hello, 25

I am a very lucky girl. This past Tuesday (May 31) was my 25th birthday and I invited my friends to join along in the trailer adventures to celebrate. I was honored when so many people were there with me to enjoy an Austin original food cart in the SoCo Food Trailer Park called The Mighty Cone. This idea came to me after my beautiful roommate, Danielle, left me an article from this month's Austin Monthly Magazine about the trailers at 1600 South Congress Ave. and how they will be forced to relocate later this summer because a hotel will be built where they currently reside. I wanted to visit those trailers before they moved and checked online to see if most of them would be open for dinner Tuesday, but apparently the world wide web lies and only The Mighty Cone was open to serve our savory cravings. This has been the most frustrating part of this new hobby of mine. By nature, these trailers have the ability to open/close whenever they wish and aren't necessarily set to a defined hourly schedule which poses a challenge to me when I'm trying to plan a visit to taste their delicious offerings. Luckily for our birthday group, both Austin Frigid Frog and Hey Cupcake! were also open for our trailer dessert needs. My friends all maintained positive attitudes and were excited to try the cones deemed mighty and we still had a fantastic experience.

  

 

Walking up to the row of trailers can seem intimidating at first, but since The Mighty Cone was the only dinner-food option, the choice was made easy on us. I have actually eaten at The Mighty Cone previously, so in the spirit of trying new things, I opted for a slider instead. It was a bold move to branch out and I genuinely wished I hadn't. The tiny burger-in-a-cone comes with a side of fries, which was nice, but I would have preferred the fried (or as they say at Mighty Cone "deep sautéed") yumminess of the chicken and avocado cone. Lesson learned. I was grateful that Danielle had eaten a snack before we came and shared her cone with me, the birthday girl. :) My friend, Eddie, was also in the sharing mood and let Sheena and I eat one of his fried pickles (they were SO hot, but delish). Anyway, don't get me wrong, the slider was still good eatin'. If you for some reason dislike deep sautéed foods then the slider is an excellent alternative, just not what I was in the mood for that evening. The Mighty Cone also has a variety of beverage options and I had to go with the classic Sweet Leaf Peach Iced Tea. It was perfect. The sassy service of the window girl just added to the festiveness, so overall the experience was very positive. The trailer even shares some of it's profits with local organizations doing amazing things in the city, so when you eat there you can feel good that you're giving your money to people who recognize the importance of supporting community.

 

My rating for this trailer would be a 4 out of 5 trailers because of the excellent location (sadly, this will change), unique & superb food offerings, and their commitment to making a difference with their business.

Guest Reviews (in the order I received them):

Mighty Cone: I'm from Dallas and we Dallasites know a little bit about unique foods that are easy to take on the go, (e.g., Texas State Fair), so, I will excited to try Mighty Cone and see if it held up to my festival food standards.  The Hot and Crunchy Chicken cone is a delicious crunchy chicken fillet, topped with coleslaw, and wrapped in a tortilla. It came out piping hot and it smelled wonderful. Taking my first bite, I loved how the creaminess from the slaw and the crunchiness of the chicken meshed well together and paired with a Mexican Coke it was a nice little meal on a summer day. However, I have to admit that I did get bored with my meal. Although, there was a lot of different flavors going on, I wondered if there was anything more to it. Yes, it would be the perfect companion to any Austin Festival (ACL, SXSW, etc...), but as a far as me craving Mighty Cone and going out of my way to get it, meh! I don't think that's going to happen. It was nice to try but I've definitely had better when it came to festival food.

Try: The Fried pickles with a lovely spicy avocado sauce.
Sheena

The trailer area on south congress is one of my favorite parts of Austin. The line of food trailers adds even more character to an already unique and fun part of our city. I chose to eat at The Mighty Cone, a place with a reputation even outside of Austin. I ordered the chicken and avocado deluxe... which combines lots of my favorite ingredients: fried chicken, tortilla, good sauce, and avocados (also fried!). The ancho sauce is the real star here. It adds a good flavor and helped out the chicken which was a little dry. It was a little tricky to eat- the food comes served in a cone... so I'm not sure if i should just take it out and make a burrito, or eat it with a fork. I ended up doing a weird, messy hybrid of the two. All said though, the novelty of it was worth any trickiness in eating it. I'd definitely go back with some friends and have a nice meal outside on SoCo! Plus, you can walk right over to Hey Cupcake and have dessert. Or go across the street to Lucy In Disguise and see some crazy costumes (They have a sweet Michael Jackson jacket I need to get).
Alex