Sunday, June 21, 2015

Food Cart Project Part XXII: Civilian Studios Open House Catering Gig

Civilian Studios, whose garage bay I'm renting to build out the cart, had their third annual open house this weekend. I ended up catering the event, so a few items from the Burmasphere menu had their public debut. On the menu for the event was a coconut chicken curry, a pickled tea leaf salad called Lahpet Thok, deep fried chickpea fritters with a balachaung dipping sauce, and ghost chile ice cream (this last one isn't Burmese, it just tastes good). I used Civilian's kitchen as my prep space the day before the event:


Working in an unfamiliar space is always awkward, and if I'd been thinking, I'd have sent an e-mail out asking folks to clear anything out of the fridge that they didn't need in there; space was pretty tight in that fridge. But I managed to make it work. I did, however, spill over onto this rolling table in the next room over. Here we see the chicken breasts, vacuum bagged and awaiting their turn in the circulator:


I also used this space to start building the curry while the chicken breasts were cooking. The new induction burners work really nicely, by the way. I'm very pleased with them so far...


Eventually I finished the prep, and it was time to get the show on the road. My sous chef, Jen, and I set up in the garage bay right next to the cart, so folks could get a look at it as they were waiting in line for their Burmese eats. Jen's foodservice experience is limited to ice cream (for that matter, apart from coffee, so is mine), but she was a natural on the deep fryer. She was responsible for all of the chickpea fritter orders, and did an awesome job. I was on saute, cranking out the coconut chicken curries. Here we are getting things set up:


My mom and my aunt came into town to help out as well. They were mostly responsible for assembling the tea leaf salads. My friend Chelle helped out as well, but managed to dodge the photos...


Apart from a minor circuit issue involving the deep fryer and the rice cooker, the whole thing went off pretty much without a hitch. In just a little over two hours, we ran out of food; we went through around 45 coconut chicken curries, probably 50 chickpea fritter orders, 40 or 50 tea leaf salads and maybe 30 orders of ghost chile ice cream. It took 20 or 30 minutes for people to pick up on what we were doing, but once they did we had a line most of the time, and we never did get in the weeds. Great work from this crew, and having never cooked for a large group before, it was nice to discover that I'm at least reasonably good at cooking under pressure. And thanks to all of my friends and fellow Civilian folks who tried the food. I got lots of positive feedback; I have a hunch Portlanders will eat this stuff...

I wasn't able to get any photos of the rest of the open house, because I was pretty busy with this. But there was a lot of great art on display, and a number of folks trekked across the railroad tracks to North Coast Seed Studios, who were having their open house as well. I didn't get over there, but it's apparently a pretty impressive place. I'll have to check it out next time they have an art sale over there.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Food Cart Project Part XXI: Equipment is Rolling In!

I got some more work done on the ceiling/roof structure this weekend, but that's still a work in progress, so no photos as of yet. The photogenic aspect of this weekend's progress, however, is the equipment. I picked up my undercounter freezer on Friday:


My ice cream maker also arrived. This is technically a home unit, but it has a compressor, so I won't have to go through the rigamarole of freezing the bowl for every batch of ice cream...


I picked up my magnetic induction burners and a second deep fryer:


I may have to cover those counter surfaces with stainless, we'll see... Here's the larger view, with the freezer moved into place:


I also brought my immersion circulator in from home. I'm not sure if the Coleman cooler set up will pass muster with the Multnomah County health department, but if not I'll just get a Cambro for it...


Here's the mohnyin tjin for next weekend's open house. I figured I'd let it ferment in the cart, maybe it'll pick up some terroir...


Photos of that Civilian open house catering gig to come next weekend, by the way. That should be fun. In other important news, my loan with the credit union was secured last week, so this project is now funded. That's a big step forward. Stay tuned!

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Food Cart Project Part XX: Roof, Lighting, and Plumbing Talk.

I started sheathing the ceiling/roof structure this weekend:


Once I got all of that sheathing in place, the interior of the cart suddenly became significantly darker...


...Which is nothing a couple of LED shop lights can't take care of:


I also started filling in the cracks around the window trim. I hadn't worked with wood filler for a number of years, so I was surprised to discover that it's now purple. It turns white once it's dry, though...


I also started working on the canopy that will be attached to the roof. This will be covered in corrugated metal, and will be slanted at about 3 degrees, high to low from front to back:


It's time to start thinking about getting the plumbing work underway, as well as start coordinating contractors for the electrical and exhaust hood work. I had a brief but very useful conversation with Rick Humphrey at Curtis Trailer on SE Powell. Rick's the go-to guy for food cart plumbing issues in Portland, and he gave me some great information about the sinks, pump and pipes/fittings I'll need for the cart. One thing I discovered in talking with Rick is that the Multnomah County Environmental Health department now requires ware sinks with a drain pan at either end, which means I'll need a sink significantly wider than the one I spec'ed in the plan review, and unless I can get grandfathered in, which is probably not likely, I'll have to tear apart two of my counters and rebuild them. It's the first real setback I've run into thus far, but it's a manageable one. Thankfully, I didn't rush out and buy that sink I'd spec'ed...

Here are two more of Austin's bonsai stands. The one on the left was fumed with high concentration ammonia, giving the mahogany in the middle a nice reddish tint. I'm amazed at the variety of styles Austin's able to work in. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of them...


So, lots done, very productive weekend. Keep checking in, things are really starting to come together!