Compared to Pechanga, they had the trucks out in the
outfield of the baseball diamond, fanned out along the back wall in an
arc. The rest of the field was open for
seating and events. There were about a
couple dozen trucks, many I hadn’t seen before.
This festival was reminiscent of the one out on the infield at Santa
Anita Park. The layout was perfect and
allowed for a nice flow of people.
The first trucks we ate at were the Red Robin truck (that
was Madeleine) – I did sneak some of her fries and took a bite of her burger,
but I figured you can get Red Robin any time.
I had opted for the Argentine truck, CambalaCHE’s Gourmet (http://www.cambalachesgourmet.com/)
and had two empanadas: one beef, one ham
& cheese. Both were a good size and
very delicious – unfortunately the picture I took got screwed up and unusable. The beef was generous with the filling, and
the ham & cheese was tasty though a tad salty. The even “branded” each one with a letter so
you’d know which one was which. I was
tempted to go back later from some of their fries with blue cheese and
chimichurri sauce, but I got too full later so maybe next time.
We had grabbed some beers and sat under one of the tents set
aside and enjoyed the breeze and food.
After letting the snacks settle, we set out to look at all the trucks
and see what else was going on. Pop Chips
had set up a bean bag toss game, so Madeleine challenged me – and of course she
beat me. I never do well at any of those
games, but it was fun to try. Our “reward”
was a bag of chips of our choice, and we both chose the sweet potato – they were
great! I’ve seen these in stores, but
had not had a chance to try them. I can
highly recommend them – sweet and a little salty.
We perused the trucks and stopped at Mustache Mike’s Italian
Ice (http://www.mustachemikestruck.com/)
since they were offering free samples. I
had a sample of one of their sweet ices which was a combo of I think cherry and
a few other flavors. We meant to go back
and get a whole scoop, but never made it back.
I’d like to give it a try the next time I see them.
For my next “course”, I stopped at the Bacon Mania truck (http://www.baconmaniatruck.com/). Every time I’ve tried to catch any of the
bacon trucks (there are several cruising around) they have either been no shows,
or the line was way too long. Their menu
was definitely highly caloric and very high fat, so I went for a small
snack. I had the Bacon Brownie
Bites: two brownie bites wrapped in
bacon, deep fried, and drizzled with Hershey’s syrup. They were bigger than I anticipated, so I
only ate one. Madeleine wasn’t
interested, so I wound up tossing the second on – pity to throw bacon AND
chocolate away, but I just didn’t want to overdo it. She did snap a picture of me taking a bite
though.
We sat on the grass to soak up some sun and wound up being
approached by a photographer who was taking pics of the event for the local
paper. He asked us our names, where were
from, etc. We talked about the event and
the food truck phenomenon. Maybe we’ll
wind up in this week’s paper there…who knows.
For our final truck, we hit Where’s the Fire (http://www.baconmaniatruck.com/). It was the same truck I had gotten a slice of
pizza at Pechanga and had to wait near an hour for it. They didn’t have a line this time nor a long
wait. They adjusted their menu to make
it easier to get food out faster.
Madeleine and I shared an 8” pepperoni pizza. This was even better than the slice I had
before. It went perfect with our beers.
This was a well run event.
There was a good sized crowd, but it never felt crowded. I’m definitely going to be keeping an out for
this guy’s events since he really got this right. He unfortunately didn’t have good luck at
Pechanga because apparently they didn’t listen to his advice and he didn’t have
the same kind of control. I look forward
to future events!
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