Our weekly bite explores the city's food trucks, one at a time, highlighting our favorite mobile dishes and snacks.
The Truck: The Rib Whip
The Cuisine: Midwest Style BBQ
Specialty Items: BBQ meats
Worth the Wait in Line? Yes, for the pie in particular.
Immediately upon my arrival at the lunch time food truck rally, the smoke and spice signals the Rib Whip truck was sending out overwhelmed my plans to explore a different, more elusive food truck's cuisine. The internal bargaining to figure out if I had enough stamina to eat two lunches was thankfully resolved when I saw that Rib Whip also offered dessert. Who can say no to dessert? Not me.
The last time I had tried the Rib Whip was when original owner Ryan Gessel had launched the truck, and after a long wait in the cold and drizzle I'd checked it off the list. With the truck and operations being sold to and run by Cedar Hill owner and pitmaster Jon Rietz, the brisket sandwich ($8) was much improved, though still not dressed as heavily in sauce as I prefer. But the pie -- my god the pie!
The large wedge of Grandma Ruth's Buttermilk Pie ($5, graham cracker crust, buttermilk custard, whipped cream) is delivered in a large salad take out container that somehow scales the slice to a reasonable size, like two really tall people standing next to each other. The crust is the hero here: crunchy with large cookie crumbs that have been lightly salted in spots so that every other bite has enough salinity to ready the tongue for more sweet. It's an essential contrast to the thin layer of gooey buttermilk custard with a light tang, all lightened with a soaring whipped cream pompadour. All together it's a textural journey of fluffy and dense, salty and sweet, crunchy and soft.
Even with a belly full of barbecue, the pie disappeared like smoke.
