besides all the sxsw shenanigans and drunken reveling, it appears that my main goal here in austin is to eat myself into a street food coma. while aimly walking around south congress this morning, i randomly discovered a brand-spanking-new street food purveyor today on the corner of congress and crockett.  the ‘me so hungry’ mobile restaurant consists of an electric lime-green truck with ‘me so hungry‘ emblazoned on the side along with an alluring drawing of a scantily clad asian woman in a cheongsam minidress giving a serious come-hither look. curious about whether i might need to school some fat white redneck about propagating asian female stereotypes, i wandered over and instead met the super adorable christina and her even more super adorable mother, somchith.

both christina and somchith were  incredibly sweet and friendly – we started chatting, and i found out that today was their third day open selling american-influenced asian fusion food. the menu included items like vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, chinese chicken fried rice, pad thai, summer spring rolls, and a choose-your-own ingredient ‘wok it out’ stir fry. i bought a barbecued pork banh mi with tender honey barbecue pork, fresh peppers, cucumber and cilantro, and an slather of sweet cilantro mayo on a buttered baguette. add a squiggle of sriracha hot sauce and you’ve got a massive torpedo stuffed full of fresh meat and veggies and sharply bright colors. assuming you manage to get it in your mouth – the sandwich is seriously ginormous – the sweet and spicy flavors joust for prominence on your tongue, with the creamy sweet mayo cutting down the fiery bite of the hot sauce.  if any adjustments were to be made, i’d suggest maybe a softer or thinner baguette to facilitate the stuffing-your-face process and make it easier to taste all the individual flavors in one bite. feast on this bit of food porn:

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