Posts Tagged ‘Rebel Heroes’
Rebel Heroes make Rebel TV Stars
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, July 23rd, 2010
With less than four months since it first bounced onto our streets, the Rebel Heroes food truck may be a child prodigy. A unique twist on traditional Vietnamese sandwiches, fresh ingredients and a rockin’ name are all drawing the attention of the cameras.
Thus I headed out on Wednesday to catch the Canadian Food Network covering the food truck. The working title for the show is “Eat St.” and it aims to chronicle 52 of the most interesting street food vendors across the US (and possibly a few in Canada). Producer Lori Lozinski explains that while food trucks are all the craze here in the states, the trend is still in its infancy in Canada due to food restriction laws.
Maybe their show will help to alleviate this oppression by capturing the glory, fun and sanitary safety of street vendors. What a great cause – liberate the creative foodies of the world! Free the Foodies! Okay – the slogan may need a little work.
Rebel Heroes is lucky number 19 of the 52 to be featured so far. Lori isn’t sure yet how the roving restaurants will be grouped together into 13 episodes. The selected vendors are all unique – taco twists, fusion food and so on. With its “revolutionary” Vietnamese and Cuban inspired sub sandwiches, there isn’t anything else on the streets like our rebels. Another member of the film crew, Pat Byrne, claims that Rebel Heroes might be his favorite truck so far due to the ultra cool theme. Yes! Virginia vendors – 1, San Fran – 0. (That is, if we are basing our score on a rather limited survey.)
Having just finished their TV debut, Kevin Fagan and Lynn Olson let me ask a few questions of their experience. They are enthusiastic supporters of the Rebel movement and had made a bit of a pilgrimage to appear for the special day of filming. Fagan says he has a new favorite almost every day – today’s choice was the Macho Meatball Spicy sub with a side of shrimp chips – flavored chex patterned puffs with a mild heat on the end of the crunch.
For me, I had to try the Righteous Roast Pork – soft fresh bread, thin slices of pork, mild but satisfying spicy mayo, layers of crunchy dill pickles, scallions and cilantro that sneaks up like a ninja to kick you with full on flavor.
I asked a few other nearby regulars what keeps them coming back. For starters, they say that the sandwiches of Rebel Heroes are fresh and the owner is always friendly, but these young professionals were also subscribers to the food truck movement as a whole. From whence does this food truck fanaticism spring? Because food on a truck, one young man says, it’s like the ice cream man.
-Jamel Daugherty
Local Sixfortyseven Nixes TV to Focus on Education
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Derek Luhowiak maintains that he pulled the plug on tomorrow’s planned taping of “Eat St.” for Paperny Films (they’re rolling with Rebel Heroes today), not because business is flagging (as PF seemed to suggest) but because he’s reached a philosophical/professional crossroads.
“We were so busy that in fact our next step was to become a restaurant or grow to a large trailer. Neither of which we wanted,” Luhowiak informed us via email. “Knowing that, we did not feel right using airtime that could go to promote another local business so that they can succeed with their dream.”
So, what’s next for the seasonally-inspired-food-cart-cameras-evidently-adore?
That would roughly be teaching.
“Local Sixfortyseven will continue to operate as a private for hire catering focusing on small intimate parties where I can really focus on utilizing our food to its fullest,” Luhowiak pledged, adding that he’s hunting for more land to sustain additional crops, an expanded apiary and “a small flock of birds.”
Luhowiak also expects to up his hands-on instruction, mapping out plans to incorporate food preservation, home butchering and biodynamic horticulture classes into his forthcoming culinary curriculum.
“The one thing I have learned in the last five years working with the local food industry is that no one model fits and you have to be willing to improvise on a dime as the industry progresses,” he said of his still-evolving, education-first mission.
Oh, and don’t worry about the Paperny folks.
They’ve already made arrangements to stalk the D.C. Slices truck instead.
–Warren
Eye on NoVA: Food Shows Feast on Local Talent
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, July 12th, 2010
View NoVA Food Show Tapings in a larger map
Seems you can’t throw a rock these days without hitting a reality TV/cooking show camera.
Of course, if you’ve been dining at any of the buzzy eateries above–or now plan to hightail it out to one of the upcoming tapings–you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when Joel McHale gleefully mocks you on The Soup.
–Warren
Brace Yourself for Pupatella 2.0
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Any newcomer to NoVA might just assume that we’ve always had a fleet of Twitter-powered, gourmet food vendors at our beck and call.
Think again, stranger.
Just a few short years ago mobile dining options were frighteningly scarce here in the suburbs (save, perhaps, for the roving taco and sandwich trucks that have long kept construction workers fat and happy). And the on-the-go sustenance you did encounter was more often than not either prepackaged pabulum or hastily prepared slop.
The landscape changed dramatically after culinary school grads cum gastropreneurs Enzo Algarme and Anastasiya Laufenberg rolled their Neapolitan pizza cart into Ballston in fall 2007.
Word of their traditional-style Margherita–think: olive oil-brushed dough smeared with a chunky, San Marzano-based sauce (flush with acid and tang), giant ovals of milky buffalo mozzarella and freshly torn basil, all spot-baked to a bubbling, crunchy brown–and their high-end toppings (locally sourced cheeses, homemade salumi) soon spread like wildfire.
(Image: Andromeda Drive)
The introduction of stuffed-till-bulging arancini and freshly-dipped donuts secured cult status for the pie-slinging pair in near-record time.
The duo now stands poised to unveil their first brick-and-mortar restaurant–”We’ll be open by next weekend,” Laufenberg said (final inspections are set for early next week)–just north of N. George Mason Drive.
Although the roomier digs have certainly paved the way additional goodies, Laufenberg insists the pair remains committed to their original vision:
“It is not the same pizza that we serve at our food cart.
It is of much higher quality, made in the best wood-fired pizza oven in [the] world (built in Naples from volcanic ash from mount Vesuvius),” Laufenberg said of their next generation pies. “We will also have other things that are traditional to the Neapolitan region, such as arancini (fried risotto balls, stuffed with meat, peas and mozzarella), fried stuffed calzone, panuozzo (a cross between a sandwich and a pizza, made with pizza crust split in the middle and topped with meats and vegetables).”
Updates include: the build-your-own-pizza option (including seven free toppings), a full complement of artisanal gelatos produced by fellow Naples native Gianluigi Dellacio, a wide variety of Italian wines, beers and sodas (Image: Pupatella)
–sourced predominantly from the Campagna region of Southern Italy–and made-to-order espresso embellished with freshly ground hazelnuts.
According to Laufenberg, the plan is to open (at least for the first few months) for lunch and dinner, Tuesday through Saturday. Ultimately, the duo plan to tack on a breakfast shift and transition into an everyday operation.
And what of the famous, fire engine-red cart?
“We don’t have a definite plan for the cart,” Laufenberg shared, estimating that they’ll probably put it in mothballs, at least temporarily, while they get their bearings at the shop.
She suggested, however, that the cart would be out and about in Ballston this week (Wednesday through Friday) and next.
Pupatella: 5100-C Wilson Blvd., Arlington; 571-243-2952; www.pupatella.com
–Warren
