#Atlanta food trucks

[fortylist]

21. Eat from a food truck

For the last couple of years I have dutifully watched the Great Food Truck Race show on Food Network. Throughout both seasons I usually spend the commercial breaks doing one of two things:

Figure out if I had my own food truck, what would I name it and what kind of food would I serve.

Figure out when on earth I was actually going to eat from a food truck.

Of course, when it came time to make my Forty List, I knew I had to add eat from a food truck so I could finally experience that mystical excitement that Tyler Florence seems to delight in week after week.

This summer there is this weekly event in downtown Kennesaw, GA called “Dinner at the Depot.” Basically it is a parking lot across the street from a train depot that fills up every Monday with food trucks from around the Atlanta area.

Perfect...and it's only twenty minutes from my house.

On this Monday evening the Ward clan ventured to downtown Kennesaw. The night was looking promising with a pretty solid line-up of trucks and food options. We had the following to choose from:

The Mobile Marlay Food Truck - Seafood Happy Belly Truck – Fresh, organic and local foods Tex's Tacos - Mexican Fatty's of Atlanta - Hotdogs Yoli's - Cuban Yum Yum Cupcake – CUPCAKES! King of Pops – ICE POPS!

Being a good Marylander, I went with the seafood from the Mobile Marlay Food Truck:

My daughter got the fish and chips and I settled into a paper bowl of Guinness-battered lobster and chips.

I should have known that the heavy beer batter (and deep frying) would kill the lobster flavor...however, anytime I see lobster on a menu I kinda can't help myself. The real showstopper from this truck was their fried risotto balls. Holy crap, I could have eaten an entire truck's worth of those things.

I would seriously hunt this truck down again just for a couple more of those.

For dessert, I was leaning towards the cupcakes but ultimately went with the King of Pops as their unique flavors are ridiculously awesome. It was also insanely hot and I needed something cold.

I went with the Arnold Palmer (which is a combination of iced tea and lemonade). Like the risotto balls, I could have had about ten of them.

While we certainly didn't save any money on our dinner (almost every dinner was about $7), it was a uniquely fun summer experience that I am ready to go on again.

And for those that might be wondering...my food truck would be called “The Sandcrawler.” The paint job would look like a jawa sandcrawler; I'd sell drinks out of a giant droid-shaped cooler and all my meals would be Star Wars themed (that is, until George Lucas Disney shut me down).