The Most Mouthwatering Food Truck Fare in America
Grill ‘Em All in Los Angeles brings a heavy-metal attitude to its food. (Photo: dabruins07/Flickr)
By Dan Myers
There’s no denying it: we are living in a golden age of food trucks. Once synonymous with sketchy, generic foods like hot dogs and chicken kebabs, over the past few years food trucks have grown evermore varied and exciting, and for the third year in a row, we’re taking a deep dive into the very best of America’s food truck scene.
To compile our ranking of America’s best food trucks, we started with the more than 450 food trucks from more than 40 cities that were considered for last year’s ranking and added 50 to the list, mostly new trucks and ones suggested by readers. We factored Twitter followers, Yelp reviews, and Yelp stars into a weighted algorithm, rounded out by an originality score that took into account menu innovation, overall concept, and geography.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York led the way, dominating the top 10. But cities such as Chicago, Minnesota, and Miami are also well represented further down the rankings (click here to see the complete list).
#10 Grill ‘Em All (Los Angeles)
“Steadfast in the belief that the heavy metal and culinary worlds were bound to collide one day in a victorious marriage of massive meat and riffage,” buddies and bandmates chef Ryan Harkins and Matthew Chernus won it all in 2010 with their over-the-top burgers when they beat fellow Los Angeles food truck Nom Nom during Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race.“
You’ll be tempted to order the Molly Hatchet (fennel sausage gravy, bacon, and maple syrup), the Dee Snider (peanut butter, jelly, bacon, and Sriracha), and the Witte (pronounced “Wit-e,” a burger topped with cream cheese, deep-fried bacon, beer and Sriracha onions, and malt vinegar aioli), but you haven’t “grilled ‘em all” until you’ve tackled the Behemoth: two grilled cheese “buns” with cheddar, bacon, beer-soaked onions, pickles, and “Grandma’s Mosh Pit BBQ Sauce” and a side of hand-rolled tater tots.
Last year, Grill ‘Em Allalso opened a stationary location on Alhambra, Calif.’s Main Street. They’ve moved a lot of their operation to the stationary location, but still bring the truck to the streets.
TWITTER: @GrillEmAll
FOLLOWERS: 31,421
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Twitter
#9 Lobsta Truck (Los Angeles, San Francisco)
Lobsta Truck (Photo: chrisgoldny/Flickr)
Does the lobster roll at the Lobsta Truck (whose inspiration comes from what has to be considered one of the best, if not the best lobster roll in the country) serve as much lobster as its muse Red’s Eats in Wiscasset, Maine? No. But the Lobsta Truck is also serving $12 rolls on the road, all the way across the country in Los Angeles, where Maine lobster doesn’t come quite as easily as out of the traps from the water nearby Red’s.
Former seafood distributor and truck owner Justin Mi was inspired by the idea to start an L.A. lobster roll truck after doing a lobster roll tour through Maine (something that can practically inspire you to just move there). He flies in fresh lobsters from Maine and Canada several times a week (and those famous top-loading buns), and offers a simple menu that has been a hit in L.A., and now also in San Francisco. There’s little more than the lobster roll (clam chowder, lobster bisque, chips, whoopie pie, and an ice cream sandwich), but they’ve added one West Coast item that’s likely to make many East Coast seafood lovers jealous enough to start thinking how they can get their own version: a fresh Dungeness crab roll.
TWITTER: @lobstatruck
FOLLOWERS: 21,679
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
Related: 5 Cities, 15 Food Trucks: We’ve Got the Best Meals on Wheels in the U.S.
#8 Señor Sisig (San Francisco)
You can get sisig on burritos, fries, and more. (Courtesy: Señor Sisig)
What’s sisig? It’s a Filipino dish made from pig’s head and liver, often seasoned with calamansi and chili peppers. At San Francisco’s Señor Sisig, it’s obviously the star of the show, except that as SF Weekly noted, chef Gil Payumo makes the truck version with pork shoulder instead of offal, “for a cleaner and meatier sisig.” Payumo launched the truck in 2010 with high-school friend Evan Kidera, and the two have been slinging sisig on tacos, fries, nachos, and in burritos ever since. Their signature is probably the California Sisig Burrito featuring fries, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. If that’s not out there enough, “Silog it” for $1 more and add an egg to your sisig.
TWITTER: @senorsisig
FOLLOWERS: 8,736
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Twitter
#7 The Lime Truck (Los Angeles)
Making their rivals green with envy. (Courtesy: The Lime Truck)
Brash and cocky, the trio behind the Orange County-based Lime Truck (owner Daniel Shemtob, with Jason Quinn and Jesse Brockman) wore lime-green headbands in the fast lane through much of season two of Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Road Race,” winning the show. The three founders, who launched the truck in June 2010, pride themselves on “local, organic, and sustainably sourced fresh ingredients, paired with hip, inventive recipes.” The truck offers a variety of Mexican-inspired items with a fun twist, from their ahi tuna poke nachos to carnitas fries. To keep up with their growing fan base, the truck now has merchandise available online.
TWITTER: @thelimetruck
FOLLOWERS: 10,842
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check site
Related: Mmmm…The Most Delicious Doughnuts Worth Waiting In Line For
#6 The Chairman (San Francisco)
The Chairman is a popular sight around City Hall. (Courtesy: The Chairman)
You might not remember this, but San Francisco’s Chairman Bao Bun Truck really stuck in the craw of New York City restaurateur turned food and pop culture commentator Eddie Huang. Apparently, it was a bit much that another business serving Asian food took the word “bao” and deigned use it in the name of their food truck. Then he started talking about suing them, too. If that’s the case, Roy Choi should basically have sued every food truck across the country.
