Food Truck Happenings

Pressing matters first:  Today marks the first Food Truck Rally of the year.  The festivities will be at Meridian City Hall from 4-8 P.M, to celebrate National Library Week, and the line-up so far is as follows:

A Cupcake Paradise
Archie's Place
Bel Cibo Truck
Genki Takoyaki
Mosaic Crepe Co.
P. Ditty's Wrap Wagon
Tiki's Shave Ice
VietMOM Grill


However, just because this is the first official Rally of the year, that doesn't mean that the trucks have been idle.  Thanks to the fine folks at the Southern Idaho Food Truck Association, you can catch up with new kids and old favorites on Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 5-8.  They need to be a little better at utilizing social media to get the word out about which trucks will be out which evenings, but you can get a general idea by visiting their Southern Idaho Food Truck Feast page.   Each evening takes advantage of a different church parking lot, which is kind of ingenious since they tend to be huge and underutilized at night.  Wednesdays you can find them at Cathedral of the Rockies at the corner of Amity and Maple Grove in Meridian...

while on Thursdays they move to the Church of the Nazarene at Euclid and Hale near BSU.

Just FYI, more trucks tend to show up on Wednesdays.  I've only briefly visited each location so far, but here's some of the things I've tried:

Starting off with Wednesdays in Meridian, The Cuban Panini truck is actually an outpost of Casa Blanca Cuban Grill on Overland, and as such you'll recognize most of the dishes from that menu.

Cubano Sandwich

Such as the Cubano sandwich seen above, which it pretty much exactly the same as their restaurant version.  I do still wish that their roast pork was a little moister, but hey, it's still delicious.

Spam Musubi

This Spam Musubi came from Tiki Teriyaki, one of the newer players on the scene.  Honestly, I prefer my Spam grilled a little more and I'd rather sauce the finished product myself, but more people serving this dish is never a bad thing.  This was all I had room for after the Cubano, so unfortunately I didn't get to try any of their plate lunches, but I have my eye on their pork adobo for my next visit.  Plus, they have coconut rice!

Ham and Cheese Crepe

Moving on to Thursday nights downtown, I finally caught up with Mosaic World Crepes for the first time since the demise of the West End Food Park.  Or rather, my roommate's younger daughter did.  She ordered the Ham and Cheese crepe, the name of which is kind of a disservice to the actual item, which includes prosciutto, bacon and cheese.  The kid dug it but did remark that she would prefer a cheese with a stronger flavor.  I think I've been spoiling that kid with all the smoked and sharp stuff.

Darjeeling Momo's Combo Meal

As for me, I got to visit Darjeeling Momo their first night out.  The brains behind this truck actually used to work at the now defunct Momo Food of the Himalayas in Meridian, which was one of my all-time favorite restaurants.  They have some fine-tuning to do, but I'd say things are promising.  I likely wouldn't order the chicken curry again, it's just too much of a pain in the ass to eat marinated chicken on the bone with plastic utensils and no place nearby to wash your hands, but whatever that chicken veggie rice salad stuff is underneath it, I could eat that all day long.  The momos are good, but just at the moment they only have the pork variety, and their chutney is more tomato-based that Momo's proprietary sauce.  Still good, just different.

Blues Burger with garlic fries

And because I starved myself all day to bank valuable internal real estate, I still had room to stop by Burgerlicious for the first time since that truck changed hands.  I'm happy to report that the garlic fries are still awesome, the burger patties still juicy, grass-fed and nicely charred, the buns still well-toasted, and the sauces as good as ever.

That's the just tip of the iceberg, though.  Many other trucks show up on these nights, including: The Kilted Kod, Il Segreto, The BBQ Guy, Fresh Betty Spaghetti, Bang on the Wall Burgers, Twisted Palate, Slow River Coffee, Scotty's Hot Dogs, etc.

So there you have it, three specific times and places to track down food trucks, and two of them happen weekly!  Get out there and support your local food trucks!  Don't make me come looking for you...