Global cuisine
SAMPLE WORLD FLAVORS AT THESE 4 COLUMBUS-AREA FOOD TRUCKS
With sustained warm weather and prolonged sunlight, deep summer is prime season for food trucks. That means it’s also a great time for diners seeking an informal outing and tired of “the same old-same old,” as we’ve come a long way since the days when hot dogs and burgers were about all you could hope for from mobile food vendors. ● It’s practically been common knowledge for years now that Greater Columbus has a thriving taco truck scene that outpaces most American cities. But Mexico is hardly the only destination that the central Ohio fleet of street eateries can take your taste buds to. Segue to the following roundup of geography-linked wheeled kitchens that’ll please your palate with flavors from far-flung locations such as Korea, South Africa, Egypt, southern Italy and northeastern France. ● Some of these operations have regular parking spots and regular hours, but I highly recommend checking in with the extremely useful, frequently updated website called Streetfoodfinder (streetfoodfinder.com/c/oh/columbus) before heading out on your fun, maphopping, al fresco dining adventures.
Ajumama
“Ajumama serves Korean street food without the 7,000-mile road trip” it says on the amusingly written website of Ajumama. A food truck all-star for 11 years and counting, Ajumama is run by talented, creative and personable chef Laura Lee, who’s made multiple appearances on the Food Network.
Lee’s signature dish, which tastes like it sounds − only better, is the “bulgogi cheezesteak.” A culinary collision between Korea and Philadelphia that could be subtitled “Philly Seoul,” it’s an easy-to-love hunger-bomber of bulgogi beef, sauteed onions, shishito peppers and “kimcheeze” sauce (think Cheez Whiz plus truck-made kimchi) on a warm hoagie roll.
But from high-grade, locally made brats with house kimchi and “K-mayo,” to miso grilled pork belly sandwiches in black sesame-seeded ciabatta rolls, to extravaganzas showcasing farmers market vegetables, to Korean-style pancakes stuffed with brown sugar, walnuts and cinnamon (hodduk), expect whatever Lee is cooking up to be seasonal-leaning and a whole lot of fun to eat.
More info: ajumama.com, facebook.com/ Ajumama, instagram.com/ajumamacbus
Hisham’s Food Truck
At 8,000-some miles away, South Africa is even farther from Columbus than Korea. Hisham’s Food Truck can conveniently provide a great taste of a cuisine popular in Cape Town (one of South Africa’s three capitals) on a nearby street.
You don’t see “South African Cape Malay” cuisine — Hisham’s specialty — mentioned much in Ohio, but if you’re familiar with Indian food, you’ll find plenty that’s familiar at the orange truck run by super-friendly Hisham Omardien, a former ballet master at Balletmet.
Hisham’s signature ground beef, potato and pea curry is closely related to the Indian dish aloo keema, and is a delicious place to start.
Served with fluffy basmati rice, it’s plenty of crowd-pleasing loose burger meat animated by cinnamon, ginger, garlic, bay leaf, cardamom and chile. The spicy and addictive ground beef curry also serves as the filling for Hisham’s outstanding Malay samoosas — savory triangular pastries that evoke Indian samosas bound in crinkly, spring-roll wrappers.
Something sweet? Hisham’s Malva pudding is another must and South African classic: warm and moist cake that, much to its credit, resembles sticky toffee pudding draped in rich creme anglaise.
More info: 614-565-4198; hishamsfood.com, facebook.com/hishamsfood, instagram.com/ hishamsfood
Koshary King
Permanently parked on the southwest corner of Summit and Hudson streets
Egyptian eateries are extremely few and far between in Greater Columbus. That’s one reason to seek out Koshary King, a red food trailer permanently stationed in a University District lot. There are myriad other good reasons, though, including this inexpensive eatery’s namesake meal, koshary: A boldly flavored, multilayered, rib-sticking but meatless mélange frequently called the national dish of Egypt.
This king’s koshary is quite garlicky and its base of lentils, rice and crispy fried onions resembles mujadara (a classic in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Israel). That said, Koshary King’s koshary is actually like mujadara on steroids, as an avalanche of extras is added — chickpeas, angel hair pasta, macaroni, lemon juice, vinegar, tomato sauce and tomatoes — to create a mammoth dish that balances its comforting ingredients with acidic flourishes and fragrant notes of cumin, coriander and paprika.
Other standouts: mesaka’a — a tangy, terrific and moussaka-adjacent dip of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers; “meat over rice” — shawarma-like halal beef strips, tomatoey rice, puffy yet crisp griddled pita strips plus a mayobased garlic sauce; basboosa — a nutty and wonderful namoura-like semolina cake.
More info: 614-377-9410, facebook.com/kosharykingofficial21
Elevated Wood Fired Pizza
If it seems like a stretch that you could get serious Neapolitan-style pizzas baked in an Italian-built oven from a food truck, I’d say it’s more of an elevation. I’d also say the beauties cooked by Tom Peponis in his wood-burning, ontruck terracotta oven at Elevated Pizza are better than what you’ll get from most local pizzerias.
That’s largely because Peponis — the former executive chef at Harvest Pizzeria in Dublin — bakes toasty, gently smoky, thin Neapolitan-style discs that are alluringly crisp yet elastic and boast puffy edges that are attractively charred in spots.
Elevated’s spicy pepperoni — crisp Ezzo pepperoni, pickled serrano chile bits and oven-browned Grande mozzarella atop pleasantly acidic, extra-zesty tomato sauce — is a terrific pick for fans of botanical heat. For something even more outside the pizza box, try the splashy-looking sausage pizza: fennelseeded sausage clumps and earthy goat cheese blobs playing off roasted red pepper strips and tart-sweet balsamic vinegar drizzles.
Elevated’s most distinct and probably best pie — the tangy, rich and smoky
Alsatian pizza — will transport diners to Alsace, a Germanic region of Northeastern France where flatbreads called Flammekuechen are popular. Elevated’s marvelous take on its Flammekuechen cousins has caramelized sweet onions plus crisp and smoky bacon bits highlighted by melted mozzarella seamlessly integrated into a righteous cream sauce.
More info: 614-905-1602, elevateyourpizza.com, facebook.com/elevateyourpizza, instagram.com/elevatedwoodfiredpizza
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