Stick a Pork In It - Lebanon, OR (Review)

Someone Brownie works with recommended we try Stick a Pork In It.  They're a food truck in Lebanon, usually parked in the Mega Foods parking lot on Main Street.

We have eaten here on a couple of occasions and the food was consistently delicious!  Brownie is a pulled pork aficionado and  he will be the first to tell you that this is some good pork!  "I thought it had a good smoke flavor, wasn't dry, and was evenly pulled."

I am a huge fan of Brownie's pulled pork, I just don't think it gets any better.  But this truck definitely has their pork down to an art! Now, if you've driven by and rolled your eyes thinking, 'another BBQ truck?' - that's not what this is!  This is about pork and they play with it well!

Cuban Sandwic

There aren't a lot of places locally to order a Cuban Sandwich, so if you stop by here, be sure to try theirs!  It's done the traditional way with sliced pork loin, ham, swiss cheese, mustard and pickles and it's really good!  I love that they have this twist on their menu!

We've tried just about everything on the truck by now and we have our favorites! Thing #5 refuses to eat BBQ because it 'tastes like smoke'.  But the rest of us who've eaten it definitely have an opinion!

Pork Tacos w/Cilantro Lime Slaw

Porkadilla with BBQ Sauce

Traditional BBQ Sandwich

Brownie and I both agree that if you have to order just one thing, you really must try the pork tacos with their signature cilantro lime slaw!  It's a flavor punch with just the right amount of spice that compliments the pork perfectly and we can't get enough!

Thing #3 highly recommends the Porkadilla with BBQ sauce - he said it was 'Heaven.'  Thing #4 cleared his throat and asked about their Dad's BBQ.  Thing #3 quickly added, 'Well, except for your barbecue, Dad!'  Have I mentioned how smart our Things are!?  :-)

The traditional BBQ sandwich is also there if you're really craving BBQ but in our humble opinion - it's not the best thing on the menu - we recommend branching out!

We have also tried the strawberry lemonade blended and unblended, Brownie prefers it blended so the muddled strawberries don't block his straw, I prefer it unblended; I'll happily deal with muddled strawberries on my own. 

We will be returning often I'm sure; we still have not been able to try the Cuban Potato Ball.  In true food truck fashion, they run out before we get there.  So they must be good!

We rate our restaurants on our Brownifer scale and I feel like it must be mentioned that one of the areas where they scored a 5 was customer service!  They have proven that they love their business and their customers are their #1 priority!  Trust us, they will feed you well, keep you happy and coming back for more!

On our Brownifer Scale, Stick a Pork In It came out with a 4-Star rating!  It's well worth trying out and making one of your go-to BBQ stops!  We don't even want to hear how far the drive to Lebanon is.  It's worth it.  Just go!

Cheesy Stuffed Burgers - Albany, OR (Review)

We've been hearing so much about these burgers - we had to try them!

We don't do fast food unless it's the occasional run through the Burgerville Drive-thru.  We try really hard to stick to healthy, local foods.  So when we saw that Cheesy Stuffed uses grass-fed beef, we hopped in the car and drove into town.

Food trucks have their own niche in the restaurant market and most of us can agree that some of the best munchies come off of food trucks! This was a bit different as we were served in our vehicle; I liked the convenience of just waiting in my warm car!  The staff was very polite and I easily paid with my debit card on their tablet - they made it all very simple and convenient.

We ordered two burgers, an order of fries and I was curious about the lumpia, as we've made these and I used to eat lumpia as a kid in Hawai'i at my Filipino Grandma's house.  So the picture to the left was our neat little bag of goodies that we took home with us :-)

When we got home, we unwrapped our burgers and set out our sides to start trying everything.


The burgers were, in fact, stuffed with cheese.  I wouldn't say impressively so.  As we ate, we compared the burgers to what one would receive at a fast food restaurant and pondered what we thought a grass-fed burger from a food truck would be like. Brownie was a little disappointed with the portion size.  He was definitely expecting a larger burger.  If we went back, he would order two.

We also discussed price.  For $6 - $8 we couldn't really justify buying two burgers at a time.  I reminded him that grass-fed beef is much more expensive than your average ground beef.

In general, we liked the burgers, but I do have to say that just like other fast food burger drive-thrus, ultimately our opinion was that we could make a better burger at home.  Definitely have.

The fries were good, but the lumpia was either a bit overdone or cooked in oil that could have used changing.  I liked the sauce they served with the lumpia though.  We did wait until 15 minutes before closing to pop in, so not sure it's fair to judge at that time of night.  We will try them again earlier in the day sometime and try more of the menu.

Overall, we wouldn't say these burgers are bad by any means, but maybe they just didn't live up to the hype for us.  If you're not incredibly hungry, this is definitely a healthier choice than any of the chains here in town and I hope they become more popular for this reason.  The more people ditching Burger King for small, local and grass-fed - the happier I am!

As for presentation - how do you judge a food truck on how pretty their food is after being wrapped in foil and stuffed in a bag?  It is what it is out of necessity.  We definitely won't bash any food truck for that.

On the Brownifer scale - we give Cheesy Stuffed Burgers 3 1/2 stars.  (out of 5)  Stay tuned, however, this blog can and will be updated upon a second, third, fourth visit :-)  Maybe we'll bring the kids and let them weigh in on the experience!

Any chance to support local food, we support!  Take our comments for what they're worth and try it yourself!