Food Truck Roundup - March

This one fell through the cracks, so I'm going to post it now.  Just pretend you can fire up the flux capacitor in the DeLorean and I typed this a week ago.

So the last Saturday of March, it was a rare nice March day.  DB~ and I decided to poke our heads in on the Great Food Truck Roundup of '13 at Coffee Buddha.  The Pittsburgh Taco Truck owner, James, organized 7 other food trucks to join him in the cordoned off lot.  The event was scheduled to run from 12 to 4, so anticipating a crowd we got on-site at 11:45.

There was already a line 10 deep at the Taco Truck and Oh My Grill, a truck that specializes in gourmet grilled cheese.  The other trucks had a smattering of people, but these were definitely the two most popular when we arrived.

The other trucks in attendance were Fukuda (sushi), The Pierogie Truck (self-explanatory), Dozen Bakeshop (cupcakes and other desserts), a tricked out Ice Cream truck of some sort, BRGR (gourmet burgers), and Franktuary (hot dogs).  After surveying the menus and being mildly disappointed by Fukuda's limited selection, we both decided to sample Oh My Grill.

DB~ made the power choice and went with a double cream brie/pear/wine sauce grilled cheese with a wine dipping sauce.  I did a custom sandwich with turkey, monterrey jack, and pepper jack that came with a potato soup dipper.  It was fantastic, but not as good as the potential-heart-attack-but-worth-it from Melt in Cleveland.

BRGR drew a crowd by the time we were leaving, but the most popular overall was the Taco Truck.  Going solely by Twitter followers, James and the Giant Taco Truck (Roald Dahl?  Anyone?  Jeez, read a book) laps the rest of the field with over 4000 compared to the 1500 that the others have.

DB~ said it best.  Nearly everyone likes tacos (she met a guy recently who said tacos were "outside his comfort zone") so they show up.  When there, they're greeted by tacos with exotic ingredients like kimchi or jerk seasoning or Indian butter, so they're drawn in.  They try it and are hooked on the freshness and quality of each one.  Two tacos is $6 to $9 usually, you're full, and you had something interesting.  What a business model.

It seems like the last Saturday of every month will be a roundup at Coffee Buddha, so I encourage you to check it out if you're in the area.  Tell James I sent you.