If you don’t like lots of frills distracting you from your food, then you’re a likely candidate for being a food truck groupie. You may sometimes sacrifice flavor when you eat food cooked on grills in the back of vehicles, but that’s not the case with these food trucks. Here are 10 food trucks better than a restaurant.
East Side King (Austin, Texas)
This truck carries ingredients you thought you’d only find in gourmet restaurants and markets. Chefs cook up treats such as beet fries, tongue buns (grilled tongue on sweet, doughy buns) and Brussels sprouts salads.
Born out of a Vietnamese restaurant, this truck makes tasty dishes that seem too pretty to come out of anything on four wheels! Its followers love the rice noodle salad with toasted sesame dressing, the Thai basil limeade and the tofu and shiitake vegetarian sandwich with sriracha.
Wafels & Dinges is a catering company and food truck with a menu that changes every week. If you’re ever in a bind and need to impress a date, pick up some of their treats like the de turtle wafel with dulce de leche, walnuts and Belgian chocolate fudge; or the de chicken & gravy biscuits with chicken mushroom gravy, scallions, greens and pickled onions.
Nuchas has a Times Square location and based on their ability to lock down top real estate like that, you know their food is supreme. They’re known for scrumptious and unique empanada dough such as rosemary-spiced dough, paprika dough and white parmesan dough, with high quality fillings such as portobello mushrooms and slow-braised beef.
The master minds behind this truck have more than two decades of experience in the food industry, and serve up the types of things you’d expect from a celebrity chef’s restaurant. Using all seasonal ingredients, they create dishes such as Indian-spiced organic mini doughnuts, heirloom tomato-watermelon gazpacho and bacon beer brats.
This truck is hipster-meets-gourmet, with a trio of young men cooking up dishes with local, organic and sustainably sourced ingredients. You’ll find a menu of Mexican-infusion dishes such as ahi tuna poke nachos, blue crab ceviche and carnitas fries.
If you said you’d never buy lobster anywhere besides a gourmet restaurant, you’ll change your mind after perusing this menu. Many customers believe this humble truck serves the best lobster roll in all of New York, even beating out brick-and-mortar restaurants. Other treats include lobster bisque; New England, shrimp and corn chowders and shrimp rolls.
This truck serves up hefty, need-both-hands sandwiches you thought you’d only find at an old-time Jewish delicatessen. Favorites include the pretzel-bunned salami sandwich and specialty fries such as spicy sesame-and-truffle fries with giardiniera — an Italian relish of pickled vegetables.
There’s Kogi — the food truck — also there’s also a popular restaurant and lounge that delivers Korean-Mexican-infusion dishes all over the city. Fans love the short rib taco, the spicy pork burrito and the Kogi kimchi quesadilla.
The Chairman took its inspiration from old-school Asian street food, adding its own gourmet touch. Standout buns include the duck confit with green papaya; orange pickled red onions and mint bun; the Coca-Cola-braised pork with cabbage and preserved yellow mustard seeds bun; and the crispy miso-cured tofu with garlic-tofu mayo and baby choy bun.