Roach Coach Evolution

This post was originally published in April of 2015 on another platform:

In the late 1980's I was serving in the Navy, home ported in San Diego. When we were actually in our home port, my ship, USS Duluth (LPD-6), would usually dock at the 32nd Street Naval Station. A few times we needed upgrades or repairs which resulted in a few months at a civilian ship yard. A daily ritual in the ship yard for many, ship's company and contractor alike, was to wander out to the head of the pier at lunch to visit the food truck, commonly called a roach coach.

I assume that most reading this have some idea what I am referring to, but for the overly sheltered I'll explain. A roach coach is a decent sized box truck. They come in various sizes. Inside the truck would be some sort of refrigerator, a grill or other cooking device, and an assortment of cooking tools. You read the menu (usually painted on the side of the truck, or attached to it), place your order, pay the bill, then get your hot lunch handed to you in some sort of to-go packaging.

The nick name might lead you to believe the quality, or at least sanitation, of the offerings is risky. In some cases this could be true, but not always. You might think the food would be cheap. In some cases this could be true, but not always. A food truck is all about convenience and getting a hot lunch you don't have to bring with you or cook in a microwave.

Back in my Navy days there was pretty much only one truck that showed up at the pier, and the food was always Mexican. Fast forward to now when I work in the heart of Washington DC. The area around my office is called NoMa, meaning the area just north of Massachusetts Avenue. Not many years ago it was thought of as a less-than-desirable part of DC. Recently it has been gentrifying. There are plenty of arguments for and against that sort of gentrification effort, but that's not the point of this article.

The process of gentrification has created a few blocks where a person can walk about and pick from a number of lunchtime restaurants. In one block the restaurants line one side of the street. On the other side are other kinds of businesses. With the increased lunchtime foot traffic from new office buildings like mine, food trucks have begun to line the street just opposite of the brick-and-mortar eateries.

I have seen them in the past, but had not partaken of their offerings. Today, maybe the temperature was just right, or the gleam on the shiny trucks caught my eye, or maybe there was a solar flare. Who knows? Whatever the reason, I decided to check out the trucks for lunch.

What I found was that the roach coach of my Navy days has come a long way. The premise has not changed, but the variety is striking. I'm sure this is not really new, but this one city block on 1st Street NE between M Street and Patterson Street is like a mini UN of the roach coach. Most of the trucks listed a website and social networking sites on their sides. A look at the trucks that were out there today will serve as an example. The specific trucks that show up change from day to day. Here's today's list:

• Jamaican Me Crazy (Jamaican Cuisine)
  • http://www.jmccurbside.com/
• Big Cheese (grilled cheese sandwiches)
  • http://www.bigcheesetruck.com/
• BurGorilla (burgers)
  • No website listed, but they are on Facebook and Twitter
• DC Latino Grill
  • Twitter account only
• Just Steak & Cheese (think Philly cheese steaks)
  • Couldn't find a web presence
• DC Greek Food
  • http://dcgreekfood.com
• Crepes Parfait (various food served in a crepe)
  • http://crepesparfait.com
• Healthy Fool (Vietnamese)
  • No luck finding an online presence

Yes that last one is call Healthy Fool and not Healthy Food. I chose that one for my adventure into lunch. The food listed on the menu didn't seem all that healthy, though it didn't seem all that unhealthy either. I chose grilled steak and vegetables on rice noodles with spiced soy sauce. I had to get a drink somewhere else. They had water, lemonade and tea. None of those sounded good to me. Anyone who knows me will have predicted that I picked around the broccoli. I did. The rest was tasty. I did find a hair in the food (apologies to the squeamish). The "chef" was not wearing a hair net or hat. That said, I didn't have any sort of tummy rumblings after lunch like I sometimes do with Asian food.

Next Friday if the temperature is just right, and the gleam of the shiny trucks catches my eye, and there happens to be a solar flare, perhaps I'll venture towards the trucks again to sample a different part of the mobile UN. If not I'll probably be at one of the brick-and-mortar-based lunchtime hangouts within a few blocks of this recently gentrified section of NoMa.