Are you in on the food truck craze?

Earlier in the week, the Fast Food Maven, Nancy Luna of the Orange County Register, posted an article about the first casualty on the Orange County food truck scene, Brooklyn Boy’s Deli, and how the market here is a whole different animal from that of LA.

Orange County has always been a different market from LA – its not a bad thing, unless you’re a food truck and expecting a Kogi-like craze – we are simply less urban, more suburban sprawl and, I’d have to agree with the food truck follower quoted in Nancy Luna’s article, less spontaneous. I’d like to see the food trucks survive, mentioned in Fast Food Maven’s article are Piaggio on Wheels, Barcelona On The Go, and newcomer, Oh For Sweets Sake, if you click on their names it will take you their Twitter pages and you can follow them to get updates.

Food trucks rely heavily on social media as a key marketing tool in building a loyal following and updating followers with their locations. In January I wrote about  5 unexpected food trends and, of course, food trucks was one. I have a slew of Twitter friends that follow the food trucks and jump in their cars to race over to Santa Ana, Costa Mesa or Irvine when locations are tweeted.  As a food blogger, I follow these trucks on Twitter and retweet their tweets, but personally have only tried one: Barcelona On The Go.  Living in Huntington Beach and working at home, I just haven’t been in close proximity to any of the locations frequented by the food trucks – plus I’m She’s Cookin’ – I cook 🙂 Oh, and I fell in love with Crepes Bonaparte when I dined on several of their wide array of delicious sweet and savory crepes at a graduation party last year – but I haven’t tried their “Gaston” truck.

I drove to Hi-Time Cellars to try Barcelona On The Go because I love Spanish cuisine and I wanted to meet Esteban Nocito, the owner of the only gourmet food truck serving paella!  Here is what I had from Barcelona On the Go:

Tortilla Espanola

Combo: Manchego Cheese Croquette and Chicken Empanada

Paella

What I liked:

• everything came with a fresh, mixed spring greens salad
• the remoulade sauce was creamy with just enough heat
• Esteban’s enthusiasm and friendly manner
• you can get a combo of one each of the croquette and empanada
• the croquette was my fave of  the tastes I had – fried crispy, not greasy, and manchego cheese is always a winner with me

What I wasn’t crazy about:

• the paella just didn’t translate well as take-away food: its difficult to reheat mussels or octopus without it becoming tough, plus I like mussels served with more liquid – like a garlicy broth, and I’m not much for tentacles :-/  And it was $9 .

What’s your favorite food truck eats?  Do you think  the food truck craze is just a fad or here to stay?

Barcelona truck photo credit: monstermunching.com , who has also written about BOTG.