Tasty Cleveland

Gourmet food trucks are gaining in popularity, in part to some of the recent competition shows on TV.  Cleveland has a growing food truck scene, with trucks showing up everywhere.  This summer, various trucks have been gathering Wednesdays downtown on Walnut Ave at E. 9th Street.  It's a great opportunity to be able to check the offerings of a number of trucks without having to drive all around town.  The Downtown Cleveland Alliance web site has information on which trucks may be showing as well dates and times.  Make sure you check their site, Facebook page, or Twitter since they have had to move the location due to the filming of the Avengers movie.

Due to my schedule, I wasn't able to make it up there until last week.  As I mentioned earlier, they'd had to move the location because of the movie, so the trucks were parked on Rockwell Ave at E. 12th Street.  I arrived near the end (1pm), and there was still a pretty good crowd.  There was live music, and probably 6 or 7 trucks.  Some of the items were sold out (I wish I'd been able to get there sooner), but there was still a good selection.  I ordered an Asian Chicken Sandwich (above) from the Motor Mouth Food Truck which consisted of soy and ginger braised chicken with a spicy red cabbage slaw.  The chicken was moist and tasty, the slaw was crunchy, the bread was fresh, and it had just enough sauce on it that had a hint of sesame oil.  

My companion had a grilled chicken panini from the The Nosh Box food truck (which was also at the Hamburger Festival- see other posts).  She really enjoyed it- moist and tender pieces of dark chicken meat grilled with cheddar cheese and bacon on a cibatta roll.  

The sandwiches that we tried cost around $7-$8.  Most of the items being sold seemed to be in this price range- well worth the price, especially considering the uniqueness and quality of the food.  The food trucks will continue to gather downtown on Wednesdays through September 7th.  Check with the Downtown Alliance for more information.  And if you find a truck that you like, check their Facebook pages and Twitter posts to see where they'll be throughout the week.