FoodMetroManila

If you read my post about the first day of the FoodTruckFest at the Madrigal Business Park, you could have felt my longing to get to try the other trucks. It was partly due to my slight disappointment about some of the items I got to try and the crazy turn-up of people.

So this time I set out to try the other trucks I didn’t get to try, and boy did I get more disappointed. The same problems with expediting were still prevalent in most trucks. This with so much less people so they can’t say frenzy from a lot of orders made them unorganized. Some trucks offered the same things as others so you don’t really have much choices. And they weren’t really offering anything new.

I wanted to hit as much trucks as I can so I only got one item per truck. Here are my thoughts:

Great Burger

We came earlier than the last time, but some carts were already out of a lot of stuff. I didn’t get to try this truck then because they had run out of burgers. This time around they only had three burgers left: The Classic, The Chili Burger, and The Double. I just had The Classic with a side of regular fries.

Pardon the bad lighting, we ate at the tables near the trucks themselves and it was really dark. The burger itself was very juicy, seasoned well, and tasted fresh. Plus points for that. However, there wasn’t really anything else to get out of this. The bun was a regular burger bun that got really soggy sopping up the meat juices and there was just an uninspiring piece of wilted lettuce. The fries tasted like those things you can buy from the grocery and fry at home.

But this truck offered some familiar things at very affordable prices thus people flocked here and had the most lines out of everybody this day. Oh, the house special sauce? Didn’t get a hint of anything special in that burger.

Chef Biggie

Two items from this truck’s menu were crossed-off with a little note: “Not allowed to sell”. That would be the burger with bacon and texas pulled pork. Gee, I guess why? This truck came second to Chef Broosy in terms of expditing problems and they are the two trucks that put the word Chef on them! Come on!

By the time I got here they were only selling three items: Grilled Franks, Spicy Wings, and Pork Satay. I got the Spicy Wings based on my love for Buffalo Wings.

Did I get Buffalo Wings? No. Did I get something good? Not really. Did I get Filipino style fried chicken? Yes.

Filipino Style Fried Chicken is Deep Fried Chicken in a Kawali (our version of a Wok) dredged with just flour (sometimes none at all) and seasoned with salt. All three factors were exactly what they did here. At least the wings were not overcooked but it was not even slightly spicy. They drizzled some chili sauce that didn’t adhere to the wings but transferred to the bed of rice below.

I Have 2 Eggs by Ser Chef

I read that Ser Chef offers good lechon (roasted suckling pig). However, this food truck we got only offered Lechon Macau (Lechon Kawali), pork belly boiled with some salt then deep fried. I went for this because the only other choice was a deep fried hungarian sausage and that didn’t require any effort from these people.

I’ve had some pretty good deep fried pork bellies in my life. I know of some in a little hole in the wall in a multi-level parking lot behind my old office in Makati. This 150 Php meal is not one of them. Not only was it not crispy, but it wasn’t seasoned well enough that even the bottled pork liver sauce couldn’t help it out. The sunny-side up egg was completely unnecessary.

Ruminations…

So why were there less people this time around. My take on it is that the initial novelty of having food trucks in Restaurant Barren Madrigal Business Park had worn-off. Add to this that the trucks they got to join the event was not offering anything special. Also, the fact that one of the most popular trucks in Shawarma Bros being absent didn’t help.

I washed all these down with a really large cup of iced sugar from I Have 2 Eggs. Should have thought that through.

The second day of the FoodTruckFest was pretty disappointing. Watching shows that feature different Food Trucks that dot the major cities in the USA or how Street Food is celebrated in other South East Asian countries such as Thailand and Singapore, I can’t help but feel jealous. Come on Metro Manila! Give us more!