Writing, at least for me, is a bit like exercising. I need to start slowly, with light weights and build my strength up before I try to push myself to run that marathon. Coming back to this blog after my nearly four month hiatus is a bit nerve-wracking since I am so out of shape, but my kind boyfriend met me for a quick trailer lunch last Friday to help ease me back into things.
Most of you know I love using Twitter, especially for food trailer and blogging-related things, so it should be no surprise that I solicited the help of my Twitter community in selecting a lunch location. I tweeted for suggestions on where I should go for my first excursion back and @natanyap (Natanya Anderson, http://feteandfeast.com) was kind enough to respond that The Seedling Truck (@SeedlingTruck) had some good stuff going on lately.
The truck is open in a variety of locations for lunch (but they are taking a break at the moment), brunch (my favorite meal ever), and dinner with a different menu for each time of day. The ingredients are all sourced from local organic farms and they even have a list of their choice farms on their website. Speaking of their website, it's phenomenal! Probably one of the cleanest layouts, most updated schedule and menu, and easiest to navigate food trailer websites I have visited. I feel strongly that this is one of the first steps to success for a food truck, so go you, Seedling Truck! I'm impressed with your online presence.
Likewise, I am impressed with their menu offerings. On the day we visited the adorable hand-written menu displayed these scrumptious items:
This particular Friday, Danny and I were meeting for a late-ish lunch and The Seedling Truck only serves lunch until 1:30pm. I usually like to think of myself as a timely person, but sometime during college I became one of those 10-to-15-minutes-late-to-everything kind of people. I do not know exactly why or how this happened, but now it's true. Somehow, Danny puts up with this, and has been quick to catch on to his role in making sure disasters do not occur. Sometimes this means pre-ordering me a margarita before happy hour ends and I love him for this. This time it meant ordering lunch for both of us before they closed, and he did a great job! He got us the Kale & Crab Chowder and the Pork Pastor Sandwich with an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie to finish things off. I met him right after he ordered and we waited at the cute picnic table area adjacent to the parking lot for our food to be prepared.
As an unspoken rule, Danny and I typically share our meals so that we have the option of tasting different things. The only catch is that I try to limit my dairy intake so he eats most of the heavily-dairied items such as the chowder. I did try a few bites and it was pretty good, but the star of the show was the sandwich, no contest. The pineapple jicima slaw was a fantastic addition to the soft bun and tasty shredded pork. I would have eaten more of this than Danny even if the dairy thing wasn't an issue. I really loved it. The accompanying popcorn was nothing special. We were the last ones for lunch that day, but it shouldn't have tasted like it came from one of those holiday tins that people give other people for gifts when they really don't know much about who those other people are at all. It was stale and boring and we didn't want to eat more than a few sample bites. Thumbs down, popcorn.
As dessert, we shared the large, chewy cookie and I loved it. The chocolate chip count was higher than your average cookie, and for me this was a huge plus. I also loved that it was soft-baked instead of crunchy. As the trailer packed up and pulled out of the parking lot to go back to the magical land where all the trailers go when they aren't serving customers, we gathered our trash and remnants in the Eco-friendly containers and bid farewell to the GSD&M complex.
I know exactly why this trailer was recommended to me: it's awesome. This is a strong new addition to the trailer family of Austin and I'm excited to go visit again, especially when the season changes. I want to try more of their fresh foods and support local farms in the process!
This trailer gets a 4 out of 5 trailers and this is why: their website it awesome, they have a schedule they actually keep, and their food is fresh and GOOD. Besides that popcorn. I really was not a fan of that popcorn. That is partially made up for by being fantastic and tweeting back at me. They are really utilizing The Internet to their advantage and I'm a huge fan of that.
Guest Review:
It's always tough to follow up a review like that. She really nailed it
right? Hit on all the main points and gave you a complete picture of
what to expect when venturing for some good, honest, Austin trailer
food. I won't try to compete here, allow me to just dive into some of
the details. I figure if you've made it this far in the review, you're
way too into this blog stuff anyway and probably looking for the gory
details.
Yeah, it was good. Nothing crazy, but it did the job. The
sandwich was great; really tasty, soft pork in the pulled fashion. The
sauce was good and not over-powering. The sauce, which I've never heard
of, seemed to basically be thick slices of onion sauteed in balsamic
vinaigrette tossed with pineapple chunks. This combined well with the
soft and warm artisan bun and both of us attacked this thing full on,
clearly trying to get more than our half of the sandwich. What didn't
combine well with the artisan bun? The flippin' popcorn. Shalyn nailed
it when she said, "holiday-tin popcorn", except I think it might've been
a holiday tin from 1992. The popcorn didn't chew or crunch or mash, it
merely changed shape in my mouth like softened iron in the muscled hands
of a metalurgist. Hey, Seedling truck, I'm not a metalurgist. I'm just a
boy with hunger pains. Could you not have just paired it up with
something fresh and healthy? Lettuce perhaps?
Despite the popcorn fiasco, the meal was still
satisfying and I agree with Shalyn's 4 of 5 stars. Go get a pork
sandwich, you won't be sorry. Just tell them to hold the portion of
iron-ore.
Danny
