José Andrés' PEPE Food Truck

I know it has been a while since I have updated....my apologies for slacking, but I am here now, and I have an update!

Today, my usual lunch buddy ditched me for a lunch meeting, so therefore I decided to go out and try a food truck I haven't tried before.  This is the beauty of working right in downtown DC, everyday at the intersection of F St and 12 St near Metro Center, a troop of food trucks will hangout in that area during lunch time. Usually there are about 6-7 different food trucks parked in that area, and what a pleasant surprise, the famous Jose Andres' new food truck PEPE was one of them.

I initially heard about this food truck from one of my food buddies, then after reading a lot of good reviews online, I added it to my "To Try" list.  I don't know if it was because of the great selection of food trucks available at that spot today or if it was because of the higher prices of PEPE, there was no lines when I got there, so picking PEPE was a no-brainer.  I was curious what PEPE means in Spanish, so I did a quick search and found out that Pepe is actually a nick name for the Spanish name Jose.  So it make sense why Jose Andres named his food truck Pepe.

PEPE has a selection of Spanish influenced sandwiches, and some side items like daily soup and dessert. The average prices for the sandwiches are around $8-$11 but the one sandwich that gets everybody rumbling is the famous $20 sandwich - Iberico Pork, and the typical me will order that and not let the idea of spending $20 on a sandwich bothering me that much, but I read online that the Iberico Pork is extremely greasy (not that I would mind either), but my stomach wasn't at the best shape for greasy food today, so I decided to get something else and come back for the Iberico Pork at a later date.

I went with the Club Barcelona and Gazpacho.  On the menu it says that The Club Barcelona comes with bacon, sliced chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo, very typical ingredients, wasn't anything special, and I picked it solely because of the name...yes, I miss you Barcelona!  Anyways, I didn't really expect much from the sandwich, I just wanted to see what Jose Andres' version of chicken sandwich would taste like.  Now when I took my first bite, the first thing I noticed was how crunchy the baguette was, I would say almost like it was fresh from the oven. This sucks, because now I know if I ever get a baguette sandwich again, and it is not as crunchy and fresh as this one, I am going to be upset. I loved the baguette so much that I would eat it plain!  In fact, the gazpacho came with a plain baguette, kinda like bread-sticks, and it was drizzle with olive oil, and it was still super crunchy. So I am here eating this sandwich, and I just can't believe it only has chicken, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes...why? because it tastes so good and I know for a fact if I take all those ingredients and make the same sandwich, it's not going to taste anything like this.  So I started eating each ingredients by itself to find out what made the difference. The tomatoes and lettuce tastes like normal tomatoes and lettuce, I never expected more.  The bacon was very crunchy, maybe slightly thicker than your normal bacon.  Then I realized the sliced chicken and the mayo is the key.  The chicken was definitely marinated or seasoned with garlic and onion and whatever I can't tell, but it was very flavorful and tender.  The mayo was also mixed with something else, which I also can't tell, but it was not your typical mayo.  But I was just amazed how one can take such simple ingredients, layer them on a piece of bread, and the combination can be this tasty.  I am definitely in love with PEPE, and yes Jose Andres, I am going to spend $20 on your Iberico Pork sandwich, and probably everything else on the menu.  Actually other than the Iberico Pork which is ridiculously expensive, and I probably won't get it more than once, the other sandwiches are decent priced if they taste as good as the Club Barcelona.  It's decent priced consider other delis in DC sells their sandwiches for $7-$8 and no, they don't taste this good. So I will definitely return to PEPE and I will let everyone know how the rest of the sandwiches are.  Oh and the gazpacho was just ok, I have had better, in fact, the gazpacho from the Big Cheese Food Truck tasted better, BUT it doesn't come with the crunchy baguette...hmm...that's a tough decision for me to make...