It might be difficult to travel during the COVID pandemic, but you can still get a taste of the world by visiting a few of Seattle’s international food trucks serving up everything from Halal food from Uzbekistan to Thailand’s popular fried noodle dish, Pad See Ew.
The most convenient way to locate mobile food offerings is to download the app, Street Food Finder. The app will use your location to show you what trucks are nearby, along with their hours of operation.
Naansense offers vegetarian and non-vegetarian Indian food, made with local ingredients. Their menu changes seasonally, and all of their dishes are made from scratch daily. If you’re looking for a traditional butter chicken, Naansense’s version doesn’t have the usual tomato-cream sauce, but it’s still tasty and tender, and their light and fluffy naan is alone worthy of a visit to the truck.
If you’re in need of a mid-day study break snack, head to Nacho Mamas Seattle where you’ll find a variety of Nacho platters. There’s the New Mexican Street Corn Nachos piled high with fontina cheese sauce, roasted corn, hatch chili aioli, pickled red onions, fire-roasted hatch chilies, and the salty and crumbly Cotija cheese with fresh cilantro.
They’re celebrating the harvest of Hatch chilies from Hatch, New Mexico right now, so there’s also Hatch Chile Chicken Nachos, Chile Cheeseburger Nachos, and even a Hatch Chile Tofu Tostada for vegans.
(Nacho Mamas also offers contactless payments via credit cards or phone payments.)
You might not be able to travel the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean right now, but you can follow the road to Tabassum, which serves samsas, traditional savory pies from Uzbekistan. The flaky puff pastries can be ordered with a filling of chicken curry and green peas, with a beef filling, or a variety of vegetarian or vegan fillings. Tabassum’s dessert samsas, made with fruit and honey, sell out quickly, so get there early in the day if you want a sweet samsa.
If flaky pastries aren’t your thing there’s also plov, with a variety of toppings (halal beef, chicken, or vegetables) served over rice cooked with raisins, onions, carrots, and garbanzo beans.
You can leave Central Asia and travel southeast to Thailand for some tasty street food, but if quarantines continue, you’ll have to settle for a trip to Lake City Way for an extremely good plate of Pad See Ew at the Bangkok Food Truck. There’s not much atmosphere at the Shell station where the truck is parked, but their Pad See Ew noodle dish is rich and flavorful, with just the right amount of sauce to coat the wide noodles without overpowering them.
You won’t get your passport stamped on this adventure, but Seattle food trucks can bring the world, or its food at least, to you.
