If you work in downtown Chattanooga, chances are you’ve heard about Fresh Friday at Miller Plaza. If you haven’t, then I’m impressed you managed to have this newspaper delivered to the rock under which you’ve been living.
To me, the lure of Fresh Friday is the food trucks and the free music. However, until last week, I’d been to Miller Plaza during the noon hour only once – to try Famous Nater’s. The launch of A Taste of Argentina, a new mobile restaurant that opened April 13, encouraged me to make the trek.
According to owners John and Darci Cena, Argentine food is all about barbecue. If you visit the country, you’ll likely end up eating at a “parrilla,” a restaurant that serves grilled chicken, pork, lamb, sausage and other meats. Unlike Southerners, Argentineans don’t smother their meats in sauce, but lightly season them, John says. During his several visits to the country, he developed a passion for bringing a small piece of its culture back to the Scenic City.
True to its name, A Taste of Argentina has only a few items on its menu – but those items pack a tasty wallop. At the top of the menu is handmade empanadas, meat-packed patties in a deep fried crust. Next on the list are: the choripan, a grilled Argentine sausage with onions and peppers on a hoagie; the milanesa, a marinated and deep fried chicken sandwich; and the eggplant sandwich, which should be self-explanatory.
What I have not made clear yet is how good this food is. I arrived about ten minutes before John and Darci opened their restaurant for the first time. They invited me into their pristine trailer, where John was grilling choripan and Darci was folding up uncooked empanadas. The smell of the onions and peppers cooking in a pan hit me the moment I stepped through their screen door, and together with the sight of the sausages smoking on the grill activated my drool glands.
While they worked, Nathan from Famous Nate’s walked past their order window and extended his hand to John. He wished him luck, and seemed as sincere as his food is good. Although the mobile restaurant vendors in Chattanooga are competitors, there’s a heartwarming camaraderie among them. They genuinely want to see each other do well. There also might be a bit of symbiosis at play; if someone is drawn to try A Taste of Argentina, they might discover Famous Nate’s for the first time. (That can happen when you’ve been living under a rock.)
John pulled a sausage of the grill, and put the slightly seared meat in the middle of a hoagie bun from Publix, squeezed some chimichurri sauce across its length and then heaped a pile of onions and peppers on top. He then placed it in a to-go dish alongside a freshly cooked empanada and handed it to me.
As I sat outside eating the spoils of my journey to Miller Plaza, I marveled at how cool living and working in Chattanooga can be. It was a sunny day, a band called Soul Merchant was cranking out hard-driving tunes and on the Nightfall stage, and I was the first person in the city to have the privilege of tasting a unique and appetizing new food.
It was enough to make me forget I had to go back to the office as soon as I was done.
The empanada was spicy, but not overwhelmingly so. The seasoned meat, eggs and crumbly crust were perfect together. I only wished it had been bigger. One is a snack; two is lunch.
I also savored the choripan. Like the ground beef in the empanada, the meat was lightly seasoned and had a more subtle taste than most Southern sausages I’ve tried. It was juicy and chewy, though, like kielbasa, which is important for those of you who are fussy about texture. The chimichurri complemented the meat perfectly, as did the onions and peppers.
I did not try the milanesa or the eggplant sandwich, but a description of each is in order. To prepare the milanesa, John or Darci take a chicken breast, pound it out, marinate it overnight in secret spices and then bread it and deep-fry it to crispy perfection. The meat hangs off the bun, which is piled high with lettuce and tomato. It looks good, as you can see from the photos in their Facebook page. (You can find their page simply by typing “A T” into the search box and then selecting the link at the top of the results.)
The eggplant sandwich comes with a thick slice of grilled eggplant, spinach, garlic and basil, and is cooked in olive oil. It looks like a great alternative for vegetarians.
A Taste of Argentina will be at Miller Plaza on Fridays and at Warehouse Row on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Also look for them at the Chattanooga Market on Sundays and during Nightfall.
As I was polishing off my choripan, someone walked by with a bucket of miniature donuts. Since A Taste of Argentina doesn’t offer dessert, I set out to locate the source of the doughy goodness, and found Monkey Town Donut Company in an even smaller trailer nearby. I also found co-owner Kris Spengler, who was busy cranking out his product.
As he told me about his donuts, they sounded too good to be true. “They’re a wheat donut cooked in soy bean oil, which means they have zero trans fat and no cholesterol. And they’re only 30 calories a piece,” he said as he bagged a half dozen and handed them to me.
I could taste the cinnamon, the sugar and the doughy goodness, but if he hadn’t told me the donuts were wheat-based, I wouldn’t have known. They were fantastic, and a great way to wind up lunch.
Kris sells coffee, too, and opens up at 7 a.m. on the same days and at the same locations as the other mobile restaurants, so don’t miss out on this mouthwatering, and virtually guilt-free, Chattanooga treat.
The mobile restaurant saga is not over, as Taco Sherpa is inching ever closer to its launch date. Miller Plaza is already THE place to be on Fridays at lunch, though, thanks to four simply super mobile restaurants.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.