Food

Notes From the Field: CapMacDC and the Big Cheese Truck

Our critics give new restaurants a quick look and report back with their first impressions. In honor of our Food Truck Fight, we hit two mobile vendors.

First, a disclaimer: If you put bread and cheese together in any form, odds are very good that I’ll like it. The odds go up even more if there’s butter involved. That’s important to know when considering my initial opinion of two cheese-laden trucks, CapMac (the specialty is mac and cheese) and the Big Cheese Truck (grilled cheese). The former is owned by chef Brian Arnoff, who honed his skills at Bourbon Steak in Georgetown and with Barbara Lynch in Boston before that. For all his high-end-restaurant grooming, he knows how to make lowbrow food awfully tasty: His signature mac and cheese, made with cheddar and pimiento cheeses, has an extra shot of salt from crumbled Cheez-Its (yeah, yeah, it’s embarrassing to admit, but I love those processed little squares). Arnoff’s chicken-parm meatballs aren’t too shabby either, although we could have used another meatball or two to balance out the healthy helping of marinara-and-béchamel-bound rigatoni.

Ingredient balance is also an issue with the Mt. Fuji sandwich—Brie, apples, and honey—from the Big Cheese Truck. When melted, the Brie’s flavor overpowers the other ingredients. And the tomato soup was an oregano-heavy, watery broth. A grilled cheese with goat’s-milk Gouda and caramelized onions, however, was much better, and both sandwiches come on hearty multigrain bread that’s coated with—what else?—butter.

Related:

Food Truck Fight

Notes From the Field: Farrah Olivia

Notes From the Field: Cava Grill

Subscribe to Washingtonian
Follow Washingtonian on Twitter

Follow the Best Bites Bloggers on Twitter at twitter.com/bestbitesblog

More>> Best Bites Blog | Food & Dining | Restaurant Finder