Spencer-On-The-Go

»Spencer on the Go - some of the best French food around

Needing a quick bite tonight in the Civic Center area, I decided to try out Chez Spencer's new mobile food truck.

I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the food coming out of a food truck.

I started off the with the "escargot lollipops", which were puffy, light, yet also delicious and filling. pretty good portion, with two of them for $2.

However, the real highlight of the meal was...+READ Needing a quick bite tonight in the Civic Center area, I decided to try out Chez Spencer's new mobile food truck.

I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the food coming out of a food truck.

I started off the with the "escargot lollipops", which were puffy, light, yet also delicious and filling. pretty good portion, with two of them for $2.

However, the real highlight of the meal was the braised lamb cheek sandwich. By far the best sandwich I've ever had, and one of the best pieces of lamb. It had been braised in a port reduction for quite a while, and it was just absolutely bursting with flavor. At $10, it was an absolute steal, and I've had worse lamb for twice as much at other restaurants.

The dessert was the only disappointment, as I was charged $5 for a "warm pudding" that turned out to be more of a dense souffle.

Nonetheless, I still had an incredible 3-course French meal for $17 with eveyrthing included. Would highly recommend. Can't wait to try the actual restaurant.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (10 Replies) (by vulber, created March 4, 2010)

Went Wednesday, had:
-Frog's legs...mainly because I've only had chinese preps, I wanted to compare. Would have been better hotter; good flavor, hard to eat without making a mess or losing pieces of succulent meat
-White prawns on puff pastry...favorite by far, puff pastry nicely puffed and browned with caramelized butter flavors (sorry yours flopped, Robert!). Delicious subtle spicing to the...+READ Went Wednesday, had:
-Frog's legs...mainly because I've only had chinese preps, I wanted to compare. Would have been better hotter; good flavor, hard to eat without making a mess or losing pieces of succulent meat
-White prawns on puff pastry...favorite by far, puff pastry nicely puffed and browned with caramelized butter flavors (sorry yours flopped, Robert!). Delicious subtle spicing to the prawns, cooked perfectly. Wish we'd had two.
-tomato soup--good, chunks of flavorful bread in it, along with cavolo nero? Saved most for the next day since it was in a container and we over-ordered
-foie...what can I say, Chez Spencer knows how to make foie. Not an earth-shattering preparation, not a great value in terms of size for $12, but hard to complain about it.
-escargot puffs: delicious. Warm, crispy, rich, cheesy...utterly different from an arancini, but in overall balance of flavors, textures, starch to filling, reminded me a lot of the experience I have eating a good arancini standing on a sidewalk. Good value at $2 ea.

We also had 2 flavors of creme brulee from the creme brulee guy. I was not impressed. I thought flavors lacked finesse, custard lacked depth of flavor, sugar was inadequately caramelized and it was maybe some sort of organic or caster sugar that had a flavor I don't care for. I do not understand the appeal of these at $4 for a miniscule creme brulee. Props at least to the creme brulee guy...he's bringing happiness to many, and paying the rent and then some with his little business.

At terroir, we ordered a bottle of wine (Huet from the Loire) and the cheese plate. The staff is more than a little bit dogmatic and French, which I don't mind, but many would. That results in the cheese plate having no description what-so-ever. If you speak french, you could figure out what the options were if they had the time; instead, they simply asked us if we liked blue cheese, as they had some ideas of particular cheeses that would go well with the wine. I have no qualms if someone is an expert and they correctly assume I don't know the wine and I don't know their cheese selection, leading them to make decisions for me unilaterally; I could see how others (cough, yelp) would find that insulting, overbearing, and somehow indicative of bad service. I hope they stay just the way they are, because it's a perfectly calm and civilized place to have some wine and cheese without dealing with a crowd.-COLLAPSE / REPLY (16 Replies) (by SteveG, created August 21, 2009)

The food was okay, but I had to wait over an hour to get my order. I think I would have gotten food faster at the Chez Spencer restaurant. I tried the escargot puff, potato soup, and the frogs legs with curry. REPLY (16 Replies) (by L C, created May 21, 2009)