If there’s been any question whatsoever if food trucks are WANTED in Winston-Salem (there hasn’t), well, the 1st ever Burke Street Food Truck Festival answered it. It was packed. But it was a beautiful day and most people seemed to be in good spirits and man, did it ever smell good! It’s like those delicious smells of the fair, but without all the livestock smell to go with it. 🙂

We got there 30 minutes after the festival started. I though I might beat the crowds. HA! The thing I do with my people here is divide and conquer. Mr. foodie took one kidlet with him to find something from one truck, while I take the other kidlet and wait in line at the other.

This is the line for newbie, Urban Street Grill, a Korean BBQ truck from the owners of Sushi Republic in Greensboro. I first started hearing about Korean BBQ trucks a few years ago and they kind of have a reputation and life of their own. For some reason, everybody wants to try Korean Tacos and such. Who can blame them? They are fantastic. So, this line was easily 30 minutes maybe more and then we waited a good 30 minutes for the food. NOT you typical food truck experience. Food trucks are supposed to be quick and convenient, but when 50 people show up at once, you have to do your best. And patrons, like me (and thankfully, most of us) were happy just chatting away while we took in the smells. And while I waited on my food at Urban Street Grill, Mr. came back with food from The Great Escape, which serves a couple of types of savory as well as dessert crepes and noodle bowls. Yummy! LOVED all of it. Kidlets did too. Even the crepes!

Applewood smoked pork with pimento cheese/Braised chicken with poblano pepper and chocolate mole.

5-spice roasted chicken on stir-fried noodles

And finally while we were sampling our goodies from The Great Escape, our order came up from Urban Street Grill. We got 2 tacos and a burrito. Burrito was HUGE. We couldn’t finish and had to wrap it up. I’m having it for lunch. 🙂

L: Short Rib Korean Taco
R: BBQ Eel Taco

Pork Belly Burrito

As for other truck vendors at the festival, you had a number of offerings. I heard King Creole’s truck had great étouffée.  I heard the stuffed burgers at another truck were superb. Unless you bring 20 people with you and everybody lets you try a bite, it’s impossible to try them all, because you know, you have PAY for this food and make room in your belly for it too.  And for dessert, we tried Ice Queen’s “sammiches” and My Dream Cakes’ cupcakes.

Vanilla cupcake from My Dream Cakes

Nutty McCrunch from The Ice Queen
(Oatmeal raisin cookie with butter pecan ice cream and toffee crunch)

The Elvis
(Banana pudding ice cream, peanut butter ice cream between chocolate chip cookies)

These were all delicious. I had never had an ice cream cookie with oatmeal raisin. Very different. And I didn’t get to eat it all as someone decided to eat it all. As in, face first!

Mmmmm….someone needed a bath after that.

And…someone kept it simple :).  Sometimes chocolate ice cream is just the thing.

I love food trucks. Most people were in pretty good spirits despite the fact that most of the food trucks had very long lines. If you want to sample a food truck and not have a line, then you’ll have to find them. Usually, the trucks announce where they are going to be via Facebook and Twitter. And you won’t wait forever. That would defeat the purpose of such mobile convenience. If you expect to come to a food truck festival and NOT wait, well find another way to spend your afternoon. We are just on the cusp of food truck madness here in the Triad. The organizers have taken many comments from festival-goers to make the next event even better. My suggestion was use the whole street of Burke Street and use both sides of the street. Next time, hopefully there will be LIVE music too, though music was piped in. The shops and restaurants along Burke Street all stayed open and from the looks of it, received good business as a result.  All in all, it was a fun and tasty event and these foodies are looking forward to seeing it happen again. We look forward to your comments to see what you thought of the festival!

If you’d like more info on the trucks that participated in the festival, click the link to the Facebook page. Some of these trucks are actually operating and setting up in a parking lot in the Triad on any given day.