Green Truck Pub: Waiting till the cows come home

I’m sitting here no more than five days after eating at the Green Truck Pub thinking that I don’t really remember my meal.  All I remember is it seems like I waited for an eternity.

Green Truck doesn’t “do” reservations so Chicken Sandwich Girl arrived at 7:30 p.m. on Friday evening to “hold our place” for a table for eight people. The other seven of us arrived promptly at 8 p.m.

We waited outside with the bugs and the Savannah humidity. It was 9:07 p.m. before we saw the inside of the restaurant.

I know, I know. I’m the asshole who tried to go to a popular restaurant on a Friday night with a few friends and their sweeties. Regardless, 97 total minutes is excessive.

My food was good. I’m not going to rant about it because I’m sitting here questioning why I waited that long for food when there are so many other local restaurants in this town with great food and no wait. I have no immediate answer.

Green Truck is a burger joint with a small menu. But to be fair, there is a lot of flavor crammed into that tiny menu. And the best part is that with their impressive variety of choices, they can make any one of them with chicken sandwich or into a veggie burger. 

The hostess split the eight of us into two tables and many of us ordered the same things because we couldn’t confer choices over the aisle.

Must get: Pimento appetizer

The best part of the meal was this appetizer that Mike ordered. It’s pimento cheese with some pickles and really perfect crostini. I recommend this over everything else I tasted at the Truck.

I ordered an El Jefe burger which is cheddar, black bean and corn salsa, avocado and jalapeños. It was good, I didn’t get my Mexican passport stamped or anything, but it was tasty.

Chicken El Jefe style

Patricia ordered the same thing and when I yelled across the aisle to ask her how she liked it, she nodded with her mouth full that it was good. She might soon be nicknamed Lady Nodsalot, I’m not sure yet. And Chicken Sandwich Girl had the same style burger we did, but with…you guessed it, CHICKEN!!!

Mike had the Rustico which is goat cheese, balsamic vinegar, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers and basil. He neither gushed about it, but he didn’t bring out his Big Baby persona to terrorize our waitress either.

Steve and Dean both ordered Chicken and Apples. It sounds pretty gross to me, but they both liked it.

Angela's Trailer Park Burger

Angela had the Trailer Park Burger which is Green Truck’s pimento cheese and bacon. She said it was good, but she thought it was weird they didn’t ask her how she wanted her burger cooked. I agree.

Allison’s meal takes the cake for being the craziest and for looking the weirdest in these photos. She got The Whole Farm and it is a burger, bacon, cheddar and a fried egg on a bun.

Whole Farm Burger

No one was really too chatty about their meal. I think the wait and the bugs turning us into a meal outside as we waited killed it for us.

If you are going to the Green Truck, my advice is to go around 11 a.m. when they open. I hear there is no wait then.

Or if you’re like me and you don’t like to wait at all, Sol has some great burgers and Sammy Green’s makes amazing sandwiches.

Saigon: Oyster crisis averted

Saigon is the second “Asian” restaurant I am reviewing for this blog and the second “Asian” restaurant to teach me a lesson. The first was Wasabi, teaching me the treachery of bad lighting and my iPhone camera.  So, this time, Chicken Sandwich Girl brought a real camera. And sadly, we still didn’t get awesome photos.

Saigon taught me my second lesson - as someone who is allergic to shellfish, I need to be more responsible with what I order.

Despite all that, my meal (the replacement one) was AWESOME.

My peanut salad

For starters, I ordered the Thai Peanut Salad. And, it is exactly what you think it is. It’s a salad with that yummy Thai peanut dressing.

Mike ordered the duck spring rolls. He loved them. He also loved my peanut dressing from my salad. He asked for a side of it and finished his spring rolls off covered in peanut sauce.

Mike's Appetizer

Erin had the shrimp spring rolls with some Sriracha brought on the side. Erin is my firey ginger friend and she likes her food hot.

Erin's appetizer rolls

I first ordered the Garlic Tofu. And here is where the meal could have gone horribly wrong.  They make this dish with oyster sauce.  The menu description said nothing about oyster sauce but I tasted and took on the role of “that guy.”

Our waitress handled the situation flawlessly. She apologized profusely, made sure I was ok, and suggested several things that I could try sans oyster sauce. 

My entree #2: red curry

I settled on a red curry tofu dish and I can honestly say their red curry is one of the best I’ve ever had. Side note, their house cabernet is really good with said red curry.

Erin and I had a total of four glasses and due to the mishap with the oyster sauce, the wine vanished off our bill.

Mike had the Masaman Curry tofu for his dinner and it was fully of curry and peanuts. He was pleased, he left his Big Baby persona holstered and polished off his food.

Mike's Masaman curry

Chicken Sandwich Girl reverted back to being just Ingela because she could not order a chicken sandwich. She ordered dumplings and when I texted her the next day to confirm if they were chicken, her response was, “I believe they were a meat medley.” Enough said. 

Ingela's meat medley dumplings

Patricia mixed a few apps to make a meal.  She started with the Tom Ka soup which is a coconut ginger soup with veggies. She nodded agreeably when I asked her how it was when her mouth was full. I did the same thing again and asked her how her veggie spring rolls were. Same full mouth, same head nodding.

Patricia's Tom Ka soup

Erin had the Saigon Special Noodles. She chose tofu and added shrimp and broccoli. She also loved it. She asked for her noodles to be Super Thai Hot. They were, her face was too. It was all very hot.

So Saigon, thanks for not killing me with shellfish. Thanks for a great meal, upscale atmosphere and an overall awesome time. I think you can tell a lot about a restaurant by how they handle guests when things go wrong. So, you have my vote for best Thai in town.