It's hard to call a "roach coach" or a "taco truck" a food trend as it's been around as long as I can remember, but yes, it definitely is a trend we're going to see here in San Diego sometime soon.
The visual that comes to my mind when I think of a lunch truck is a construction site with a truck across the street serving Mexican food, drinks and pretty good coffee. I've seen these trucks in L.A. for many years. The owner/chef was serving a need in the community while serving up some pretty good food and making a nice living. What's happenng in the mobile lunch truck industry is a far cry from the tacos and burritos I remember from years past.
This food trend started in Los Angeles and New York, and has spread to many large cities like Chicago and Miami. They're not in San Diego yet, but I'm sure they're coming. New York now seems under siege with these rolling kiitchenettes. Rickshaw Dumplings and the Gay Ice Cream Truck are just two of the trucks you might see in New York. Some of the top chefs in big cities have gotten into the kitchen on wheels business, serving such gourmet items as truffle flavored french fries, banh mi pork sandwich, beef and broccoli, latin burgers, and gourmet bistro food. Some trucks even concentrate on simply desserts, like warm chocolate bread pudding or light, sweet cupcakes.
In Los Angeles the mobile truck everyone is raving about is Don Chow's Taco Truck. It's a combination of Asian/Mexican fusion food. They serve Cuban tortas (sandwiches on Cuban rolls), fried tofu tacos, soy ginger shrimp tacos, carne asada tacos and something called a chamale. It's a tamale filled with kung pao chicken, and it looks delicious. You can follow them on Twitter at donchowtacos.com....They seem to be everywhere in LA now.
The trucks are so prevalent in Chicagothat the local legislature has passed a law prohibiting cooking, cutting or prepping on board, but the issue is far from over there. Chefs and owners of thes huge kitchens on wheels are going to fight it out.
South Florida is the latest area to be inundated with trucks. Miami's first gourmet mobile outfit, Gastropod, debuted in December. The shiny silver Airstream is the baby of a Johnson and Wales-trained chef who is turning out gourmet bistro food. The menu changes frequently, to accomodate the many tastes of South Florida, from Latin to Carribbean, to vegan. Some operators of the food trucks are actually helping to employ out of work Miamians as cooks and dishwashers. That's a great way to help the community.
If you're going to eat a gourmet quality lunch and pay a fair price for it, wouldn't you rather sit down than stand on a corner and balance food and drink? I would. It's a gimmicky concept to me. I think the traditional food trucks continue to serve a great need in the community, mostly to workers that can't get away from the job site for a meal, but for office workers or ladies meeting for lunch, it wouldn't be what I would choose.
Every week when I drive to Taft I see a food truck on the road, out in the middle of nowhere. I have stopped twice and had very good Mexican food. Who eats there? Visitors to Taft (maybe 100 go by each day), plus farm workers from the immediate area and truckers carrying produce from the farms to the store. My guess is this food truck does a bang up business. It's filling a need. The dozens of trucks in New York are not filling a need, they're just increasing the number of food choices people have. And I'll say it again, do you really want to eat a gourmet meal standing on the corner and balancing your food? No, I want to sit down and relax when I eat lunch. Stopping for a New York hotdog from a stand on the corner, now that's another story!
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