Café De Wheels

Burger #19: Café De Wheels – Northside of Beef – $9+6$

Food trucks are awesome!
Pic from Urbanspoon.

It’s a new year, and I managed to get done with my burger quest!  I only had to do 5 burgers in 1 week, 4 of which were in 3 days.  I cannot believe I actually finished this in the year 2011.  Now starts “no beef January”.  I just have 12 reviews to catch up on now and I can start on my 2012 New Year’s resolution.  I will be going to the top sushi, pizza, new and overall restaurants in the city.  It’s going to be a much more varied kind of experience, so I don’t know how I will be able to rate these places since sushi is nothing like pizza obviously. 

This is review #28 in the order of which I had the burgers and I caught up with the traveling food cart known as Café De Wheels.  Cincinnati magazine had this burger as # 19 on their top 40 burger list.  In order to catch up with the mobile food cart, you can catch it usually downtown for lunch near fountain square, but late night it has a few regular spots it hits.  I found it once outside of Neon’s on Main street in OTR.  It can also be found at various events where there is sure to be a crowd.  I tracked it down outside of Music Hall on September 16^th, 2011 at a Friday night pops show.  It’s amazing how many dressed up people were standing outside eating at a mobile cart.  It just shows how well these carts are immersing into the city’s culinary culture. 

The menu options have a slightly Cincinnati feel.  Non-burger sandwiches are the usual grilled cheese, crispy chicken, and the Cincinnati Cuban.  This last one I’ve had the pleasure of trying on my first visit outside of Neon’s.  I had the Cuban because I already had a burger of the week the day before. Slow cooked Cuban pork, ham, swiss, grilled onions, mustard and butter are on a fresh locally made bun.  If I go back to Café De Wheels, it might just be for this sandwich it was so good!  The veggie options are the Mt. Healthy (homemade vegan burger with rice, beets, lentils, mushroom, carrots) which sounds like something I should try at least once, as well as a portabella Philly.  There are some unique sides here.  The regular fries are thicker than shoestrings, but it’s what you can get on them that make them great, feta or bbq pulled pork.  The Funky Fries with pulled pork is 6$, but since I am such a fan of pulled pork, there is no doubt I’ll get these again, since I have twice now.  I haven’t had the sweet potato fries, but they are always a welcome change to bland American food we’ve all grown up with.   

Funky Fries were loaded
Pic from Urbanspoon.

Since this is a food cart, the selection is limited, but you can modify your burger to your liking.  The 6$ 1/3 pound Wheels Burger is unique with a balsamic onion marmalade, spicy mayo, and the normal fixin’s.  Bbq sauce, fried onion straws, and swiss make up the Cowboy Burger.  You can add bacon to anything, or double your burger meat (Heavy) for 2$.  Animal style is cooked with mustard plus heavy balsamic onions.  For my burger, I was feeling hungry so I went with the Northside of Beef, which is the wheels burger with 2 patties for 2/3 lb with bacon.  I will say that it took about 20 minutes for our burgers since it was fairly crowded.  I wasn’t expecting that wait, but good thing there was great weather because I’m not so much up for that during the winter weather.  The burger was great and filling.  The patties were not too seasoned, but had a great greasiness even if it was cooked above medium.  The grease mixed well with the balsamic onions and the bun which was flaky and one of the best I’ve had.  The bacon was average, not great.   With that I had the funky fries with bbq pulled pork and they were some of the best fries I’ve had.  They were filling and well worth the 6$.  

My burger had two patty and was very filling.
Pic from Urbanspoon.

At this point I have to say that’ll I’ll definitely be back to Café De Wheels.  I think that food carts are the hidden gems of any city.  They provide cheap, tasty, and convenient food where there not be any close places to go.  Try a burger and some funky fries, you will be happy you did.  I also think that you should Taco Truck Azul, which are some of the best tacos I’ve had in the city behind Taqueria Mercado. 

Happy 2012!