I recently spent a wonderful but torturous two days in Chicago — torturous because I can only eat so many meals in two days, yet I have many Chicago restaurants I want to sample. (I did eat some great food, just not a sandwich.) High on my list is Gaztro-Wagon, a food cart pioneer specializing in naan-wiches.
I consider naan a criminally underutilized bread. I've made my own tandoori chicken naan-wiches and wrapped Rosamunde sausages in naan. Gaztro-Wagon seems willing to fold just about any cuisine into the Indian flatbread: Italian sausage, lamb and tzatziki, chicken and brie, smoked salmon and creme fraiche, and wild boar belly and fennel.
For now, Gaztro-Wagon is operating out of a storefront until Chicago's food-truck ordinance passes (any day now), and the chef and creator, Matt Maroni, helped craft the legislation. Maybe when Gaztro-Wagon's wheel are legit, he can drive out to San Francisco.
One thing I miss about living in the Lower Haight is Rosamunde Sausage Grill (and Estela's sandwich shop, and Metro cheesesteaks . . . can you tell where my priorities are?). So I was delighted to cohost a barbecue on Saturday at which the featured grilling meats were sausages from Rosamunde.
The tiny little sausage stand carries all sorts of transcendently good sausages, including old standbys like bratwurst and beer sausage and unusual recipes like chicken cherry and habanero lime chicken (my faves). You can get hot sausages in buns to go and take them to a nearby bar, or you can buy raw ones and cook 'em yourself. The only problem with cooking the sausages yourself is that Rosamunde has extraordinary buns that they refuse to sell (understandably) so all other buns pale in comparison. But this weekend, my friend Adam had a brilliant idea: buy a bunch of naan from the Indian restaurant on the same block and wrap the wieners in that. The flavor combination was delicious, and the naan made an easy and efficient vehicle for the sausage.
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