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!

Senate

Burger #10: Senate - Senate Burger 12$

Not my picture.  Wish it was though.

I have some free time due to my semester coming to an end this week.  No new homework and only 2 exams next week to go!  This week I am writing a review that should be the complete opposite tone as last week.  I think last week was more disappointment than it was a bad burger by any means.  It sucks to have something built up as this amazing experience and then to have that be just a plain and ordinary thing got to me. The owners of this weeks review are opening a new restaurant soon nearby called Abigail Street.  I recommend checking them both out.

The poutine: truffle fries, melted cheese curds,
gravy and braised short ribs = delicious!
Not my picture.

I am happy to say that I am finally getting to this week's burger from February 15th.  This week's burger review is from Senate, a restaurant that is about a year old in the Over The Rhine area across from Lavomatic, at 1214 Vine Street.  There is parking right next to the building.  I'm glad Senate opened there because this is a good place for me to go before Ensemble Theater shows since I have a season subscription there.  It used to be that I had to go to Lavomatic, but I had a bad experience there with the service during restaurant week 2 years ago, so I try  not to go there anymore.  They are still on the burger list, so I'll have to make one more stop there.  Well, back to Senate...I on a Tuesday night and it was pretty empty when I got there, but by the end there were quite a few people for a Tuesday.  When you walk in, you'll see the bar on the right and seating on the left.  This is not a huge place and there is probably a long wait come dinner time on a weekend, but we were seated right away this day.  This is an upscale restaurant, that specializes NOT in burgers, but  in hot dogs!  Yes I know, who specializes in hot dogs?  Senate does and it does it well! Rachael Ray did a March Madness type bracket of the top 64 hot dog places, and as you can see, Senate made it down to the top 16, being beaten out by the overall winner.

http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/rrmag/everydayLiving/travel/MM6.pdf 

Some of the gourmet hot dogs.
I've had 2 kinds now and they are amazing.
Not my picture.

The hot dogs that are usually on the menu are between 9 to 10$ include the Korean (kimchi and braised ribs), trailer park (bacon wrapped, coleslaw, and crushed grippo's potato chips!), and the Dan Korman (red canalini bean and Turkish lentil sausage, sun dried tomatoes, shaved fennel, arugula and goat cheese).  Also, there is a hot dog of the day, and for this reason I highly recommend following them on facebook here, they named are Senate Restaurant. The dog yesterday posted on their page was "Lisa Lampanelli, it's a pork & sweet onion sausage, chipotle mayo, bacon, beer cheese & fried onions. Obscenely Delicious!"  Beer cheese screams to my inner Wisconsinite in me!  These don't come with sides so you should grab some duck fat fries, truffle fries or lobster mac and cheese to go with it.  This is not a cheap place, but everything I had makes it completely worth it to let go and experience all the noms that Senate has to offer.

On the rest of the menu you'll find a lobster BLT, yup I said lobster BLT, with a basil mayo.  The MC belly (bbq pork belly with wasabi cole slaw and tempura onion ring) and foie gras creme brulee.  Everything sounds so tempting :)  All of this comes with a great beer selection at the bar.  I had a Kentucky bourbon barrel and they had a really good berry beer on tap.

My partner in crime during this adventure recommended the poutine as an appetizer.  It is french fries with local cheese curds melted on top, braised short rib & gravy.  Yup, once again my inner Wisconsinite almost had a tear my eye after seeing that they not only know what cheese curds are, they made them tastier with out deep frying them.  This was one of the best sides I have ever had.  I do think it's also one of the least healthy options as a side, but well worth it to try it since you're there.  My company had a dog which had a taquito on it.  It was really good, but she said she thought the other dogs were better.

This is what a perfect burger looks like afterwards.
Plus it is cooked over a wood stove.This picture was me
trying to finish the burger falling apart.

My  burger was the Senate burger...they only have one, so there it's not a hard choice.  This was a giant, wood grilled angus burger with cheddar, and caramelized onions.  It's worth noting that the brioche bun was very fresh and worked well with the burger.  The house-made pickles were actually 3 kinds of pickles, not just one.  I love pickles so this was an added bonus.  I ordered my burger medium and it came out a little pink in the middle, with a great seasoned taste, not bland at all.  Everything went together perfectly on this burger!  This is by far the completely opposite experience that I had the week before this burger.  It was filling, especially after the poutine.  I may  have eaten too slowly, because by the end the bun soaked up the grease and well...as you can see below, my burger was falling apart. So far this is the fest burger on my list.  If you were going to get one burger this year, I will tell you to go to Senate.

Greasy deliciousness!
That is a tomato hanging on for dear life. 

Go to Senate!