Food Trucks, Pit Beef, and a little bit of Spice!

Tonight I'm working on two posts to play catch up for the pretty ridiculous week of eating delicious food I just had. Some weeks are less foodie than others but this one was definitely over the top!

It started with a visit to Chaps Pit Beef on Thursday for lunch. I had heard of this place before (hard not to when you're from Baltimore) but the interest in it didn't really take hold until I started to get really OBSESSED with BBQ a year or two ago. If you stuck me on a desert island and told me I could only eat one thing it would hands down be BBQ. I have tried many places, some of my favorites being Mission BBQ, whom have several locations in MD, and Black Hog BBQ in Frederick, MD. Also, if you want a BBQ caterer for an event I highly recommend P.I.G.S. in Frederick. I really, really, really wish they had a restaurant. I could eat that every day.

Anyway, Chaps is located on the east side of the city on Pulaski Highway, and it's not unusual for there to be a line out of the door at any time, any hour. This place has been featured many times on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and definitely did not disappoint. I opted for a pit beef sandwich with green peppers and onions topped with Tiger sauce, and we shared a side of mac and cheese.

I never said I was a neat eater...

I really have no complaints about this place. What I will say is if I could do it over I would opt to leave off the green peppers and onions and just eat the beef with the Tiger sauce in all its glory. It really doesn't need much.

Later that day we visited the McCormick World of Flavors store in Harborplace downtown. You know you're a nerd when you get excited about spices. I knew this store existed but had never really had a reason to go. Let me say that I'm very glad we went!

The store prominently features Old Bay; you're bombarded by a wall of it when you first walk in. After wandering for a few minutes on our own, we were greeted by an extremely friendly woman who was determined to find us every discount we could get. The great thing about the store is that many of these spices are already deeply discounted from grocery stores so they were dirt cheap by the time we made our purchase. Plus they had quite a few things that you cannot buy anywhere else. They also allow you to play a cornhole game and if you can get a hole in one you get a HUGE container of Old Bay for just $4. I will never need Old Bay again. At least a half an hour later we left with 3 spices each, a container of lime salt (perfect for rimming margaritas), 2 things of Old Bay, and some festive beer glasses.

For the final adventure, who has ever heard of a food truck rally? Because I don't have a Twitter (nor do I plan on creating one) I had never been to a food truck because I was not in the know. While stalking the Facebook page of one of my favorite cupcake bakeries I discovered that their food truck was going to be at an event called The Gathering. Kind of sounds like a cult, doesn't it?

Basically, at least 10 food trucks from the Baltimore area pick a spot to gather and have an event, often with live music and all you can drink in order to promote their businesses. This particular one was held at the Metro Centre in Owings Mills. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but by the time we got there quite a few people had shown up. I was particularly interested in the Gypsy Queen truck, voted the best in Baltimore two years running. We tried the Korean Beef tacos, which were definitely a hit.

The rest of the pictures are from various trucks. Below is a watermelon and goat cheese salad (this was great! A weird combination but something I would love to recreate at home!) 

 Samosas:

 Bibimbap (left) and a Cuban slider (top right) and Portobello slider (bottom right)

There were several other trucks we didn't get to try but I saved them to my phone so hopefully we'll be able to attend another gathering or visit them wherever they are for the day!