Exciting Changes in the ABQ Food Truck Scene

It’s a really exciting time for food-truck fans in the Duke City.

New trucks join the fleet on what seems a weekly basis. One I’ve been desperate to try is The Scottish Pie Shop. Exactly what it sounds like, this pie shop on wheels sells a variety of meat pies, plus a few related items: the simply named steak pie, a smaller crescent-shaped steak pie called a “bridie,” shepherd’s pie, sausage rolls, bangers and mash, and bags of shortbread cookies. The truck opened just a few weeks ago, and has a regular slot at Talin Market on Wednesdays.

Last Wednesday I had a lunch appointment – besides, it was a vegetarian week – so I couldn’t have lunch at the food-truck pod. I stopped by anyway, just to see how things were going, and was delighted to see a complement of 10 trucks. This was actually more than the curb at Talin can accommodate, so poor Soo Bak was forced to start a second row of trucks behind one of the BBQ smokers. They seemed to do a fine business anyway.

As I hung around the Scottish Pie Truck, sniffing the air and wishing my tummy weren’t full, I struck up a conversation with a guy from the family that owns and operates the business. He offered me a sample of a bridie, and – vegetarian week be damned – I took him up on it. The pastry was flaky, the meat richly flavored. I could hardly wait to get back there this week.

Today Arne and I lined up at 11:45 to get another shot at those pies. We ordered a steak pie meal, which came with mashed potatoes and gravy and fried cabbage. It came out almost instantly – I guess none of the items require last-minute prep. The meat was thickly coated in rich gravy, and tender like a long-braised pot roast. The crust was wonderfully flaky. The mashed potatoes were a little bland (I think they needed salt), but that was made up for by the fantastic fried cabbage.

As awesome as the steak pie was, I may have liked the bridie I sampled better. I’ll have to go back next week and find out. (Curses, it’s another veggie week. I’ll have to wait two weeks.)

There were eight trucks at the pod today, and we were determined to try as many of them as we could. The second obvious choice was the new Filipino food truck. (I don’t know if it has a name besides “Filipino Food.”) We tried the lumpia: skinny Filipino egg rolls.

They came out immediately (not fried to order, which was good for speed but less good for texture). They were filled with a ground pork mixture and doused with red sweet-and-sour sauce. Tasty they were, but not ground-breaking. Though I’d like to try the pancit (pan-fried noodles) and chicken adobo sometime, today we moved on to a favorite: Soo Bak “Korean Seoul Food.”

We’ve tried almost everything off Soo Bak’s regular menu, and there were no specials today, but that was fine – I’ve been wanting to try that last item, the spicy pork tacos. They’re pretty simple, which is good; the flavors of the lightly charred pork and the sweet and spicy sauce are wonderful, and the simple garnishes of lettuce and a creamy sauce let them take center stage. The corn tortilla was fried to light crispness, a little bit greasy but in a delightful, lick-your-fingers way.

The very first time I tried a Korean taco (in New York, maybe?), I was disappointed – the tortilla just didn’t seem to add anything, and I didn’t get why this L.A. upstart food was so trendy. Well, between todays’s spicy pork and their occasional special of “K-Pop tacos with Gangnam sauce,” Soo Bak has changed my mind.

Our last stop was Gedunk food truck. Gedunk’s chef has made a really smart choice for the Wednesday pod; rather than compete with everyone on lunch entrees, he is filling a mostly untouched niche and serving desserts. Everything on the menu looked tempting, but I stayed true to form and chose the lemon crunch cake. (They say there are chocolate people and lemon people. I love chocolate, but give me a choice and I’ll take lemon almost every time.) There wasn’t a lot of crunch, but I didn’t care, because there was a lot of lemon! The lemon flavor was pronounced – clearly a whole slew of lemons were zested for this. The cake was very moist and crowned with housemade whipped cream. I was really full by the time we finished it, but really glad we hadn’t decided to skip dessert.

Once we devoured the cake, we chatted with Gedunk’s chef. He teased us mercilessly with a description of a Kahlua brownie trifle he will feature next week, and told us about the lunch entrees he will serve at the Monday and Friday food-truck pods.

And here’s where you can legitimately complain that I have buried the lede, because we’re almost at the end of this post and I’m just now mentioning the most exciting news. (Well, my meat-pie-loving mom might say the Scottish Pie Truck was the most exciting news, and I’m not going to argue about it.)

The Talin pod is so popular, and so stuffed with trucks, that our industrious food-truck businessfolk are working to add a bunch of new pods to the scene. Most simply – and coolest for me, since Arne and I usually meet for lunch on Fridays – Talin will now host a pod on Friday as well as Wednesday. (Both are open for lunch 11-1.)

More experimentally, a pod has started on Mondays between UNM and downtown, on the I-25 frontage road on the south side of Lomas. ABQ Food Trucks on Facebook reports that this convenient new pod – which will feature The Toasted Bean with coffee and crepes starting at 8 a.m., to be joined at 11:00 by several other trucks for lunch service – is already full. There will be several trucks I haven’t tried yet – Doggerz, Conchita’s Creations, and The Lunch Box Deli. I’ve also heard a whisper about a “Tijeras pod” near UNM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I haven’t heard details on that yet.

Albuquerque’s food-truck scene is hopping, and I’m so excited!

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