Food Fighter Bustaurant’€™s Hot and Sweet Ham and Swiss. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)

During his 13 NBA seasons, fiery shooting guard Vernon “Mad Max” Maxwell won two championships, punched a fan, became one of seven players ever to score 30 points in a single quarter and faked an injury because he was unhappy with his playing time.

Food Fighters Bustaurant is the Vernon Maxwell of Huntsville food trucks. Or at least it was on the brisk-yet-sunny lunch hour we visited.

The cooking, ingredients and concepts were happening but the execution was erratic. For example, the roast beef and Cuban-style loaf bread in Food Fighter’s French dip (called a Dippitadydoo) were of excellent quality and freshness. Deliciously prepared. But since no au jus was included in our order, we wouldn’t be doing any dipping on this day.

The bearded, aviator-shades-wearing dude that took our order was groovy-friendly and our order came out in just 10 minutes – that’s light-speed for a food truck. But later we discovered our order was short a sandwich and a soda, although we hadn’t been charged for the former.

Food Fighters is a converted yellow International school bus with Texas plates.  On this afternoon it was parked in the Huntsville Hospital Logistics Building parking lot, about a mile from Bridge Street Town Centre.

No seating or tables. A whiteboard resting atop a wizened plastic table outside Food Fighters listed four lunch menu sandwich options: French Dippitadydoo, Grilled Pastrami, Italian Beef Sandwich and Hot and Sweet Ham and Swiss, as well as several quarter-pound hotdog offerings. The sandwiches ran $7, which includes a can of soda (Coke products) and bag of chips (Fritos, Cheetos, Cool Ranch Doritos, Lay’s Potato Chips). The dog combos were $5.

Food Fighter Bustaurant’€™s Italian Beef Sandwich. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)

The bread used on each of the sandwiches was awesome. Reminiscent of French bread in shape, just much, much more fresh and soft. Impressive.

Usually, I’d rather watch an entire season’s worth of “The Bachelor” episodes back-to-back than consume ham.  But the Hot and Sweet Ham and Swiss was one of the best sandwiches I’ve had this year. The key was the pepper jelly. It combined with the soft bun, melty cheese and fresh-baked, rough-cut ham in a transcendent way.

The namesake meat on the Grilled Pastrami was peppery, smoky and mmmm. Some mustard, mayo or some sort of sauce would have been nice though. Again, just meat and bread. Like lunch at a posh prison. The Carolina Dog was ample and served on a better-than-the-norm bun, and topped with tasty (although a tad mild) chili, the latter blending with the mayonnaise-based slaw in a winning way.

Italian Beef Sandwiches are typically fairly drippy, but this one was barely damp. The meat was fantastic though and the Giardiniera – Italian-American style pickled cauliflower, onions and carrots – was an effective counterpoint. Still, the lack of moistness or sauce made the Italian Beef, like the pastrami and dip, seem incomplete.

Food Fighters maintains a website, Twitter and Facebook pages. They could better utilize these tools, which are essential for the malleable world of food trucks. We had to call to find out where they’d be. And it turns out the enticing menu listed on the website is for dinner and, besides hot dogs, had little in common with the lunch tally.

Which was a bummer. We were psyched about trying the Edmond Dantes Burger (with grilled onions, pepper jack cheese and spicy jelly), the Sriracha fries and The Moline (a pork tenderloin sandwich with cheddar, onions and bacon).  But since Food Fighters regularly parks at Straight to Ale’s taproom on Friday evenings, we’ll still get a chance.

And I’ll definitely give Food Fighters another chance. All the tools are there, they just need to get the maximum out of them and avoid the madness.

Food Fighters Bustaurant
Days/times of operations vary
Call or check Facebook or Twitter for updates
256-924-0553
foodfightersbustaurant.com 
twitter.com/BusFood
facebook.com/BusFood 
Recommendations:  Hot and Sweet Ham and Swiss.
Suggestions: Try them during dinner hours for more options.
Alcohol: No.
Ambience: School bus turned food truck.
Service: Good natured but check your order.
Vegetarian-friendly: Not really.
Price range: Most lunch items $5-$7.

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/03/food_fighters_bustaurant_cooki.html

Barbeque ribs, chicken, pork and turkey served with sides of cole slaw, macaroni and cheese and baked beans are some of the lunches offered at the Badd Newz BBQ and Catering truck on Meridian Street Friday, March 8, 2013 in Huntsville, Ala. (Eric Schultz / eschultz@al.com)

You can see the large red truck parked in front of the desolate shopping center from quite a distance. Passing by Alabama A&M’s Louis Crews Stadium, the sizable grill attached to the truck is also in view and you can hear the generator, too.

