Food Truck Nerd Podcast Episode 15

Happy Holidays! It’s the wee hours of Christmas morning as I write this, so I need to hurry up and finish it as I have some sugarplum visions waiting for me. The photo above was our family Christmas card in 2010, showing you how fanatical we had become for food trucks, even before we had ever conceived of starting this podcast. We confused a lot of friends and family who thought the truck was real and that perhaps we had made a radical career change. I’ve updated the text to repurpose it for Food Truck Nerd. Please accept it as a token of our warmest holiday wishes to you and your family! And don’t be surprised if you see it again next year…

• Arabian Bites: Where’s the Beef, or Eat Mor Chikin? You be the judge.
• Curbside Cuisine is serving up ethnically altered burgers and dogs up in Solano County. Check them out!
• We Sushi is the Bay Area’s first sushi truck! In the spirit of firsts, I tried raw sushi for the first time, and I liked it!
• Keep an eye on 410 Plumeria in San Jose. You can’t miss it; it’s highly visible on Montague Expressway. More and more trucks have been showing up there for weekday lunches. Could be the next hot spot.
• ChowBow, formerly Net Appetit, is a unique self-serve Asian buffet truck. All proceeds benefit a worthy charity, Aid to Children Without Parents (sorry I got the name wrong in the podcast). They don’t tweet yet, but you can find them most days at 3975 Freedom Circle in Santa Clara.
• SwimOutlet.com (I got their name wrong too…gah!) is hosting Food Truck Friday events at their building in San Jose. Follow them on Twitter: @SOFTFriday. You don’t have to wear a bathing suit to eat there, but they do have an awfully nice fountain in front…
• Tikka Bytes has opened a brick-and-mortar café in Milpitas! We went to their soft launch on December 16, 2011 and thoroughly enjoyed sampling their expanded menu. Drop by 138 S. Main St., Milpitas and try them yourself!
• Special shout-out to fellow foodies Andy and Andrea, who have been super supportive of Food Truck Nerd.
• Finally caught up with Twister Truck in Union City: great Mexican food with a twist (literally). They have some interesting stories to tell so I look forward to getting the owner on mic very soon.
• Le Bon put together an event called Gourmet Caravan: Feeding Frenzy by HP very close to HP Pavilion on December 18, which is an intriguing way to capitalize on some potentially large crowds on event nights. It’ll be interesting to watch this develop.
• Happy birthday to Christine, owner of Treatbot!
• The Eat St. video contest submission deadline is January 5, 2012. Don’t delay. If you want a chance to get on the show and showcase why the South Bay has a world-class food truck scene, put together a short video of your truck and send it in!
• Recordings, all from our family vacation in Seattle. We visited some of their food trucks at the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market on September 1, 2011.
  • Matthew Lewis of Creole soul food truck, Where Ya At?
  • Tyler Redmond of monster flatbread sandwich truck, Bigfood
  • Your humble narrator sampling Bigfood’s braised beef sandwich, called The Yeti
  • My cousin Eddie Hill, urban farmer at Seattle Tilth, which does wonderful work in promoting sustainable living. You’ll find out that some things just run in the family.
• More notable links from Seattle, though not interviewed in this episode:
  • Parfait Organic Artisan Ice Cream. I had their Blackberry Beauty, and it made me very happy.
  • Maximus-Minimus pulled pork truck. You have to see their culinary assault vehicle to believe it.
  • Veraci Pizza, Neapolitan pizza from a trailer-pulled wood-fired oven. Shameless plug: closer to home, try my friend Ronald’s wood-fired Neopolitan pies at Pizza Bocca Lupo at San Pedro Square Market here in San Jose. They’re fantastic.
  • My cousin Lillian Hill is an inspired baker in Seattle. When in the Emerald City, check out the delicious desserts she whips up at Brown Sugar Baking Company, available at select locations. You can taste the love!