Regardless, the Chairman Bao Bun Truck did change its name to “The Chairman,” and still draws lines for its simple menu of steamed and baked buns, which are known for having featured pork belly with pickled daikon, crispy garlic tofu with miso greens, and red sesame chicken with pickled carrots and cucumber. It’s a San Francisco favorite and has been honored as one of San Francisco’s best food trucks by San Francisco Magazine.
TWITTER: @chairmantruck
FOLLOWERS: 16,238
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
#5 The Grilled Cheese Truck (Los Angeles)
(Courtesy: The Grilled Cheese Truck)
What started for Michele Grant and chef Dave Danhi as a weekend activity entering their Cheesy Mac and Rib melt into L.A.’s seventh annual Grilled Cheese Invitational became the inspiration for The Grilled Cheese Truck. Their calling? “Not just the classic bread, butter, and cheese,” notes their site, “but amazing creations that are constructed with the best ingredients, local produce, and made with nothing but love.”
The menu features no fewer than six savory melts (the Plain and Simple melt, the Cheesy Mac and Rib, the Brie melt, the Buffalo Chicken melt, the Three Cheese melt, the Goat Cheese melt) most with a variety of complementing ingredients. But the menu goes beyond classic and clever combinations; there are also additions: 15 savory (among them, BBQ smoked pork, mac and cheese, bacon, avocado, and smoked turkey) and six sweet, including Nutella, toasted marshmallows, roasted banana purée, candied pecans, peanut butter, and graham crackers.
TWITTER: @grlldcheesetruk
FOLLOWERS: 77,025
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
#4 Wafels & Dinges (New York)
A creation from Wafels & Dinges. (Photo: missmeng/Flickr)
In 2007, Thomas DeGeest quit his job at IBM, bought a yellow 1968 Chevy box truck, and parked on a corner of Broadway in SoHo to sell his first Liege waffle. He made $84 that first shift and never looked back. Some six years and several trucks and carts later, DeGeest helms one of the most iconic, lauded, and beloved trucks in the city, not to mention carts as well as an East Village brick and mortar outpost.
Wafels, whether Brussels (rectangular, doughier, and saltier) or Liege (usually more ovoid, chewy, and sweet), come with your choice of dinges (sides) that include dulce de leche, Belgian chocolate fudge, maple syrup, whipped cream, walnuts, bananas, butter, Nutella, strawberries, and perhaps one of the most underrated toppings of our time, speculoos. Imagine Golden Grahams cereal in dessert sauce form. It’s sweet, it’s salty, it actually originates from a thin, crunchy cookie typically made using butter, sugar, and a combination of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, and sometimes ginger), and if it’s your first topping, it’s free (for $2 you can load your wafels with every topping in the truck).
TWITTER: @waffletruck
FOLLOWERS: 38,522
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
Related: The 14 Craziest McDonald’s Locations Around the Globe
#3 Red Hook Lobster Pound (New York)
From the daughter of Maury Povich. (Photo: Jane Bruce)
What started at Ralph Gorham’s and Susan Povich’s kitchen table (yes that Povich — she’s the daughter of former “A Current Affair” host and daytime TV star Maury Povich), has turned into a hugely successful multi-city lobster roll truck. The truck, “Big Red,” opened in 2010 in New York City, bringing “Maine-style” lobster rolls to the masses. The Red Hook Lobster Truck has a variety of seafood indulgences to offer. There are shrimp rolls, a lobster BLT, lobster bisque, and New England and shrimp and corn chowder, but let’s face it, it’s about the lobster roll: lobster, served cold with celery, spices, a touch of homemade mayonnaise and on a J.J. Nissen split-top bun (or Connecticut-style, warm and buttered).
TWITTER: @lobstertruckny
FOLLOWERS: 11,917
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
#2 The Cinnamon Snail (New York)
The Cinnamon Snail (Photo: Jane Bruce)
"Has a 1991 Grumman / Chevy P30 become a Buddha?” asks The Cinnamon Snail’s website. No, you don’t have to prepare to get into chaturanga, but this is a full-on vegan and organic food truck — right down to the grill, which, when the truck was gutted, was replaced with “a brand-new commercial grill which had never touched animal flesh.” The truck, a longtime dream of Adam Sobel (who previously ran a vegan catering service in New Jersey), has a menu that features breakfast, raw food, sandwiches, and pastries. There are burritos with scrambled tofu and refried beans, blue corn or fresh plum pancakes with pine nut butter and chamomile blood orange syrup, and sandwiches featuring seitan burgers, tempeh, and grilled tofu.
TWITTER: @VeganLunchTruck
FOLLOWERS: 18,376
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Facebook
#1 Kogi BBQ (Los Angeles)
Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ deserves to brag. (Photo: Eric Shin)
“Kogi set off a flavor bomb that would shake up the foundations of the industry so that street food would never be looked at the same way.” That’s from Kogi’s site. What’s the saying? It ain’t bragging if it’s true? So it goes with chef Roy Choi’s truck, which you can credit (or at this point, blame) for the proliferation of Asian tacos across the U.S. Korilla, TaKorean, Jogasaki, these guys, among many others, should be paying Choi royalties. After appearing at number one on our list in 2012 and number two last year, the truck continues to be an icon in the food truck world. Serving delicious Asian tacos at an incredibly reasonable price, this truck has made headlines and was named the fifth-best restaurant by Jonathan Gold in 2013. The company now has four trucks (one specifically for catering events). The group has also opened two restaurants, Alibi Room and Chego. With more than 128,000 Twitter followers, it is clear that this truck as reached celebrity status.
TWITTER: @kogibbq
FOLLOWERS: 128,805
LOCATION/SCHEDULE: Check Site
More from the Daily Meal
50 Best Dessert Trucks in America
WATCH: The secrets of successful food trucks
Let Yahoo Travel inspire you every day. Hang out with us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
