Ah food trucks..to some they are a scourge of the city that takes away customers from small businesses with overpriced food. Me, I kinda like them and when one is nearby I like to take the opportunity to try them out. Though I sometimes agree their pricing can be on the high side depending on the truck and quantity versus costs, but that's another discussion. Anyway, local food truck collective Off The Grid has started a new location at 2nd and Folsom Streets. Each day Monday through Friday there are 2 different trucks to choose from. Since that is literally a hop, skip and a jump from where I work I decided to give it a shot.
Today's choices were Phat Thai and Doc's of the Bay and after perusing their menus and deciding I wasn't in the mood for rice I went with Doc's. Now when you go their website it says they have brought back the pulled pork which made me excited as I am always looking to find a good version out here. But when I got to the truck, alas, they didn't have the pork they were serving something called the Gobbler instead--in addition to their limited regular stuff, for me that was strike one. They also didn't have any seasonal side as their website menu states but I looked past this, for now. So I wasn't really in a burger mood so I thought I'd be kind of healthy and get the Black Bean Burger and a side of their lightly sautéed green beans. Well, even though they had only been open about an hour they were already out of green beans, ugh that's strike two, I got the fries instead but was told they were having problems with the fryer and the fries would take about 10 minutes if I wanted to wait, yikes that's strike three, but I've come this far so I sighed and said yes I'll wait.
It took about 15 minutes to get my order and I watched them cook it and then literally as the fries were "done" they seasoned them in the basket and then dumped them in a brown bag and put my burger on top. I didn't want to eat on the sidewalk so I took the five minute walk back to work and sat down at my desk. From there it was one disappointment after another.
Starting with the burger what I can say is I did like the bun, nicely toasted, soft inside, tasty. The rest, not so much. The black bean patty itself was mostly mush. I had been hoping they would have griddled it to have a little crispness on the outside but they didn't. It's like they just plopped it on the grill on one side flipped it over to get it warm then plopped it on the bun. The jicama and red cabbage slaw had wilted some from the warm patty and thus did not add any crunch which the sandwich desperately needed. Plus it wasn't tangy or spicy as advertised and the lime mayo was just lost under all beans and jack cheese. This is like strike four, five and six.
I still had hope for the fries but that was dashed pretty quickly. Because they put hot fries out of the fryer into a closed bag the short walk back to work caused steam to gather in the bag and the fries were now soft and limp and I'm going to say a little under-cooked. Their fryer was definitely having some problems. Again the potlatch dusting seasoning didn't live up to hype nor did their own "special" ketchup. Now we are at what, strike seven!
Fortunately I didn't splurge and get the Doc's Box which include what they were calling an Arnold Palmer which is supposed to be half tea half lemonade. The container they had full of this stuff was more murky brown, like the muddy Mississippi and had waaay too much sugar from the sample I had, completely unappealing.
From my stand point I won't be going back to this truck as my only other option would have been a burger and there are many better places to get burgers that I know are good in this city so why take the chance on Doc's version. This truck was a total strike out.
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