Track that Truck! Brown Bag Lunch Truck
By Minna A in Food on Jul 22, 2011 6:30PM
Brisket, pulled pork and chicken may sounds like a standard BBQ menu, but new food truck Brown Bag Lunch Truck brings new flavors to traditional favorites using special slaws and spices to create a new breed of BBQ sandwiches.
Chef/driver/owner Joaquin Soler does it all, from smoking meats and blending sauces to packaging and navigating downtown parking nightmares. Believing that Chicagoans would prefer a sweet and sticky style of BBQ, Soler wanted to offer an alternative to the norm that incorporated his experiences of Filipino street food from his childhood, his time as sous chef of Rambutan and his travels across the U.S. visiting BBQ joints.
The Brown Bag Truck lunch serves up a deconstructed BBQ sandwich, with plenty of sides and sauces to build your own creation. Meats include brisket, pulled pork and a peanut butter chicken, but the interesting part of these lunches is the plethora of interesting choices in sides and suaces. With a menu constantly rotating to incorporate new tastes and flavors to their slaws and sauces, visiting the truck on an irregular basis also means a chance to try out new flavors.
Sauce accompaniments include Tiger Cry sauce (lime, smoked tomatoes, tasted garlic, cilantro, fish sauce and chili flakes) for the brisket, Tea Party Sauce (an interesting blend that includes banana ketchup, various teas—hence the name, rice wine vinegar and kecap maniss—an Indonesian soy sauce) for the pulled pork and a sauce called jelly, made of onion confit and orange marmalade mixed in with plum sauce, rice wine vinegar and fish sauce. Each savory sauce adds an interesting tangy sweetness to your choice of meat entrée.
Not to be missed are the sides featured at Brown Bag Lunch Truck. With a evolving menu of Asian-inspired sides it may be hard to name a favorite, but not to be missed is the spicy elotes, served piping hot and on the cob with a limey spicy mayo, which can also be used for adventurous build-your-own sandwichers.
Follow Brown Bag Lunch Truck @brownbagtruck.