food truck

Other County Board Actions Last Night

By ARLnow.com

It was a long night for the county board, which didn’t adjourn its recessed meeting until a few minutes after midnight. In addition to a controversial resolution regarding the Secure Communities program, a briefing on next year’s budget projections and the passage of the Crystal City Sector Plan, the board took a number of other significant actions.

The board heard a presentation by County Manager Michael Brown regarding staff research into the proposed development plan for East Falls Church. Details are available on the county’s web site.

Funds for the design of a better Ballston beaver pond were approved unanimously. The $471,842 contract calls for a new design that will allow the pond to do a better job of treating stormwater while still providing a habitat for wildlife.

A plan to renovate 162 apartments in Colonial Village was approved unanimously. The board looked into concerns about parking and trash expressed by neighboring residents, but otherwise made no alterations.

After another somewhat lengthy discussion about outdoor patios, the board voted unanimously to renew Hard Times Cafe’s outdoor seating permit. The board specified an allowance of four tables and eight chairs on the North Highland Street sidewalk during dinner time.

The board voted 4-1 to advertise a steep fee increase for restaurant and food vendor licenses. The board was careful to emphasize that the fee hike, from $100 to $285, was mandated by the state and already in place in neighboring jurisdictions. The fee would apply evenly to brick and mortar restaurants and mobile food vendors.

At the very end, the board approved some sort of settlement with the owner of the long-delayed Bromptons development in Cherrydale. Update at 11:15 a.m. — The settlement deals with a dispute between the owner and the county over utility undergrounding. Under terms of the settlement, Bromptons owner R15, LLC will pay $255,000 to a utility fund.

Arlington Street Food Vendors to Participate in DC Festival

By ARLnow.com

The Rebel Heroes banh mi sandwich truck and the District Taco cart have spent the summer exclusively serving hungry crowds around Arlington. But each has their sights set on licenses to operate in the District.

That’s the explanation for why the popular Arlington vendors were invited by DC government to participate in next week’s inaugural “Curbside Cook-Off” at CityCenterDC.

As the Washington City Paper tells it, District Taco and Rebel Heroes will “stick out like tourists in downtown D.C.” during the two-day mobile food event on Oct. 7 and 8. Also participating will be 18 DC-based vendors, including DC Slices and Sweetflow Mobile, which occasionally slum over to Arlington for special events.

So if our beloved street vendors do get licensed in DC, will we ever see them again?

District Taco says yes — they’ll simply get another cart to operate in DC. We’re still waiting to hear back from Rebel Heroes.

Canadian Food Network Comes to Ballston for Rebel Heroes

By ARLnow.com

A TV crew was in Ballston yesterday filming the Rebel Heroes banh mi sandwich truck for a special to air on Food Network Canada.

The crew interviewed several of Rebel Heroes’ lunchtime customers, as well as a local food blogger. They also traveled to Falls Church’s Open Kitchen, where the Heroes’ Cuban-Vietnamese ingredients are prepared.

The segment is expected to air on a TV program that will profile “the best food trucks in North America.”

The same Canadian TV crew has profiled a grilled cheese truck in Los Angeles and a schnitzel truck in New York. (Can someone bring both of those things to DC, please?)

In honor of their their time in the Canadian television limelight, the Rebel Heroes gang gave away free t-shirts and other merchandise to every 25th customer. They ran out of food within a few hours.

Photo courtesy Rebel Heroes.

District Taco’s Revenge

By ARLnow.com

Yesterday We Love DC reported that Arlington taco truck District Taco had been unceremoniously booted from its regular spot in Rosslyn.

Why? Because the spot — boldly staked out between Baja Fresh and Chipotle — apparently wasn’t sitting well with management at Baja Fresh, who complained to Monday Properties, which was renting the space to District Taco.

Well, Osiris Hoil and his crew were back on the streets of Rosslyn this morning, bringing their breakfast burritos to the masses. They found a new spot on North Lynn Street, between Wilson Boulevard and 19th Street, according to their Twitter feed.

