The Twitterverse has a lot of good things to say about the
Peached Tortilla. People swear allegiance to the Bahn Mi slider. They seek it out in whatever office complex parking lot it has paused. They speak of the reinvention of the taco. All that is to say that perhaps my experience was tainted by the sky-high expectations that kind of press creates. Because my experience was, in word, awful.
Not everything was bad. The Truck itself is cute, with an ambitious asian/mexican fusion menu and combos cleverly constructed to encourage experimentation. The people are efficient but friendly, and they seem like they have the routine down cold.
Beyond that, things started to fall apart. The "speciality lemonade" promised hand made goodness mixed with seasonal fruit. It delivered the distinct chalky aftertaste I have only ever tasted with the powdered crap we used to mix with water and call lemonade when I was a kid. My wife and I each took a sip, looked at each other, and said at the same time: "Countrytime."
Bad lemonade isn't easily forgivable, but this place has legions of fans. We soldiered on. The food arrived, again with great promise and flourish in presentation. We had Chicken Satay tacos, BBQ Brisket tacos, Bahn Mi sliders, and a little basket of fries. The tacos were well proportioned and sported neatly applied wiggles of a couple of different sauces. But at the first bite, there were signs of trouble. The meat in all three items was luke-warm, raising big red "keep the hot stuff hot" flags in my head. The brisket was pulled into dry clumps under the thin, sweet sauce. The "creamy coleslaw" that accompanied it was matchstick carrots and thinly sliced cabbage. Despite a pretty awesome corn tortilla, the combination was so bland and off temperature that it was nearly inedible. The Bahn Mi slider suffered even more from temperature problems and sported essentially the same construction as the brisket taco, with the carrot slaw re-purposed to provide a little asian spark. And again, those matchstick carrots showed up on the sizable chunks of barely marinated chicken that was trying to sneak by as Satay. This was the worst of the mess, the kind of weak Thai flavors that live in those little jarred bottles of curry paste at the grocery store. The fries were floppy - nice to look at, but limp and unblanched.
Tracy summed it up best on departure. When I asked her what she thought she said "I 85% hated it. 15% I just didn't like very much." Here's to hoping it was an off day, or an off order, but I won't be back to find out.
Side note: while beginning to lose faith in the Food Truck movement, I am not giving up yet:
The Jalopy and
The Evil Wiener rock hard enough to carry the load for them all.
Quite the review! And it's refreshing to read a truly honest write up. I can say that the BBQ Brisket is usually on point and delicious, so for that it was an off day for you. TPT's food is rarely "bad" and typically above average to great, depending on both the food and the customer.
ReplyDeleteTo your last point, I'm not convinced the food truck movement is losing steam. It's possible that some trucks are losing focus, and don't forget they make food in a truck/trailer/cart, so they are more prone to off days. The boom came from the combination of the good food and the novelty of it all. Now that the novelty has worn off, they have to stand up on the food alone. It'll be interesting to see who continues to impress and who falls out of the market.
Mike - I do have a feeling that it was an off day for them, and will be back for one more try. Will be sure to add a little postscript if things turn out better.
ReplyDeleteAgree with the coming shake out. There are some real gems out there, for sure. Also, there's some meh stuff.
And also, in retrospect - updated the title. They were off, for sure, but that's a doozie and just read worse every time I came back to my site. Still need to get out for a retry.
ReplyDelete