Scratch Truck

Tim and I have now been to Scratch Truck three times.  I say "been to," but I suppose I truly mean that "we've purposefully visited the Upland Broad Ripple Tasting Room when we knew Scratch Truck would be there so as to partake in some burgers and Upland beer" three times.

And burgers are, indeed, what we have always ordered.  Okay, the first time I did get the Scratch Grilled Cheese, which contains short rib, and it was good, but after tasting Tim's burger that trip I knew I probably wouldn't venture beyond said burger from them on.  They have a pretty good burger, is what I'm saying.

The Scratch Burger ($9.50) is cooked medium rare and topped with bacon marmalade, arugula, and gorgonzola, and is served on a toasted bun.  It all works pretty harmoniously together to create a sweet, smokey, blue cheesy, herby/peppery, messy symphony of flavors.  Very tasty.

And normally their poutine is, too.  The price of the burger includes normal fries, but we've always upgraded to the poutine for a few dollars more.  Their fries are pretty good and seem to be lightly battered (no idea if they are homemade or from a bag).  Then the fries are topped with chicken gravy and cheese curds, as any good poutine is, plus herbs--rosemary being the most prominent one.  We generally adore them, but this time they were a bit soggy.  I suspect they were just sitting around too long--the truck was relatively busy and it may have taken them a few minutes to bring our food into Upland (yes, they hand-deliver your food).  It was a touch disappointing, but the flavor was still good.

Scratch Truck can be elusive--they often don't open for dinner, presumably because they do a lot of business at lunch and don't need to--so the odd Thursday when we're in the area at the same time as them is rare.  But that also makes it a special treat when we do find them--and generally worth the somewhat steep price point.

Website:  Scratch Truck

Food Trucks: Tacos Without Borders and Gigi's Cupcakes

Last week I was at a professional conference, and they called in food trucks to sell lunch to us since there are no restaurants in close proximity.  Genius!  There were about four trucks there, and they had to have made a killing.

One of the trucks was Tacos Without Borders.  I am all about tacos with an Asian twist--I enjoy West Coast Taco's flavors and really loved Tacorean when we visited DC (not to mention my most recent review--La Chinita Poblana), so I was excited by this Thai spin on tacos.

The tacos were $3.75 each or 3 for $9; I opted to just get two because I had dessert plans (second half of this post).  I chose the mild flavor (Sweet Chili Chicken) and medium flavor (Thai Chicken).  Both were topped by roasted tomato salsa, veggie slaw, green onion, and cotija cheese.  The mild was pretty sweet; I liked the medium better, I think.  It was a little sweet but had a nice spicy kick to balance it out.  I wasn't super impressed by the chicken, though.  It was all white meat, but some of the chunks were a bit large and a touch dry, making it harder to eat.  I suspect all of the chicken was cooked together ahead of time, and that the sauce they apply to it is done as they're assembling, because the chicken in both was similar.  I probably would have liked it better if the chicken had been slow cooked in the sauce.  But, overall, they were tasty.  I liked the veggie slaw a lot (I think there was broccoli and cabbage and maybe a few other vegetables in there), and the cheese added some saltiness.  I'd be willing to try these guys again; looking at their website, they apparently cook from scratch and offer a changing menu of different tacos.  I suspect they kept it simple (all chicken) to deal with the large crowds on this day.

For dessert, I got a Gigi's cupcake.  They had a long list of flavors, and I opted for the strawberry lemonade.  First of all, look at the frosting on that puppy.  It was really an obscene amount.  This wasn't my first time to have a Gigi's cupcake, and it's my main complaint with them.  No human can or should eat that much frosting on one cupcake!  Tim absolutely hates it when cupcakes have that much frosting--he rejects it on principle.  I do find it ridiculous, but it doesn't stop me from just knocking most of the icing off and then eating it.  I love me a cupcake in almost any form!

The cake portion was a fairly standard lemon cake--no fillings or anything special--but it was really moist and very tasty.  The icing was super sweet without much strawberry flavor, which made it more just a 'lemonade' cupcake than a 'strawberry lemonade' one, but that was okay.  The icing was topped with large-grain decorating sugar and a chewy lemon candy (love those).  I cannot remember the exact price, but I'm pretty sure it was, as all of those cupcake store cupcakes are, severely overpriced--I'm thinking it was around $4.  But I suppose I'm the sucker in this case, since I paid it!  Like I said, I like cupcakes.


Websites:  Tacos Without Borders and Gigi's Cupcakes