beer | Bill Chance

A couple of weeks ago I saw on facebook that Dos Equis was sponsoring a food promotion called Feast of the Brave. Through Cinco de Mayo, Dos Equis was teaming in Dallas with the Rock And Roll Tacos food truck in a competition to determine the American city with the bravest palate. Dallas would be competing with Miami, Houston, Austin, and Los Angeles for which city can earn the most “Bravery Points” by eating various unusual tacos. The delicacies promised were everything from wild hare, to shark, to wild hog, to goat, to frog legs, to snails (with corn fungus), to hog ear, to intestines, to alligator, to cricket….

An finally, each city would boast a “mystery taco” – worth 100 points each.

Do you think this might be something that would appeal to me?

Oh, Hell Yeah!

Unfortunately I was very, very busy and wasn’t able to hook up with the food truck until the very end. On Friday I took some flex time and left work early, hopping on the DART train and rushing to Main Street Park where the truck was set up. I ran up only to discover they were closing down… out of meat. The comely Dos Equis Taco Girls were very apologetic and showed me where they would be on Saturday, Cinco de Mayo – their last day.

We had another busy day planned, but I was not going to miss out so we drove down to the Albertson’s on McKinney and Lemmon at eleven, right when they opened. I did not realize that the tacos were free and you could get as many as you wanted.

There was no way I was going to mess around with Rabbit (only 10 points) or Wild Hog (Hey, that’s pork… what’s so brave about that? And only 20 points) – so I ordered two Shark (30 points each) and two Mystery Tacos (the Mystery Tacos were 100 points each). That totaled two hundred sixty bravery points – I feel I did my civic duty.

The Shark tacos were very good. The fish was rare and was served in a crispy shell with some tropical salsa. The mystery tacos were OK – nothing special – soft flour shells with lettuce and tomato.

My guess is that the mystery tacos were iguana. They wouldn’t tell us what they were – they said the identity would go out over twitter at ten that evening.

The Dallas “Feast of the Brave” Menu

One of the Dos Equis Taco Hotesses

Two Shark Tacos on the left, and two Mystery (Iguana) tacos on the right.

Feast of the Brave Taco Truck

He once went on vacation to The Virgin Islands ..Now they are just called The Islands.

I was right about Dallas’ mystery taco – it was iguana. Chicago’s was grasshopper, Miami was oxtail, Austin was straight jalepeno, and Los Angeles was 1,000 year old egg. I’m afraid that Dallas didn’t do too well, finishing fourth behind Miami, Chicago and Austin (we wanted to beat Austin). Bringing up the rear was Houston (at least we beat them) and last, Los Angeles.

I don’t always eat tacos, but when I do, I prefer iguana.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

The Little Vessel Food Truck

This last Saturday, looking for something to do, I discovered a Food Truck Block Party at the Ginger Man in uptown. So we took the DART train down to the underground Cityplace Station and climbed up to the surface.

The other night I saw a piece on television about how the DC government can’t keep the escalators going to their subway stations. Dallas doesn’t do any better. The Cityplace Station is ten stories underground and customers use six sets of escalators or three elevators to reach the surface. Only one escalator (the lowest up escalator) and none of the elevators were functioning. That wasn’t a problem for us – we could walk the stairs, but it was a real pain for some others. One homeless guy with a huge cart full of his belongings was trapped – he had ridden up the one working escalator up to an intermediate landing and now he couldn’t go any farther up or even back down.

We did reach the surface and as we emerged, blinking, into the sunlight I saw that our timing was perfect. The streetcar was right there. It was the Green Dragon, and it was on the turntable... and it was turning. I have been wanting to watch that thing spin since it was installed and finally I saw it.

We rode the Green Dragon down to Boll street and walked a short distance to the block party. A parking lot next to the Ginger Man was full of about a half-dozen food trucks serving food and desserts. Inside the place was a big crowd, live music, and a large assortment of beers.

Some of the food trucks had made food to co-ordinate with certain special beers being sold at the Ginger Man. The trucks had printed up little guides with the list of beers and what food would go good with each choice. I thought that was cool – sort of like a poor-man’s gourmet wine tasting.

As always, when faced with a choice of food trucks, I chose the one I had never tried before. There was only one new one (I am cutting a pretty wide swath through the still growing Dallas food truck scene) – I had heard of it before, The Little Vessel Grill.

Their menu looked good – a prix fixe – each item was seven bucks. I chose the item on the top of the menu – the Tomato Bisque Soup and Grilled Cheese (Fire in the Hole) – because it was the first item on the menu. Candy chose the second item, the BBQ Pork Sandwich (Barque at the Moon) because… it was a BBQ Pork Sandwich.

Little Vessel Grill Menu

It was very good.

We had plans to go some other places, but there were specialty beers to try, other food trucks to visit, and a place full of interesting people (and a few dogs) so we ended up going nowhere else and riding the train back home (after walking down ten stories of steps) as the sun set.

Little Vessel Food Truck Facebook

Little Vessel Food Truck Twitter

Little Vessel Food Truck Home Page

Little Vessel Grille: There Is Artistry In That Truck!

Eating Out :: DFW Food Trucks, Little Vessels Grill