Hungry Onion veteran Steve and I got together for lunch with two former Chowhounders, Lilychili and Bougouni, who have yet to migrate over to the Hungry Onion, despite all blandishments. The spark behind the trip was Steve’s post about the pickle pizza at Tigerella, and a second thread, about roast pork and broccoli rabe sandwiches, added fuel to the fire when I discovered that Tigerella offers one.
The scene of the meal was the Western Market, a new food hall with a wide range of offerings. We all grabbed a table near Tigerella, and then spread out to gather food from the restaurants named in bold below. We split everything four ways.
Tigerella
Tigerella was the lone place without an ethnic identify, or any real theme. It’s divided into a coffee-pastry shop, a lunch/dinner kitchen, and a wine store.
The pickle pizza ($17) was a 6-8 inch round of a thick, focaccia-like bread with a sweet, chewy, highly caramelized caramelized edge.
Atop the crust was a thin layer of mild garlic cream and a scattering of pickled vegetables. The pickling was bread and butter-type pickles, so that the overall effect was sweet. Steve and Bougouni really liked it. I was disappointed, a I prefer thin-crusted pizzas with strong savory toppings – kalamata olives, anchovies, spicy meats, etc., and I dislike sweet. pickles, so the pickle pizza, intriguing as the name was, left me cold.
Colder still was the pork and broccoli rabe sandwich. I seem to have deleted the photo. Picture an unbalanced sandwich, about five inches long, with too-thick bread and too-little filling. Worse, it had too little flavor. The garlic was in hiding and the pork was might as well have been a chicken breast. Only the broccoli rabe had much flavor. ($17). No one thought much of it.
Arepazone
The Arepazone contributed (in return for $7.75) a Venezuelan style arepa, the Domino,
stuffed with black beans and shredded quesadillas de mano cheeses. The arepa itself was delicious, and the filling had a pleasant flavor.
Nim Ali
Nim Ali is a Guatemalan place offering Central American street food, including an assortment of antojitos (snacks), shukos (sandwiches) and mixers (roughly, hot dog (and other) tacos). We had the Shhuko Pulman, 12 inches of toasted bread overflowing with guacamole, chimichurri, ham, steak, pork sausage, chorizo, al pastor, mel cheese (beats me), grilled onions, chapin sauce (a vegetable blend with tomatillos, pepitas and more), mustard, and picama (pepper) sauce.
That’s a whole lot of sandwich for $16, plus a possible dry cleaning bill, and a whole lot of flavor. I enjoyed it immensely. I started off picking things out individually with my fork to get it under control. That was delicious but it was so much better, so flavorful, when I took bite of everything together. This is a heck of a sandwich.
Bandoola Bowl
Bandoola Bowl is a Burmese-owned spot that offers, of course, Southeast Asian food. it’s owned by the same folks who have run Mandalay for 20-odd years. We ended up with three bowls, each of which was vegan and probably gluten-free. Each had a base of fresh crisp cabbage, and each cost from $10-13 each.
The Chick Pea Curry bowl featured chickpeas sautéed in masala curry, cabbage, romaine, onions, cilantro, mint, red bell pepper, fresh lime juice, crispy shallots, and curry powder
The Ginger Bowl was highlighted by fresh shredded ginger, cabbage, carrots, fried garlic, crispy yellow split peas. It looked a lot like the Mango Bowl, which boasted fresh green mango, cabbage, onions, carrots, fried shallots, and a touch of hot pepper. that’s not listed on the menu.
All of the salads were fresh and crisp and, very similar with all that cabbage – I like raw cabbage. The Mango Bowl had a moderate spicy-hot accent that I found pleasant, and of which no one complained. The fresh ginger was a big plus for the Ginger Bowl. Handsome stray ginger brightened the chick pea curry, which I think was the consensus favorite of the bowls.
All in all it was a lot of food and a wide range of foods, quite a meal. And it was a treat to meet Steve, whose commentary I’ve enjoyed for years, and to get to know him and the other members of the Chowhound diaspora. I look forward to getting together with them again and getting to break bread with other HOs.
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