Let’s Eat: The best of Seattle food trucks

By Jillian Raftery

Terry Jaymes has been getting excited about the growing food truck
trend in Seattle.

Although Jason Antebi is skeptical of food trucks, Terry thinks they are a
great way for talented local chefs to get started. Skillet Street Food,
for example, started out as a food truck before expanding to two brick-
and-mortar locations.

Some restaurants, like Top Pot Doughnuts, are even starting their own
“mobile units” to
add to their repertoire.

According to Seattlefoodtruck.com,
there are about 75 food trucks in the city of Seattle alone.

“They range from all kinds of stuff – whether it’s a dessert truck, whether
it’s pizza, whether it’s really exotic types of food that they have. You can
get anything you want at these things,” says Terry.

Most of these trucks have cult twitter followings, or websites where they
post their location for any given day. Seattlefoodtruck.com tracks the
locations of individual trucks by day and also lists food trucks by
neighborhood.

Terry’s favorite food truck so far is Contigo. They
serve hand made mini-tacos with unique flavors like chicken mole and a
vegetarian sauteed mushroom taco with poblano pepper cream.

“They have these deep-fried little pockets of goodness called gorditas.
One has three different cheeses, they’ve got one that is a sweet potato
and pork mixture. These things are hot out of the oil and they are so, so
good,” raves Terry.

Snout & Co. is
another unique truck, featuring some of the best pork of any restaurant,
whether mobile or stationary. Their Seattle Cuban sandwich, complete
with red onion relish and chimichurri mango sauce, is one of the most
popular – and delicious – menu items.

“They call it soul food from the Pacific Northwest to South Carolina,”
says Terry.

Maximus
Minimus, famous because it’s shaped like a pig, is another Seattle
staple and offers mouth-watering pulled pork and vegetarian
sandwiches. Their maximus sandwiches – pork – include fruit juices as
well as onion and peppers to make a sweet and spicy delicacy, while the
vegetarian minimus sandwiches are flavored with tamarind.

Listen to this week’s show with Terry and Jason:

Let’s Eat can be heard on 97.3 KIRO FM on Saturdays at 4pm and
Sunday at noon. Available anytime ON DEMAND at MyNorthwest.com.