The red vehicle is Badd Newz BBQ. The food truck’s logo features a buff, tong-wielding and, as barbecue mascots are wont, apparently cannibalistic pig.

Badd Newz’s menu is based around four meat options, ribs ($5 for sandwich), pulled smoked turkey ($4), pulled pork (3.50) and chicken leg quarter ($2.50). These meats are also available as plates ($10 for ribs, $7 for others), which include two sides and a slice of cake.

I ordered the pulled pork plate with mac-and-cheese and vinegar slaw. Sans sauce, it can be difficult to ascertain one barbecue joint’s pulled pork from another’s. Not an issue at Badd Newz. Their pork is seasoned noticeably spicier, but not so much that it induces sweat or evokes torture. Nice.

The mac-and-cheese was solid, but the vinegar slaw, which was sweet and chunky, was exceptional and provided perfect counterpoint to the spicy meat.

However, Badd Newz’s barbecue sauce tasted suspiciously like Kraft Mesquite Smoke. So none in our dining party really used too much of it. Which is good because even though we ordered food for six, we were given only one small single-serving sized container of sauce. And only three forks. And we were short a piece or two of cake and a drink.

Badd Newz’s Brooklyn-Nets-cap-wearing cashier was kind, if not hurried or detail-oriented. And it only took about 12 minutes for our large order to be brought out with a smile by a salt-and-pepper-bearded cook.

We also ordered a rib plate. The ribs were super-tender – the meat literally fell of the bone – with a good smoky and peppery taste. Very meaty and, for ribs, not overly fatty. An accompanying ice-cream-scooped side of potato salad featured well-balanced mustard and onion flavors and chunks of egg. But deeper into the serving, flavors and ingredients became uneven. A few more stirs in prep, and this side is a hit.

Our order also included pulled smoked turkey, boasting that tasteful spiciness, in both sandwich and plate configurations. The plate worked well – again, the slaw was an ideal pairing. The turkey sandwich, served on a standard barbecue bun, would really benefit from the addition of slaw on it, as its flavor was one-note.

Badd Newz’s serving sizes were right on. Enough to satisfy but not enough to make you a viable body double for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

The baked bean sides ordered with a couple of our plates also benefited from spice, offset with brown-sugar sweetness, although the latter could be dialed back a pinch.

The sweet tea ($1) was Southern-delicious. But it was the only beverage Badd Newz offered this day. (Insert “Seinfeld”-inspired “tea Nazi” joke here.) While the slices of lemon and chocolate cake weren’t impressive in curb appeal – the former looked like a debauched Twinkie – they were both moist and flavorful.

Badd Newz serves its food in white Styrofoam to-go boxes. I would recommend calling in your order for pick-up, as there’s no seating and the truck’s generator operates at vision-blurring volume. But if you’re at or near A&M – or just feel like a sunny-day, 10-minute drive from downtown – Badd Newz’s spicy barbecue is right there waiting for you.

And that’s good news.

Badd Newz BBQ
College Plaza parking lot
4701 Meridian St. N.
256-653-6893
facebook.com/BaddNewzBBQ 
11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Monday – Friday
(Every other Monday at Research Park, best to call first)
Recommendations:  Pulled pork, ribs, vinegar slaw.
Suggestions: Add slaw to smoked turkey sandwich.
Alcohol: No.
Ambience: Food truck.
Service: Kind if not hurried or detail-oriented.
Vegetarian-friendly: No.
Price range: Most items $4 -$10.

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/03/badd_newz_bbq_huntsville_food.html

Sometimes a wayward professional athlete (such as Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant) or rogue entertainer (think Kurt Cobain) is assigned a special handler or bodyguard.

The star’s management charges this person with preventing their cash-cow from doing stuff like shooting other people with a Glock or shooting themselves up with powdered Persian heroin.

In other words: Reel-in the craziness.

At the Peppered Pig food truck, a butter toasted French bread bun serves this purpose. Except instead of reeling-in handguns or heroin, the bun keeps the creative ingredients on the Peppered Pig’s signature burgers and sandwiches from going sideways.

Take the Cuban B ($6.94), for instance. This sizable burger is topped with thin-sliced pork loin, sweet and spicy pickles, adobo mustard, Swiss cheese and cilantro. In the care of lesser bread, this mélange would get mushy, squishy and basically resemble a kindergartner’s art project after a couple bites.

But the Peppered Pig’s French bread bun keeps the ingredients corralled. Ah, and about those ingredients. The pork loin added a cool smoky flavor, the cilantro an herbal lift, the pickles and adobo mustard a sweet-savory contrast.

