When I left the
US for Glasgow my experience of food trucks was limited to Manoosh, a guy who
had a hot dog and pretzel cart late at night on GWU's campus. Of course then a few years later I was
introduced to the infamous “burger van” when my office was on an industrial
estate and that was the only dining (I use that term loosely) option within
walking distance. Neither is a fair representative of the now booming food
truck trend.
Food trucks have
become a phenomenon in the USA over the past few years and like most booming
food trends they are slowly making their way to the UK. If you love the Food Network like I do you may have seen them
featured on shows like “ Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich in America,” “Andy Bates’
Street Feasts” and my personal favourite, due to the dreamy Tyler Florence
mostly, “The Great Food Truck Race.”
Basically think of your favourite cuisine in a mobile kitchen giving you
your favourite eats to go. Trucks in the
USA have massive followings and they only need to tweet their location for the
day to have a queue down the block.
So when I heard
that Scoop Events and Smoak were coming together for the first ever Street Food
Cartel, a pop up food truck restaurant in Glasgow I was mega excited—then I
heard it had sold out almost immediately. Bummer. Luckily for me they added a
second night and we were able to get tickets. Tickets cost £5 each and gave you
entry and a free drink.
We went for the
6:30 setting but I’ll be honest and say we arrived about 15 minutes late to SW3
but that wasn’t a problem. It was a bit sketchy walking in since it is
literally a big warehouse, but once inside it wasn’t so scary.
The venue was a
warehouse so it was pretty cold but my main complaint venue wise was that it
was really hard to hear. The plywood tables were quite large so NotBlondeHusband
was pretty far away from me and since the music echoed in the empty warehouse
it made it quite hard to hear. I was looking forward to going out with my
husband and while I don’t mind sharing a table with other people I spent most
of the night invisibly rolling my eyes at the utter shite the person next to me was
shouting at their friends.
However, you
don’t really go to a pop-up restaurant for the ambiance so let’s talk about the
food. We were offered an elderflower cocktail or beer for our free drinks and
since I don't like elderflower I became the designated driver and NBH got two beers. He went for the Harveston Schiehallion
and really enjoyed it: it had a lot of flavour. The menu was split into two—one
half for Scoop and the other for Smoak.
They suggested
dishes were to share but 3 dishes per person, which to be honest I found a bit
confusing but we went for five between the two of us. Our Smoak dishes came out
first:
Truffle Mac and Cheese with Brioche Crumb
This picture
does not do it justice—the mac and cheese was amazing. I may or may have not
stuck my fingers in the sauce after all the pasta was done. Seriously
delicious.
Smoked & Confit Chicken Slider,
Bourbon Dipping Sauce & Plantains
This was good
but when a dish is described as being “to share” I tend to expect more than one
slider. Also it was impossible to dip into the dipping sauce because it was in
such a wee cup. We ended up pouring on the sauce rather than dipping. The
chicken itself was really nice I just wish there had been two or three sliders
in our tray.
Next up was the
dishes from Scoop:
Confit Pork Belly, Viet Slaw, Scratchings
Lettuce Wraps & Nouc Cham
This was
NotBlondeHusband’s choice. He’s a big fan of pork belly but for him the winner
of this dish was the Viet Slaw. It wasn’t that the pork belly was bad but it
was quite fatty and didn’t really stand out on its own. If you took away all
the other components of the dish it wasn’t palatable.
Ox Cheek Taco, Guacamole & Sweet
Pickled Onion
We both love
tacos but the ox cheek was far too rich. The guacamole and onions were both
nice but for me taco fillings should be lighter and less heavy. It didn’t taste
bad it just was too rich for my taste.
Butternut Spring Roll, Beetroot Pesto,
Feta & Toasted Hazelnut Dukkah
This was hands
down my favourite. I love beetroot and the pesto was so fresh and the perfect
pairing with the sweet butternut squash. It was so good I tweeted Scoop to ask
how they made it. Also hands down the best feta I’ve ever had. I might have to
tweet them again to find out where they source it from as it was light and
fluffy rather than dry and salty like some feta.
We went for both
desserts on offer because well that’s how we roll and oh wow I’m so glad we
did.
Smoak: White Chocolate Cheesecake,
Raspberry & Bourbon Cranachan
Normally I’m not
a huge fan of Cranachan because it can be a bit too boozy for me but this was
perfectly balanced. To be honest I don’t really like cheesecake that much but
it was creamy without being sickly and smooth without being overly rich.
Peanut Butter Parfait & Jam Sorbet
Being American
I’m a huge fan of the peanut butter and jam combination and this did not
disappoint. We expected it to actually just be strawberry sorbet but the sorbet
was actually made of strawberry jam and was tart enough to counter balance the
peanut butter parfait. Again I may or may have not stuck my fingers in the
leftover melty bits on the plate.
With £10 entry,
£38.50 for our food (plus one more beer) + tip it certainly wasn’t cheap but
the quality of food was high. Yes everything was served in paper baskets but
you had proper china and silverware to eat out of---it’s street food that
doesn’t bother me. I’d hope if these trucks go out and about (and have no
warehouse overhead) that item costs would be slightly lower. On the whole we had
a great evening but that’s not the kind of money we could spend on a regular
basis.
I hope this was
just a taste of what’s to come for Glasgow and we’ll soon have food trucks all
over our dear green place with amazing and interesting alternative dining options
for us all.
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