“That is right, we are back!!! We might be small but our heart is big! Who doesn’t want to make the American Dream?” Hoil wrote.

If you hurry, you may be able to get the pollo asado or carnitas District Taco is serving for lunch.

District Taco is Muy Bueno

By ARLnow.com

Not too long ago, Osiris Hoil was laid off from a construction job. Hoil was feeling down in the dumps when someone suggested he pursue his real passion: cooking. With his family’s encouragement, the District Taco stand was born late last summer.

The tiny cart is staffed by Hoil’s brother and a friend. Hoil works the crowd outside, taking orders, swiping credit cards on a portable payment machine and making conversation as customers wait for their food.

For now, District Taco is exclusively an Arlington institution. They frequent the office worker havens of Rosslyn and Crystal City for breakfast and lunch on weekdays, with Saturday appearances at the Courthouse farmer’s market.

Starting on June 7, the cart will also provide dinner for moviegoers at Crystal City’s outdoor movie nights.

Hoil has a give-no-quarter approach to choosing locations. In Rosslyn, he positions the stand squarely between the Chipotle and the Baja Fresh. In Crystal City, he’s across from another Chipotle. Far from being worried about losing customers to the big guys, Hoil says the cart does “quite well,” thank you very much.

District Taco’s secret to success?

Fresh ingredients used in family recipes from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, to start. Throw in some web savvy, including an active Twitter following, and you have another Washington-area mobile food success story.

“Whoever tries it, they always come back,” Hoil says. The fact that three soft tacos (or one burrito) and a drink tops out at $7 also helps. “Cheap, fresh and good food — that’s what I believe.”

Hoil is hoping to add another cart soon. He also wants to expand the cart’s reach into D.C., but he says the regulations there are, for now, making the “District” part of “District Taco” merely an abstraction.

Another possible project: an actual brick-and-mortar storefront in Arlington.

More photos, after the jump.

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Rebel Heroes Invade Ballston

By ARLnow.com

A new food truck made its debut today. Rebel Heroes, which serves up cheap, delicious Vietnamese-Latin fusion sandwiches, parked near the Ballston Metro and attracted a sizable lunchtime crowd.

Like D.C. food truck veterans Fojol Brothers, On the Fly, and Sweetflow Mobile, Rebel Heroes uses Twitter to announce its location.

“We’re doing pretty well so far just by Twittering,” co-owner Tan Nguyen said, shortly after an all-out assault on the truck by hungry office workers.

She said she got the idea for a Banh Mi truck a decade ago but didn’t decide to actually go for it until last year, when food trucks began enjoying a surge in publicity and commercial success.

Planning began last fall. Today the truck served its first customers.

“Vietnamese is perfect for food trucks… [and] spring is the perfect time to have a food truck,” Nguyen said.

Rebel Heroes lets patrons customize their sandwiches by checking boxes on a small paper order form. Nguyen said the food’s Latin flare, and the ingredient options, make her Banh Mi-style sandwiches more accessible than similar fare from Northern Virginia’s numerous brick-and-mortar Vietnamese restaurants.

Nguyen claims culinary inspiration from her mother, who provided some of the recipes, and from her friend Josie Smith-Malave, a contestant on Top Chef season two. Smith-Malave is not formally affiliated with the truck.

Rebel Heroes will be exclusively serving Arlington’s Rosslyn-Ballston corridor until this summer, when Nguyen hopes to secure the necessary permits to operate in the District. She says it’s easier to operate a food truck in Arlington due to the District’s heavily bureaucratic permitting process.

Eventually, Nguyen hopes to establish a schedule that will take the truck to points in D.C. and Arlington on a regular basis.

Rebel Heroes will be serving both breakfast (including coffee) and lunch (including chips and Mexican fruit sodas), starting as early as 7:30 a.m.

This week only, they’re offering a coupon for a free sandwich with the purchase of a drink or a bag of chips.

More photos, after the jump.

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