Aloha Plate Truck
It’s no secret that I keep a watchful eye on my twitter stream, especially where food trucks are concerned. So imagine my delight when Wagyu Wagon tosses out a tweet that The Great Food Truck Race would be rolling through Chicago.
This was way too epic to miss, so I quickly turned my full attention to finding out who, what, when and where. Which is surprisingly difficult given the constraints of the show.
Faithful minion at my side, we decided to go on an adventure and see what we could see. Oh, and maybe get famous in the bargain.
Three trucks had made it this far into the season: Aloha Plate, Tikka Tikka Taco, and Philly's Finest Sambonis. The plan was to score all three since it was a Saturday and the next day was Father’s Day. Not a great weekend for tomfoolery. Way to go Tyler.
Apparently, there is a yearly Hawaiian festival and it just so happened to fall on this very day. What better place for a Hawaiian truck to hit. We arrived bright and early, before the line even really started. And then we waited. And waited. And we waited some more.
While waiting, some of the ukulele players came out to sing to the growing crowd, and hula dancers wished the rain away. And then the folks affiliated with the truck announced that Aloha Plate would be here any second. And huzzah! There they are, driving by to pull into the lot.
This was going to be so great. This is history in the making. This is what it’s all about. This is exciting. This is… Uh. Wait. Where’s the truck?
Oh, right. Tyler. He sent them away. Thanks, man. Thanks a lot.
Apparently, just as they were arriving, they were receiving their “speed bump” and getting sent off to the grocery store. Fantastic. So now we wait some more.
Curse you Tyler Florence!!!
At this point, it’s getting late and I need to be getting home to make dessert for tomorrow’s family get together. So my notion of hitting all three trucks in one day rapidly dissipated.
Finally, the truck did make it and it was worth every minute of the wait. I had no idea what the challenge was at the time, but I was thrilled to see grilled spam sandwich on the menu. Since that’s a traditional Hawaiian dish, that had my name written all over it. With that came a tasty tuna mac.
After watching the show, and catching glimpses of myself and Danielle in the promos and on the show (so close), I learned that they had to scrap their menu and offer traditional dishes at $15 per order. There was definitely some unhappy grumblings from the crowd, but in the end, we all showed our support and Aloha Plate won the day.
Huzzah!
