We have yet to sample the wares of Dos Diablos, but have noted with pleasure the regular “sold out!” notifications posted by the team from White Guy Cooks Thai on their Facebook page.
On Friday night, we had a supreme example of just what a pleasure and a boon such an operation can be.
No photos, no taking of notes, no seeking of information – just a feed for a tired but otherwise very normal family.
With dad returning from a return to work and subsequently tuckered out, we’d picked up Greek salad makings for dinner, but really … not in the mood to cook.
We’d just turned into Gamon St from Charles, when Bennie yelled out: “White Guy Cooks Thai!”
A quick application of the brakes and a U-turn later and we were parked in front of the White Guy truck and ready to rock.
Hainan chicken and mango salad, with heaps of pomegranate seeds, for him.
He loved it, opining halfway through: “I’d like to know how to make this!”
Green vegetable curry with rice and coleslaw for me.
Quite spicy, light, delicious, with green beans, potato, pumpkin, eggplant and more.
A fantastic, affordable meal, the timing of which could not have been better.
White Guy Cooks Thai, Yarraville Gardens. Phone: 0423 214 290
Food truck in the neighbourhood?
In fact, just two minutes’ drive up the road?
Frankly, I can’t get there soon enough.
This is such joyous news that I am therefore surprised to learn that I am White Guy Cooks Thai’s first customer for the day.
Then again, I also learn this enterprise has only been on the road – so to speak – for about a week and that it’s “very early days” in every regard.
The White Guy Cooks Thai crew members on duty for my Saturday lunch visit, Dave and Rachel, tell me the business did have to work patiently with the council to get approval to trade in the west, but that there were no great or insurmountable problems.
Predictably, of the food available I go for the curry dish.
My massaman beef and potato curry with rice and Asian coleslaw ($11.50), served with recyclable container and spoon, is outstanding.
The rice is fine/OK.
The slaw is sweetish and tangy, rather limpid and wonderfully chewy.
The curry is very mildly spiced and the gravy is of lovely stickiness.
The meat is a just-right tender, as are the potato pieces, which are joined by carrot and fresh basil and some mung bean sprouts.
It’s fantastic lunch that’s not spoilt at all by the highish temperature, lack of seating – the garden stone wall does a fine job anyway – or the wind, the latter at least keeping the flies mostly at bay.
Heck, I may even go back for dinner! (Having been told they’ll be open until at least 8.30pm.)
Melbourne’s mobile Gumbo Kitchen has secured a licence for Maribyrnong and its first visit to the western suburbs is in mere weeks, as opposed to months.
These glad tidings are delivered to me by Jimmy and Kurt, who are manning the truck for a Sunday visit to Brunswick Bowls Club in Victoria St.
They promise to keep me up to date with the when and the where, so when I know, you’ll know … right here on Consider The Sauce.
This news may not have been greeted by myself with such delight before sampling their wares, such has been my mood in venturing out for a first taste of Gumbo Kitchen offerings.
That mood has been laden with very low expectations and even pessimism, fostered by a number of factors …
Many visits to New Orleans and South Louisiana, so standards are high.
The cooking at home – though not so much in recent years – of my own very fine gumbos.
Inevitable disappointment spread over many years when Melbourne restaurants tried to cook anything remotely New Orleans.
Cajun this, creole that, blackened whatever?
Bah!
As well, based on the behaviour of friends and some comments on Gumbo Kitchen on blogs and social media, I know very well that Australians generally just don’t understand gumbo.
It’s a soup, not a stew.
It’s meant to be runny.
Rice is just a small part of the experience – maybe 10 to 20 per cent; certainly no more than half a cup of rice per bowl of gumbo.
The rice is not a leading ingredient as with African, Asian or even Middle Eastern food.
This rice-heaping habit is NOT the fault of the Gumbo Kitchen crew, of course.
They nod their heads knowingly when I mention it and seem relieved to be serving someone who knows the ins and outs of New Orleans.
They respond to my pessimism by offering a small sample serve of their chicken and sausage gumbo.
No chicken or sausage, just soup and trinity vegetables – celery, onion, capsicum.
All doubts are removed with the first ecstatic mouthful.
This really IS a gumbo.
The flavour is deep and rich with the twinned magic of just-right seasoning and a flour-oil roux.
Fantastic!
Stupidly, foolishly, I ignore this most obvious of hints and order something else.
My beef debris po’ boy sandwich ($12) is the real deal, too.
It’s big, so the $12-15 prices range for the sandwiches is more than fair.
The handsome, fresh French bread and the dressing of lettuce, tomato and two crunchy halves of pickled cucumber are right on the money.
The beef, though, is a bit of dud.
Beef debris means to me the bits that fall off a roast beef and continue cooking, becoming crunchy and delicious. Like the crispy bits from a Greek souvlaki rotisserie.
This meat is more like shredded beef. It’s very moist to the point of being sopping wet, and the whole thing falls apart – that’s a roast beef po’ boy for you, so no fault there.
But the meat seems to have little or no flavour, even after a liberal dosing with Crystal sauce.
Some of the deep-fried seafood I see folks around me tucking into looks much more the go.
That’s where I’ll heading next time, hopefully in the west and much closer to home.
Or even better, I’ll go the gumbo.
That’s if I don’t make one myself in the meantime.
It’s been a long time!
While I’ve been eating, the music has mainly been by the Rebirth Brass Band and their former leader, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins.
But when I get home, there’s only one New Orleans tune I wanna hear … by the great Smiley Lewis:
We are way too early for picking up Bennie’s mum from the airport.
Chronic earliness is a Weir family trait, but this is much more than a sometimes unhealthy obsession with punctuality or a matter of 10, 20 or even 30 minutes.
It’s a bungle – I got the time wrong, so we left home an hour before we had originally planned.
So after going around and around a few times in the endless dance of avoiding extortionate airport parking fees, we embrace the moment, relax and head up the highway to Sunbury a ways just for a look-see.
Just past the roundabout we come across what appears to be a new and improved parking spot for those watching the planes go by – well, it seems more organised than the last time we were hereabouts.
The wind today has contrived to have planes departing in flight paths that take them right above the parking spot.
So close you feel like you can reach up and pick them out of the sky.
Whoosh!
Of equal interest to us, though, is the magnificent soft-serve ice cream vehicle and one of its slightly smaller siblings.
Interestingly, both are flying flags of Australia and Turkey.
We leave the road test for another day, upon which we will doubtless find out exactly what constitutes “soft-serve gelati” and whether, indeed, it is any different from your standard soft-serve fare usually heralded by the chiming muzak of Greensleeves arriving in our neighbourhood.
We dig the hell out of the artwork and signage on both vans, though.
Note, for instance, the image of Pinocchio getting ready to tuck into a hot dog!
consider the sauce 