We're bringing you a special edition of Taste Tour of 813 this week after yesterday's visit to the Mayor's Food Truck Fiesta in Downtown Tampa.
From 11 a.m. till 2 p.m., 10 notable Tampa food trucks gathered to serve up their diverse and delectable fare at Lykes Gaslight Park. Hundreds, from young kids to lunchbreak-ing business people, traversed all corners, and long lines, in the park to dine on food truck fare ranging from savory crepes to grilled sandwiches, burgers, burritos, smoothies, and much more.
With so much to choose from, it was hard narrowing it down to a couple of trucks because really, this stomach can only handle so much in one sitting.
On a hunch, the Burger Culture truck specializing in, you guessed it, burgers, seemed like a promising choice. Their menu choices of classic and turkey burgers as well as more inventive choices - "The Special" with cream cheese and fig carmelized onions, "Buffalo" burger topped with shredded buffalo chicken and bleu cheese, and "Cuban Burger" topped with all the Cuban sandwich fixings including pork, ham, salami, mayo, mustard, and pickles.
The Cuban burger seemed absolutely excessive and ridiculous, so I picked that one. It was, well, pretty much everything you'd expect; nothing stellar, a menagerie of battling flavors that was tasty and filling, but nothing you couldn't whip up in your own kitchen after a few drinks and a trip to the grocery store.
Next door to Burger Culture was the La Creperia truck. The wafting scent drew me in like some food-frenzied bloodhound and the live crepe-making was pretty interesting to watch. On the savory side, their Fontina crepe with turkey, fontina, mushrooms, and spinach was pretty stellar; a ton of melted fontina, salty sauteed mushrooms, and the other ingredients melded to create perfect, fried pocked of good.
The Hot Feeling crepe with sugar, butter, salt, and cinnamon was a fairly blah, but probably because it was followed by the Ybor crepe with nutella, peanut butter, and marshmellows. The guy behind me laughed a disbelieving laugh as it came out, and for good reason. This thing was pure decadence, enough to send the right, unfortunate person straight into a diabetic coma.
Overall, the Mayor's Food Truck Fiesta is a pretty cool experience and great way to expose yourself to new, novel cuisine in Tampa. It's now going to occur on a monthly basis, so we'll keep you posted here at 813area.com when we get word on the date of the next one.
