by John J. Kochevar

THERE ARE 3000 FOOD TRUCKS IN THE NAKED CITY – 3000 permit-carrying food trucks, that is, and countless illegals. Last Saturday seven of New York’s finest rumbled north to go dumpling to dumpling with seven of Boston’s best in the first annual NYC- Boston Food Truck Throw-Down. Food trucks, long time purveyors to construction workers and late evening drunks, have become an obsession of the food focused. My assignment was to be Brooklyn Artisan’s taster on record and to plumb the sources of this, to me,  unlikely fashion trend. Never mind that my last experience with New York Street food was a dirty-water hot dog on East 28th Street in 1972. It was a sunny, cold day, a fitting start to the eating season.

Wafels and Dinges puts on quite a show making the Belgian waffles.
(Photos for Brooklyn Artisan by John J. Kochevar)

Boston was definitely the underdog. Long smothered under a deep rooted puritanical impulse we came late to the food-truck fashion parade. Still, I had hopes that our scrappy innovators and home-town spirit would give us a modest advantage. Boston had several contenders:  Staff Meal, chef-driven foodie enthusiasms; Roxy’s, a grilled cheese specialist;  Lobsta Love,  cheap lobster on good rolls;  Kickass Cupcakes, name says it all. In the other corner, New York fielded a more conventional lineup:  Mike N Willies tacos; Fishing Shrimp, a chipper; Wafels and Dinges, Belgian waffles, etc.

I show up at 3:00 hoping to miss the lunchtime rush. But the social media elves had been busy. Huge, long lines snaked from each truck. The fans were mostly young, chatting, talking on their phones, texting,  eternally texting. My calls, “Anyone here from New York?,” [Read more…]