Food Truck Roundup: Autumn 2018 Edition

A little blast from the mobile food past: the colorful truck of Horn OK Please

To paraphrase from my previous Food Truck roundup, the local food truck scene has become a tough thing to keep tabs on.  New ones are popping up all the time (one of them, Hisham's featuring tasty dishes derived from the highly unique Cape Malay cuisine, was featured in its own blogpost in October.) Likewise, with all the businesses utilizing and places designated for hosting food truck operations in the metro, it's pretty easy to not encounter the same food truck for months at time.

Thus, I implemented a change of strategy - instead of comprehensiveness (which isn't as huge a factor with a medium like a food truck), I thought a roundup of some of the most notable experiences I've had with food trucks and carts would be a good way to go forward.  Interestingly enough, the autumn brought some long timers I hadn't encountered in awhile back into the fold, as well as a blue collar entrant that reliability is often most of the battle in the world of mobile cuisine.

Food Truck Dossier: Summer 2018 Roundup

The success of Food Truck Thursdays at the Columbus Commons is
just one sign of the prospering food truck scene in the city

Perhaps it's not terribly surprising for anyone who has been paying attention, but the local food truck scene has become a tough thing to keep tabs on.  There are some staples that have been around for seemingly forever (Pitabilities, Ajumama, and Paddy Wagon come to mind), there are new ones that have created quite the buzz (most notably, Cousins Maine Lobster).

Still others no longer seem to be around (Horn OK Please, which I rather liked) or moved on to other destinations and venues (Alice's Aebelskabels, which I wrote about previously, has moved to the land of aebelskilvels to Solvang, CA, while the well-loved Challah! has moved on to brick-and-mortar land with both Woodland's Tavern and Preston's Burgers.)  And with the plethora of businesses and spots around the metro hosting food trucks, it's pretty easy to not encounter the same food truck for months at time.

For a blogger like me, this means a lot of notes built up over time for a number of food trucks waiting for that next visit.  So I figured a change of strategy was needed - instead of comprehensiveness (which isn't as huge a factor with a medium like a food truck), I thought a roundup of some of the most notable experiences I've had with food trucks and carts would be a good way to go forward.

Food Truck Dossier: Capital Ramen

Food Truck: Capital Ramen

My First Thought: Hardly the most fancy food truck in the world....but, ramen!

Reality: I admit, hot steaming bowls of soup aren't something I go for much during the warmer days of the year. However, get me to the late fall to the early spring, and its hard to beat the comfort and warming power of a fresh batch of soup.

Winter can be a very tough time for those in the mobile food industry here in Columbus, when the choice between shutting down and braving what can be some harsh winter conditions and lowered customer visits isn't so clear cut.  However, when I saw Capital Ramen, who has been making a go of it here in the area since 2015, parked nearby during a recent workday, I was pretty pleased to see them making a run at it.

Food Truck Dossier: Horn OK Please

Food Truck: Horn OK Please

My First Thought: "Hey, that food truck kind of looks like a Jeepney!"

Reality:  Actually, this food truck is about as rare as a Filipino Jeepney in the Columbus area, though one would think it shouldn't be. Columbus has a fairly large number of residents from India within the region, and a corresponding fair number of brick-and-mortar restaurants as a result. One would think there would be a few Indian-food-related food trucks out there as well, but as far as I know, Horn OK Please (which debuted in the summer months of 2015) is pretty much it.

A fun little factoid lies in the food truck's name itself: Horn OK Please is a traditional phrase found on many commercial vehicles within India, indicating a request that the driver behind honk prior to passing the vehicle in front.

Food Truck Dossier: Nothin But Nadas

Food Truck: Nothin But Nadas

My First Thought: With "nada" meaning "nothing" in Spanish, we have Billy Preston here, right? (Nothin' but nadas leaves nothin'...okay, it's a big stretch, but that's how my mind works.)

Reality: The food truck's name really doesn't lie: this trailer serves nothing but freshly fried up empanadas with various fillings. Despite a noticeable warning sign about the empanadas being super hot, I've found they generally are sufficiently cooled off enough after a couple of minutes to be handled safely by both hand and mouth.

Food Truck Dossier: Alice's Aebelskabels

Food Truck: Alice's Aebelskabels

My First Thought: "Hmmm, isn't that supposed to be Aebelskivels?"

Reality: It is misspelled, but for a VERY good reason.

Food Truck Dossier: Aloha Streatery

Food Truck: Aloha Streatery

My First Thought: "Oooh, food truck plate lunch?"

Reality: To paraphrase the one and only Sir-Mix-A-Lot, "I like baked buns and a bit of rice/No other brahs can deny." Aloha Streatery has a focused selection of golden baked buns with various fillings and a couple of generally healthier rice-based dishes

It Takes A Convoy: The Columbus Mobile Food Conference and Expo

One of the nicer finds since moving to the Columbus area has been seeing how vibrant the food truck scene here is. I saw this aspect as a strength of the San Francisco Bay Area, my former stomping grounds. This area has had a well-established scene dating back to the 1980s with the Oakland-based taco trucks, complemented later by the new wave of food trucks from the late 2000s onward inspired by the success of folks like Los Angeles-based Kogi BBQ, This has led to such ventures such as the very popular Off The Grid food truck venues which now ring the area.

From the latest info I was able to gather from Street Eats Columbus and The Metropreneur, the metro area has roughly 40 traditional taco trucks and roughly 100 food truck owners overall. I have had plenty of tasty experiences with many of these mobile food vendors, and have enjoyed their presence at many area festivals, events, and mobile-vendor-specific events like the weekly Columbus Commons Food Truck Food Court and the annual Columbus Food Truck Festival.

However, I admit that when I got the invite from Mike Gallicchio for a pass to the first ever Columbus Mobile Food Conference, I thought long and hard as to whether it would be worth it from my little corner of the food universe. As a local blogger who leans a lot toward the local food and beverage scene in my write-ups, my viewpoint is almost always from the end user (or is it that end-devourer) point of view rather than the process that got the food item to the end user stage. Upon closer inspection, the seminars offered seemed to be highly geared to either those already in the business or wanting to get in the business, nothing that would be in the cards for me outside of a hit-the-Powerball-now-I'm-bored-what-should-I-do-now lark. However, a talk with a colleague of mine convinced me essentially of the old adage of "nothing ventured, nothing gained", and I happily took the invite.