If You Build It They Will Come (The Gathering: Food Truck Rally Review)

On Friday, July 8, 2011 the city held its first ever food truck rally simply known as “The Gathering.” Of course you know us ladies were there to get a sampling of some of Baltimore’s finest food truck munchies, and finally take a small peek into something people have been talking about for weeks now. Housed in some small rock filled plot (no seriously whose bright ass idea was it to stuff this into a tiny little area that obviously use to hold some type of building?) 9 of B-more’s best food trucks came out to dish out the grub. There was beer, people, food, people, live music, and oh yeah did I forget PEOPLE.

Before we get started here’s the obligatory list of trucks that were there: Kooper’s Chowhound Burger Wagon, Miss Shirley’s, IcedGems, Souper Freak, GrrChe, Gypsy Queen, The Silver Platter, Dangerously Delicious Pies, Curbside Cafe and more. I apologize for not documenting the names of all the trucks, my 5’3” self was too busy being dwarfed by much taller sometimes drunk people holding sloshing beer cups with no lids. Enough said.

This event was packed full, and as a result a lot of the trucks sold out pretty quickly. *ahem*Icedgems*ahem* The general word around the trucks was that they were really not expecting that big of a crowd. Why? I don’t know. I mean it’s BALTIMORE and you said FOOD was going to be there. Not to mention it’s food from the glorious trucks that circle our city, but only stop in certain “nice area’s” of Baltimore. A lot of people don’t get the chance to partake in some of the lovely yummies that come out of these food trucks because

A. You don’t know about them. (You are obviously living with your head tucked in the dirt and you had NO clue that there was something called a burger wagon that actually sold burgers.)

B. They don’t come around where you work. (This was my major issue with these trucks. They only come to John Hopkins, Yuppie parts of the city, the Harbor, or somewhere in the county.

C. You only have 30 – 40 mins for lunch. (I guarantee you 10 of those minutes will be taken up either waiting in line or waiting for your food, but it is oh so worth it.)

The Gathering was the perfect opportunity for anyone not familiar with our local food trucks to get a taste of what they serve throughout the work week. That being said I hope the next one is better stocked with food. I only got to taste from two trucks and that makes me a sad flipping panda. I REALLY wanted some cupcakes, but IcedGems was like the first truck to sell out. Then I had to walk around watching with lust filled eyes as people carried around clear plastic casing of beautiful sweet cupcakes. However, that’s another rant that I don’t even want to get into.

I had the Elvis burger and a side order of fries from Koopers Burger Wagon. Now this is not my first experience with the almost orgasmic taste of burgers from them and it won’t be my last, but I will review it for the sake of saying I ate something. If you are a burger lover and you have not been introduced to Kooper’s Burger Wagon let me kindly say you do NOT know what you are missing. The Elvis ($10) is a big angus burger with blue cheese and apple wood smoked bacon. It also had a huge slice of red onion, tomatoes, and lettuce. All of which I normally pick off of my burger because I want to taste the meat not a salad, but with this burger it felt almost like a crime to molest it in that way. Juicy is such an obvious term when it comes to describing burgers, but this burger really is juicy. The fresh crisp taste of the onions and tomatoes, paired with the tang of blue cheese on that meat is a beautiful thing. Sadly they were out of sweet potato fries, but their regular fries are still pretty good. They were salty but not obnoxiously so, a little on the soggy side for me but all in all tasty. My second dish a chilled sangria soup was from Souper Freaks. It wasn’t quite the heavenly experience as the burger, but it was a nice fresh end to my night. Honestly I wanted the chocolate berry love soup (made with chocolate soup, raspberry liqueur, fresh berries, hazelnuts, and whipped cream.) but they were sold out of it by the time we came wandering back.

It was a good adventure that apparently if all things go well they are trying to make it into a recurring event. One place told us once every 4 months and another place said once a month. Nevertheless if they do decide to continue this (which I sincerely hope they do) I would like for them to be better stocked.