I spent some quality time out at the first Food Truck Rodeo of the year at the Public Market on Wednesday and it really was a great night to kick off the Rodeo season. Rain cleared up, sun was plentiful and there were a ton of people out to enjoy it. Arriving at around 5:30 found me fruitlessly searching for a parking spot inside the market and settling for street parking out on Railroad St. Crazy busy for so early on!
Take a look at the gallery at the bottom of the page for some pics of some of the 25 or so food trucks, carts and trailers. I thought the selection was pretty strong. I started off my snacking with the Lloyd’s Tacos Dos truck visiting from Buffalo for the evening. The tomatillo stewed pork was quite tasty served on a double corn tortilla (nice touch!) and had a fair amount of fresh cabbage, salsa and cilantro along with lime for squeezing. It didn’t reach to my favorite tacos since the pork was braised and not cooked carnitas style, but I would absolutely go back for more…..and did towards the end of the Rodeo! The last thing I bought was a chimichurri chicken burrito for my fiancee at home and that was even better than the taco. Tons of falvor and the chicken was really tender. Good fillings and one of the better burritos I’ve had outside of CA.
Next stop was to Brick N Motor headed by Paul Vroman who I interviewed the day before the Rodeo. They were absolutely swamped and I had an ~10 min wait with Breanna from Yelp to get a couple Korean BBQ Duck tacos to try. The tacos were chock full of flavor and we ate them over the nearest flat surface (a light post!). Maybe a touch sweet for my tastes but the meat was tender braised and the toppings (cabbage and pickled watermelon!) were fresh and added needed crunch. Good stuff and another solid showing from the BNM team!
Before she left, Breanna and I also split a small Margherita style pizza from the Tuscan Wood Fired Pizza trailer. The wood fired oven was cranking out ~8″ pizzas rapidly and our came out in under minutes from our order. The pizza (in the image gallery for this post) was sparsely topped with mozzarella cheese and basil along with tomato sauce. The crust was thin and dense and the cornicione had no air holes and was similarly dense to the rest of the crust. Not much flavor and salt. The sauce had strong dried herb and tomato paste flavors and wasn’t in the class of sauces I prefer. Great concept but they need to work on their execution to level of their pies.
Before finishing my day I went around and saw some of the other stands in action. I was happy to see the Macarollin’ truck sold out on early on their first day in operation and take a look at some of the out of town vendors like Cheesed and Confused and Slogie’s BBQ that I’m looking forward to trying at one of the future events.
I closed out my mini truck tour with a griddled carrot slider from Lettuce B Frank. I’ve had the sliders a bunch of times at the bistro location but cooking the carrot/chickpea patty and the Wolferman’s English muffin on the flattop added a new dimension to the ingredients I know and love. Chef/owner David Potwin thought the homemade pickles he had were some of the best he had made and I couldn’t help but agree. Using them along with a bit of garlic mayo and pickled jalapeños, the sandwich was sharp and satisfying without being overly heavy.
The Rodeo isn’t the most efficient way to visit most of trucks that reside in and around the city of Rochester but it is a great opportunity for the mobile food community to get some much needed exposure and show the masses some of the fantastic food they have to offer. I’ll suffer the crowds to see these businesses get their due any day.
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