What: Skillet Food Club, mobile food trailer; www.skilletstreetfood.com.
Where: This is a good question. A few weeks ago, when I showed up at 264 Westlake, where the GPS locator on Skillet’s Web site said the converted Airstream trailer would be, I found a vacant parking lot. Turns out chefs Josh Henderson and Danny Sizemore had set up shop in the alley east of the 200 block, right below the KIRO sign. They’re only open a few days a week, for the time being, and the location keeps evolving.
Cost: Chicken sandwich ($8), Jones soda ($2), and a little bucket of poutine ($4).
Would I eat it again? In an instant. I hope their little Airstream has babies.
Official Tasting Notes: Josh and Danny had the trailer-park setting down pat: There was the soft hum of a good generator, a few nearby cranes towering overhead, hot sun reflecting off the dirty pavement, and the consistent thump-thump of a nearby construction site. But they’re only here on Wednesdays and Thursdays, for the time being. And you know what? With food like this, I’d follow them just about anywhere.
Skillet’s menu is small, and for now they’re just offering a few things from it each day. On the day I went, the choices were Kobe beef sliders, a salad, or a sandwich.After trying a spoonful of the bacon jam the cooks put on their sliders—mmm, the essence of 10,000 pigs—I decided on an order of poutine and a hazelnut-crusted chicken sandwich, served with a zingy, crisp apple-fennel slaw and a good slathering of roasted-shallot aioli. The poutine translates as “upscale cheesy fries”: good fries topped with an earthy herb gravy and little cubes of sharp Irish cheddar. The crunch and tenderness of the sandwich’s chicken reminded me of Steelhead Diner’s buttermilk-fried chicken sammy. I shoveled it in without stopping to wipe the mayo off my face, despite the fact that I could quite easily see my messy reflection in the side of the Airstream.
Insider Tip: Tips? They don’t take ’em. Danny just stood out front taking orders in his cute Kentucky drawl, and actually asked me not to tip when I signed my credit-card slip. If you insist, the tips go to the cook who’s not the owner.