-up, I nearly walked by. But I'm glad I didn't. This venerable Chinese mainstay beside the Locust Street bridge (since 1983) offered the best truck food I tasted by far. Tender beef came glazed with garlicky black bean sauce, beside violet-colored half-moons of delicate Chinese eggplant. A dry saute of ma pao tofu blended bean curd with irresistibly salty, spicy crumbles of ground pork. It was as good, if not better, than some of my favorites in Chinatown. But be prepared to wait (or call ahead). In a neighborhood that prizes the values of quick and cheap, those in-the-know will also happily wait for the good stuff.
