Even if you don’t live in a major U.S. city, you’ve mostly likely read about the gourmet street food truck craze sweeping the country. Street food trucks are serving everything from artisan ice cream to gourmet sandwiches to fusion cuisines you’ve never even heard of in cities like NYC, LA and San Francisco. Cupcake trucks and Korean BBQ taco trucks are extremely popular, and really, who doesn’t enjoy a vanilla bean cupcake with chocolate buttercream delivered to or near their office? And thanks to the fact that most of these trucks use Twitter to tell customers what locations they will be at each day, it is a helluva lot easier to track these guys down, not like in the old days when you used to chase the ice cream truck.
Remember how it would sound like it was on the next street, but no matter how long or far you ran, you never saw it? No? That was just me? Most of you went home after not finding the truck in the first block? AWESOME–ME TOO.
Well, while reading/listening tothis article about Bay-area Indian street food, I discovered yet another Bay-area gourmet food truck called Curry Up Now, fusing Indian cuisine with Mexican cuisine. I’m talking saag paneer burritos and tandoori chicken tortas.
For some reason, this made me think of how food trucks are a great vehicle for experimental cuisine (like fusion cuisine or single food cuisine) because you can constantly change locations and the start-up costs are significantly lower than that of an actual restaurant, especially in a place as expensive as the Bay. It allows for more daring food. Where else would you see ethnic cuisines of one country merging with that of another country on a regular basis and thriving? Since the food is typically cheap (under $10), it also makes these new fusion cuisines available and affordable to a wider variety of people.
However, most of the people exposed to these food trucks are those that work in major business districts or office areas, which makes me sad. I know it might not make financial sense to set up in a residential area during lunch time, but I also feel that there are enough stay at home moms and work from home people that would not only appreciate it, but frequent the trucks once they knew it existed near them. At least, that is what I like to believe. What do you think? Are these gourmet food trucks a good vehicle for experimental cuisine? Would you like to see more food trucks of this caliber in your own hood?
Happy Friday!
~LTG!
