Keep On Truckin'

Keep On Truckin'

After six years in Midtown Manhattan, my company bugged out and brought us to a new building.  It would still be midtown, but on the east side.  While there are many restaurants, it seems the area does not lend itself to the lunchtime crowd.  I stumbled upon a show called Eat St. on The Cooking Channel.  This show details the different food trucks that are present throughout our cities.  Of course, New York is among them.  This might just be the answer to my lunchtime dilemma.

I had seen the bright yellow truck parked across 3^rd Ave from my building many times before.  I never gave it a much thought.  That was until it made an appearance on Eat St.  I immediately recognized it and took in the episode.  What I did not remember was that this was the same waffle maker that had beaten Bobby Flay in a Throwdown episode.  They now even offered the winning waffle, simply called “The Throwdown”.  Eat St. let it be known that the truck presents itself in different locations on different days.  Friday would be my day.  Before I could take in the truck it appeared on yet another program.  The show was Amazing Eats.  The host was Adam Richman, when he could pull himself away from committing suicide by gluttony on Man V. Food.  His selection was the Pulled Pork Waffle.  You would think this would not work, but it is a marriage made in heaven.  It is topped with cole slaw and a kool-aid soaked pickle.  If you take time to soak a pickle in kool-aid, I am sure the rest of it will be quite tasty.  And it was.

If there were trucks like this right across the street, what might be just down the road.  Eat St. presented another offering, Feed Your Hole…but it was nowhere near my work.  Their unmistakable truck is part band tour bus and part bomber airplane. It is mainly a burger purveyor, but they do have other offerings.  Their flagship food is the “Nut Burger”.  An oversized grass fed beef patty is first seasoned with their special spices.  After grilling it in a flavor infused oil, it is placed upon a fresh brioche bun and topped with bacon and peanut butter.  Max would give that two paws up.  Once again, you would think this would not work together.  However, it seems that peanut butter’s next best friend after chocolate…is bacon.  Alas, I would never know…it was on the other side of town.  I followed their tweets for a few weeks, when I read the news today, Oh Boy!  And I was a lucky man.  Feed Your Hole was headed my way.  The “Nut Burger” would have its newest fan.

Every now and then I would go to Carl’s steaks to get my Philly Cheesesteak fix.  After a subway ride and a couple block walk of Avenues I would arrive.  Not exactly easy.  A friend forwarded an article about a cheesesteak trucker, Phil’s Steaks.  Their fare would actually rank higher than the brick and mortar Carl.  I would YouTube for their Eat St. appearance.  No luck.  I would turn to social media.  I found them on facebook, and their friends were many.  Again being mobile, their locale varied.  Their regular Thursday stop was in walking distance, so off I went.  The ordering window gave you instructions, but I am a seasoned steak veteran.  As I bit into my cheesestake, had I closed my eyes, I would have thought I was back in the City of Brotherly Love.

Now while these three trucks might provide enough samplings for most, it would not for me.  I was hooked and I needed to find others.  It was back to Eat St. and their tale of the food trucks.  Tonight was a new episode and New York was again on the menu.  This time it was Italian, Papa Perrone.  I was told I’d love his balls…RICE balls that is.  They had perfected their mother’s recipe and had been serving them to their friends and family for years.  It was decided to share their balls with the masses, and a truck would be their delivery system.  There are several different types of stuffing that satisfies both carnivores and vegetarians.  After watching the episode and the cook meticulously make the rice balls, my heart sank.  They were quiet the distance away for a lunchtime rendezvous.  Even with this disappointing news, I would check their website the next day.  I would luck out.  You see, you can also grab their balls from the Jiannetto's Pizza truck on 47th between Park & Madison.  Balls to the wall, I bee lined for that block.  And they would prove to be right.  I loved their balls.

I still continue my search for these fine food trucks.  In my online travels, I found a place where they all flock to on the weekends.  On Saturdays in the summer, it is off to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to an event known as Smorgasburg.  There, over 100 truck vendors of every kind, offer samplings of their fare ranging from Mexican cemita sandwiches to Shanghai-style banana-ricotta spring rolls to heirloom bean seeds to small-batch ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.  A food truck Nirvana on the Brooklyn shores of the East River.

Too bad it’s not weekdays on the Manhattan side.