About 2 weeks ago, a groupon deal came up offering a buy one, get one free to the "Food Truck Rodeo". The "1st annual" in Seattle. First, I love that term. And when I say I love it, I really mean I find it tremendously useless. It can't be the first annual. NEXT year, if they do it again, it will be the 2nd annual Food Truck Rodeo. So far, it's just the first. Oh, but there WILL be a 2nd. And they will find a better location!
So after talking it over every so quickly with The Critic, we agreed to go. Here's the fun part. Last summer I watched (and really enjoyed) The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. This summer, I've been watching season 2. The fun part is that The Big Guy LOVES it. He's so into it it's adorable. He has his favorites (usually Hodge Podge) and often can be quoted saying "I think they're gonna kill it this time! Uh oh, that must be Tyler calling about a Speed Bump." So the chance to go to an event and be like we're there was just FUN! The Little Guy watches the show on occasion as well, but remember, he's the adventurous eater. So really, going to this event with both of them is a no-brainer.
It really was incredibly fun. Pretty much what you'd picture... a bunch of food trucks behind barbed wire. My understanding is that they had NO idea it would be so popular and they dealt with some fire marshal issues. Thankfully we didn't have to wait in the ridiculously long line to get in (with our pre-paid tickets). The Critic's good friend JB, a fellow foodie, did the waiting for us and we sauntered up to the front with very little wait.
I can't do my typical list of food eaten and return factor liklihood... this is more in that food festival category. I can tell you that The Critic was itching to get his hands on a Cuban he'd heard about and loved. JB thoroughly enjoyed his duck confit on grilled flatbread of sorts (they ran out of it within minutes of him ordering it) and I was grateful for the grill truck that broke their exception of "no substitutions" to make a plain meat, cheese, and bun burger for The Big Guy. There was cumin in that patty! Interesting!
I can't fill you in on the details of what I ate, because JB ordered it (a sampler plate of some kind). The chicken was YUM (not pictured because, well, it was inhaled). The vegetarian was a close second... a delicious mango salsa on it). And of the pork sliders pictured here, the one with the carrot on top was a habanero honey BBQ sauce while the other was ancho chile. And the habanero was much much much preferred by all of us, even The Little Guy who is not a fan of spice.
The Big Guy also had a slice of pepperoni pizza, hand tossed in the truck and wood fired. I did take that opportunity to be both grateful for providing for the simple palate, but it also affords the opportunity to express my disappointment. This event had a cover to get in and was not well advertised. You had to be in the know to go. So why dumb down to your audience? The Thai place had... Phad Thai. I guess sometimes I just expected to see a bit more.
Now the desserts... those were something special. I'm not a dessert person really, but all three of my guys are. At one cart, The Guys designed their own ice cream sandwich on homemade snickerdoodles that were really good. The "plain vanilla" ice cream was really tasty, almost having a coconut flavor to it. The bigger folks, The Critic, JB, and me, all ordered from a place called Parfait (hey I remembered a name!). The blackberry ice cream was dubbed "crackberry" by JB. The Guys had the Meyer Lemon which was really good and not at all the tart sorbet-y dish I was expecting. The toffee was a bit of a disappointment. If you got the toffee it was incredible, but there was very very little toffee to be gotten. Mine was my favorite... dark chocolate decadence. Yes. Yes it was.
The main problem with a place like this is the same problem with any food festival. Too many choices, too small of a stomach. Yes, even I have too small of a stomach it seems. But based on the line of about a billion (give or take a few thousand) who were attempting to get in and the fact that Skillet, one of the most famous trucks in Seattle right now, left before the event was over, well... I'd say it was a success they will truly be turning into an annual event.
And it was pretty much like being in a line for the Food Truck Race. The Big Guy and I were both not disappointed by that.
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