street food | FatHappyandCheap

See my Guest Review of Revel in Fremont on Yay-Today

Posted by Jamie on May 25, 2011 in A, Dinner, ethnic cuisine, Food Truck, Fremont, Korean, Sustainable | 0 comments

I gave Revel’s Sustainable Street Food an A-, see my guest review at Yay-Today

Revel
403 N 36th St., Seattle, WA 98103
Grade: A-

Price: $11 on average per dish

Dish to Get: Corned Lamb Salad and Albacore Tuna

I’ve been hearing so many great things about Revel: sustainable, street food, nice atmosphere…adjectives I normally wouldn’t think would go together, particularly when it comes to the term “street food.” But like the saying goes, “opposites attract”, and boy do they attract at Revel.

I was lucky enough to dine here with fellow food-lover and blogger, Aubrey from Yay-Today. We teamed up together on the post, not only because of the deals you get at Revel, but also because of the quality and taste of the food that we heard Revel delivers. Revel comes from the husband and wife team (love foodie marriages!) team Rachel Yang and Seif Chirichi who also own the famed Joule. Revel is all about street food with a Korean influence with a menu that is broken down into 5 sections:

Salad
Pancake
Dumpling
Rice (w/ Egg Yok)
Noodle
Ice Cream Sandwiches

SALAD

revel corned lamb salad

The corned lamb salad was amazing! Salads, I feel, are either hit or miss. They’re either too heavy on the dressing or too bland. Revel’s corned lamb salad was pretty much perfect. The spiciness of the arugula goes perfectly with the spicy nuoc cham (a sauce made of chili, garlic and fish sauce), and the corned lamb is the perfect salty unexpected surprise your taste buds need. This salad is unique in taste, but also surprisingly light in overall flavor. Maybe because it does not have the creaminess of your typical dressing, this salad kept me coming back for seconds, thirds… you get the idea.

PANCAKE

While the salad was amazing, the pork belly, kimchi and bean sprout pancake was average. Usually Korean pancakes are more egg-based, but Revel’s kimchi pancake was definitely more pan-fried, similar to a Chinese onion pancake. However, the flavors of the kimchi, pork belly, and the 4 sauces you received with it definitely resembled more Korean flavors. As you pair the pancake with the 4 types of spiced sauce pictured below, you just get an overall denseness of spiciness, and crunch, without any unique flavors jumping out of you. I expected that the bean sprout would give this pancake a bit of crunch, but because of the oil from the pork belly, along with the fact that this pancake is more pan-fried than egg based, you lose the flavor of the bean sprout.

DUMPLINGS

These dumplings are tasty and intense: short rib meat ground up put inside this dumpling skin that seemed to be kimchi flavored (Could be wrong here), but I have definitely not seen dumpling skin like this for Korean dumplings (which are usually flatter) or Chinese dumplings. The short rib meat inside the dumpling was extremely tender and tasty. However, there was nothing else but the short rib meat inside the dumpling. Most dumplings are usually filled with meat and chives or some kind of lettuce to balance the overwhelming taste of the meat. It was a bit oily for my taste, but then again, this dumpling pretty much epitomizes what street food is all about. See the picture below for a close-up of the oil:

RICE

Albacore Tuna, Fennel Kim Chi and Escarole Rice Bowl

The rice bowl, with albacore tuna, fennel kimchi, and escarole remind me of the Korean stone rice bowl, the bibimbap. There was one item, however, which stood out in this rice bowl, and that was the albacore tuna. What made the tuna amazing, you might ask? From the picture below, the tuna looks dry, blackened, and a bit too white on the side. But when you take a bite into this juicy , tender tuna, you’re thinking”Holy crap, it’s not dry at all!” It really is the most unexpected and pleasant surprise ever. In addition, the sides, which appear to be blackened, add another dimension of flavor. This is what makes this tuna unlike anything I’ve had anywhere else. It really hit Revel out of the ballpark for me. I’m always on the hunt for something unique and different, with an affordable price tag. Revel did just that with the Tuna.

Winning plates for me from Revel were the Tuna and the lamb salad. Some downsides were the pancake and the dumpling. I’ve definitely had better pancakes elsewhere. And while the short rib dumpling was good, it would have been nice for it to be balanced with some chives or veggies . All in all, Revel is solid A- for the unique twist and Korean-inspired street food and even more so because of the fact they are sustainable. It’s definitely a place to visit in Fremont. I wish they had something like this in my neighborhood, Capitol Hill- it would be a major hit.

Oh boy…and a trouble comes this way

Posted by Jamie on Feb 12, 2010 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

In LA for the weekend, and came across this. LA StreetFood Fest on Saturday featuring all the crazy food trucks, much like Seattle’s Mobile Chowdown, but probably 3x bigger. I’m going to try and make it despite the schedule.

Food Vendors (pulled from http://lastreetfoodfest.com/the-participants/)
Try as many of LA’s best as you can with the LA Street Food Fest exclusive ‘tasting menus’… All of our food vendors are offering specially priced $1-$5 tasting menus and day-of-event-only items, just for you. Eat it up!