We arrived just after 11:30am (the fest opened at
11:00). Parking was easy as the Casino
has a HUGE parking garage, and it was still early. They held the festival in the RV parking lot
behind the Casino. The line for the
pre-paids snaked around over a block, but it was fast moving thankfully. Even before we got in, you could see how
incredibly crowded it already was. We
did one loop around to see which trucks were there (about 30, give or
take). The lines for the most popular
were already long.
We settled on one that had piqued my interest, the After
School Special truck (www.afterschoolspecialtruck.com)
as they had a “mom’s home cooking” kind of menu. They do home cooking with a twist. I ordered Betty’s Pot Roast Dip sandwich,
which was braised pot roast with carrots and I think onions (weren’t any in my sammy)
resting on a bed of smashed potatoes that were mixed with a little horseradish,
all on a bun. The bun got too soggy to
try to eat it with my hands, so I used a fork.
I also ordered Ronie’s Mac n’ Cheese Cupcake.
The Pot Roast was absolutely delicious, and I even liked it
with the smashed potatoes. The beef was
very tender and falling apart – the way a good roast will. It was definitely a winner. The Cupcake, however, was not. It tasted more of Mac and almost nothing of
Cheese. I’m sorry, but when I eat mac n’
cheese, the shells are really just supposed to be a conveyance of the cheese
and this was sadly not the case. Nice
idea, but it didn’t work. So it was a
50/50 vote for me.
We walked around some more to see what else there was, and
decided to get a dessert/snack. I’ve
seen the Chunk ‘n Chip truck (www.chunknchip.com)
numerous times but have never partaken, so I made a point this time to check it
out. They make ice cream sandwiches with
fresh baked cookies and gourmet ice cream.
I ordered the Moo-lan Rouge – red velvet cookies sandwiching
white chocolate fudge ice cream. The
cookies were on the softer side, but had a good flavor, though I am not entire
sure I’d call it red velvet except for the color. The ice cream was tasty and did have a white
chocolate taste. Overall, I’d rate it a
near full thumb’s up, but it didn’t absolutely wow me. I’d try a different combo next time and see
if my rating improves.
We decided to get out of the heat for a while and go into
the Casino to gamble some. It was
getting way too crowded and it was around 1pm by this time. We killed probably an hour or more inside
before we decided to head back out for round two. The lines were even longer by this time, and
there were far more families. While I
fully expect families at these events, with lot of kids – parents were NOT
monitoring the children who were running crazy and bumping into people and
causing a hazard. I have a real issue
with that, especially in such a tight space.
I also have an issue with parents and their strollers who expect they should
get extra privileges, and constantly bash into people and don’t even bother to
say they’re sorry. – sorry, had to vent
as it was really obnoxious at Pechanga, other festivals I’ve been to I haven’t
encountered it like this. –
I had heard about and saw that WTF Pizza, or Where’s The
Fire (www.wtfpza.com), was at the festival,
so given there wasn’t a long line, I decided to get a slice of pizza. When I went to the window, they told it would
be an hour wait, but would give me a time to come back. I figured what the heck, I could always try
another truck in the meantime for another snack if I wanted. Thom was waiting in the line for Ragin’
Cajun. He waited for 40 minutes to get
to the window to find out what he wanted wasn’t available anymore. Lesson learned: if you only want one thing on a truck menu,
don’t wait a long time to find out it’s gone and have another option or
two.
They were right and it took an hour at WTF. In the meantime, I had gotten a beer ($6 –
and they were rather rude). When I got
my pizza slice (I had ordered Pepperoni – I like a basic pizza), Thom, who had
gone to another BBQ truck, hadn’t gotten his food yet, so I found a place to
eat in the shade. The pizza was New York
style – hand tossed, thin crust, light on the sauce. It did remind me on NY pizza and tasted good,
but I was disappointed they didn’t put more pepperoni on it. Oh well.
For my last truck, I hit the Sweet Treats dessert truck (www.sweettreatstruck.com) to see
what they had. It was getting late in
the afternoon and they were near cleaned out.
What they had left were some cookies and cake pops. For $2, I figured it was work trying one of
the cake pops. A little on the smallish
side (my co-worker Mercedes makes these and hers are considerably larger), the
one I got turned out to be Strawberry Lemonade (they didn’t know which was
which by this point of the day). It
definitely had a strawberry taste with a slight hint of lemon. The cake was moist. I definitely approved. I’ll be keeping an eye out for this truck in
the future, and get to them before everything is gone!
By this time of the afternoon, the festival was winding down
since trucks were running out of food.
We figured it was a good time to head out and made a stop to visit my
brother (he lives close by).
My take-aways from this adventure are: get to a festival early, be prepared to long
lines, keep your options open in case the lines are TOO long, and just try to
enjoy the day.
My recommendations to Pechanga are: use a bigger space next time, or limit how
many people are allowed in at one time; space trucks out more to make room for
lines; have more space available for eating; more trash receptacles; police the
crowd more thoroughly for stray children and hold parents responsible; have
more than one drink station; and have security work harder at crowd
control. Given this was their first
time, I understand they have a learning curve and hope they do take suggestions
for improvement to heart (I will send my suggestions directly to them). Overall, it was an enjoyable and fun event
and I do hope they have more!
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