The country boy ($6.94) sandwich casts beer-battered fried chicken amid peppered bacon, Colby cheese, collard greens and Sriracha mayo. This busy ensemble resulted in a surprisingly cohesive taste. A redheaded dining companion referred to the sandwich as “smart food,” and I would tend to agree. That said, the Colby cheese’s taste was undetectable. Similar to how you never really heard the keyboard Linda McCartney “played” during Wings concerts.

Steak fans will be interested in Peppered Pig’s knuckle sandwich ($6.94). It’s thinly sliced slow-roasted sirloin topped with fried onion rings, sliced tomato, provolone, arugula pesto and A1 mayo. The onion rings imparted a pleasing depth. While the pesto added texture, the flavor was not pronounced.

Back to the burgers. The black and blue ($6.94) is seasoned with blackening spice and outfitted with arugula pesto, tomatoes and the just the right amount of Roquefort blue cheese. The burger patty itself was fresh, juicy and large enough the person who consumed it at lunch didn’t eat again for roughly 18 hours.

Peppered Pig’s plain jane burger ($5.56 plus 46 cents for Colby, Swiss, pepper jack, Munster or provolone cheese) is augmented in a fairly memorable manner, as far as baseline burgers go. Roasted garlic mayo, adobo mustard, grilled red onion and scallions, tomato, sweet and spicy pickles and Bibb lettuce. The construction plan was ideal. Bun-condiment-lettuce-beef-cheese-bun. Pepper bacon was added for an extra 92 cents, and the Pig didn’t skimp on the pig.

Yes, “cat tacos” ($6.94) is an unsettling name for a dish. But before dialing PETA, please note the two flour tortillas are filled with fried catfish not your Granny’s beloved pet Whiskers. The fish is cornmeal bread and Creole seasoned. Fresh toppings include cabbage slaw, diced tomatoes, cilantro, and Sriracha mayo. Pickled jalapenos are served on the side.

 All of Peppered Pig’s burger variations can also be ordered atop fries ($4.63) instead of burger and bun – a hip spin on the chili-cheese fries template. As far as the Pig’s fresh-cut fries go, they’re crisp and dusted with a salty seasoning. Other sides include mac and cheese ($2.08) and a peppered-bacon deviled egg ($1.16). Definitely want to try those next time.

And there will be a next time. Peppered Pig’s well-executed food and intriguing menu renders this a lunch spot you’ll want to try more than once. (Other items include a Fire in the Hole burger with hot pepper relish, and the Chopper, a pan-seared pork loin sandwich)  But for expediency’s sake, you’ll want call-in your order, as a mere two-person crew operates the food truck venture.

The Peppered Pig’s nondescript white, 22-foot trailer is parked across from the South Parkway Schlotzsky’s, in the Antiques Market parking lot, next to an archery range. In terms of ambience, unless a mouthful of Parkway-generated carbon-dioxide appeals to you, you’ll want to take your Peppered Pig order with you. (There is a single red picnic table on-site.)

Since the Peppered Pig sets up in front of an antiques dealer, in theory, you could even sell your great-uncle’s old watch to generate funds for a Cuban B burger, if need be. That might actually be a decent trade.

Peppered Pig
11595 Memorial Pkwy. S.W.
407-927-6591
pepperedpig.net
Monday – Friday: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Friday
Recommendations:  Cuban B burger and country boy sandwich.
Suggestions: Call in your order…to go.
Alcohol: No.
Ambience: Food truck alongside Memorial Parkway.
Service: Friendly, but small crew.
Vegetarian-friendly: Not really.
Price range: Most sandwiches about $7.

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/01/peppered_pig_huntsville_foot_t.html

By Deborah Storey | The Huntsville Times

Vietnamese sub truck on University Drive (The Huntsville Times/Deborah Storey)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The food truck trend continues to roll into Huntsville.

The newest one, on University Drive at Old Monrovia Road, serves Vietnamese sub sandwiches.

From the look of the lines often there on weekedays, it’s popular.

A couple named Dang Nguyen and Han Vu, both from Saigon, have been selling their native fare at the Chevron station parking lot for about three months. They serve sub sandwiches and spring rolls and plan to add soup this winter. Sandwiches and fresh-made spring rolls are $3.25.

The bahn mi sandwich is on a fresh baguette with chiles or jalapenos, ham “made with a bit of pig’s ear,” minced pork, pickled carrots, daikon radish, cucumber, cilantro and pork liver pate. They make the bread themselves.

There’s also grilled pork, grilled chicken and meatball sandwiches. Soft drinks in cans and chips are available, too.

Several mobile food operations already serve Mexican food in the Huntsville area (Governors Drive, Triana Boulevard).

The truck is “open” Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.