El Floridano

*Post by Mark.

Farragut Square seems to have become the place to find food trucks on Friday ever since DC Slices declared the weekly holiday of 'Farragut Fridays.' As our lunchtime luck would have it,  El Floridano had also joined the party on a recent Friday afternoon. With El Floridano, or @FLmeetsDC as they're known on Twitter, Chef/owner Stephan Boillon brings a pedigreed background to his sandwich truck, with 20 years in the restaurant industry and a stint as executive chef at Dino in Cleveland Park. Boillon's first-class touches to his sandwiches elevate them above typical street fare.

 

 

 

 

When we caught up to the colorful truck, it was blasting the West Side Story soundtrack, making Angela wiggle slightly in time to the music while standing in line.

 

 

The menu is short and sweet. We tackled two out of three of their sandwich options between the two of us, opting for a classic and something that's a little less traditional. El Floridano also offers soups, vegan-friendly options, and Boylan's soft drinks- which are described as a 'fruit mash' - not quite a soda, and not quite a juice. 

 

 

For my non-traditional option, I went with El Floridano's twist on a traditional Vietnamese sandwich, the Ho Chi Banh Mi, which is stuffed with turkey meatloaf, pickled green mango, baby arugula and tamarind barbecue sauce (below). The sandwich is a monster and the ingredients inside are far better than you'd expect from a truck. The thick, fluffy, white roll added (slightly unfavorably) to the sandwich's magnitude, but since I haven't actually seen better bread baked in D.C., this food truck escapes the wrath of my unrealistic expectations. All things being said, this Cuban-Vietnamese fusion had some really nice flavors intermingling. 

Angela ordered the Fidel, a classic Cuban with roasted pork and ham, pickles, and mustard (below). The sandwich was pressed thin between what we think is the same bread used in the truck's other offerings. The bread fares much better here, serving as a nice crusty, crunchy foil for the perfectly seasoned, juicy meats and tanginess of the pickles and mustard. If there were any complaints, it would be a call for even more of those thick slices of delicious pork. 

The truck also offers a Chicken Chiang Mai, with charred tomato salsa, avocado, pickled onions and baby arugula. You can catch the truck by following along on Twitter and I suggest you do. It's hard enough to come by a decent sandwich in the city, so you should take advantage of it when it's actually willing to come to you.

Comments

[foodwanderings]

Love it! Want to stalk them just to order...and I had to get to the end of the post to discover it....chicken chiang mai. I can tell I would love it! Shulie

[J]

I usually don't order banh mi sandwiches because of all the cilantro. So, I was excited to see that they advertise baby arugula on the banh mi and not cilantro. Then I see your picture and that looks an awful lot like cilantro on there. Was it?

[Lisa Shapiro]

I really enjoyed the Fidel Cuban sandwich as well.

[Mark]

J -

I BELIEVE that is just what baby arugula looks like.. unless it's a mix of both? But I think it's just the baby arugula. The banh mi was solid, but like Lisa said - the Fidel Cuban is the way to go. I'd be curious to try to third option or some gazpacho...

Mark

[Angela]

Shulie-
I bet that chicken chiang mai was good. We just didn't have enough room in our stomachs.

J and Mark-
It was definitely both baby arugula AND cilantro - I could smell it (I didn't eat any of it because of the picked mango, to which I am allergic). I bet you could ask them to make it without cilantro, though.

Lisa-
I'm not sure if die-hards would agree it was a true Cuban (because of the bread), but I thought it was definitely top-notch.