Saturday, April 2, 2011

SOBT Latin Food Truck Crawl, Part 1

This past Friday night we explored the food trucks along South Orange Blossom Trail. I had heard there was a grouping of them at a placed they called Comida Latina, but when we tried to find it we only discovered single trucks in separate parking lots. Later after talking to some of the truck owners we found out Code Enforcement had split them up, none are allowed to be in the same parking lot it seems. It actually works out fine because many of them are very close together, only a few parking lots away, you can do a bit of a food truck crawl, try a couple things at the first one, walk down to the next parking lot and there is another, and so on.


The first we tried was Arepas El Gran Saman, all the Arepas were $5 and they had a decent number of selections some with just cheese and others with meat and cheese. We got the Pernil(roast pork) Arepa with cheese. The cheese was nice white strongly flavored shards, I'm not sure what kind but it was good. There were 4 different kinds of sauce Ajo(Garlic), Ketchup/Mayo combo, a yellowish one, but the best one was green and spicy though I could never figure out what it was made of. They were pretty busy when we got there about 10:15 pm but the line moved quickly.


Arepas El Gran Saman
9803 S Orange Blossom Trail Orlando, FL
Sun-Thurs 7pm-4am
Fri-Sat 7pm-5am
407-286-6025




2 parking lots north was Dominican Chimi. This truck wasn't as busy so we got a chance to talk to the owner. His name was Luis and he was an older guy, he's the one who told us about how the trucks got split up by Code Enforcement and how it was really nice before when they were all together it created a little sense of community and the families loved it.




We tried a couple of different Pinchos(meat skewers) and his Chimi sandwich. His sauce bottles were more oil based than the last one. The Pinchos were spiced well and not overcooked, they had an Adobo/Garlic salty flavor, they were served with a small piece of grilled bread which was nice. The Chimi sandwich was excellent, it had a white sauce, lettuce and meat and I really enjoyed it.

Dominican Chimi
Menu
9785 S Orange Blossom Tl Orlando, FL 32837
Fri-Sun 8:30 pm - 1 am
407-535-1151




Third we went to the next parking lot north, La Tripleta subs and more..., this truck was in front of a restaurant of the same name, there was a large line to order from this truck and we waited about 15-20 minutes. We ordered a tripleta sandwich, a couple corn fritters(Sorullitos de Maiz), and fritter stuffed with ground beef(Alcapurria).


The only sauce they had here was the Ketchup/Mayo combo that all these trucks seem to have. The Alcapurria was not impressive, I've had Alcapurrias in Puerto Rico so nothing really compares. The Sorullito was a better but I would have prefered an Ajo sauce like the Arepa guy had. The best thing here was the sandwich, we cut it up in three but that made it pretty messy. The Tripleta was good but Dominican Chimi's sandwich was better.

La Tripleta Subs
9741 S Orange Blossom Tl Orlando, FL 32837
Wednesdays 6:30pm-midnight
Thursday-Saturday 6:30pm-4am
407-432-7671




Finally we were all pretty full but we wanted to check out another truck further south from the other 3 that we had spied on the drive in. Turns out this truck had an unexpected cuisine, Peruvian! This truck is called "Las 4 Estaciones"(The Four Seasons).

I have a good fried who is from Peru so I have tried a number of Peruvian dishes over the years. There aren't a lot of Peruvian restaurants in Orlando so when I find one I immediately text my friend about it. He was pretty happy when I told him. I was also quite excited because this truck served something I have never found in Orlando, Anticuchos. When I used to quiz my friend about Peruvian food he would always mention Anticuchos which are skewered beef hearts usually cooked over a fire or grilled. I did find them once in Washington DC and they were very tasty. I was much too full from the previous 3 trucks to try them here but I will be back on SOBT Latin Food Truck Crawl, Part 2!



I did find a little room to try their Flan(Leche Asada) which was not as sweet as I'm used to but it was very good in it's own way. You could really tell they roasted the Flan in an oven and it made a nice thick dark shell on top. Also they served it in a glass bowl which is a unique investment for a food truck. We also tried a small Guava Batita(fruit shake). It was decent and pretty sweet but I'd prefer it more milky, I think it was just fruit and ice.


The owner, Juan, was real excited to talk to us and we asked him all about his different dishes. They had a picture of their signature Las 4 Estaciones sandwich on the truck that looked super amazing. I believe it was a pork cutlet with sausage slices on top and a number of other toppings. Since this was the truck we got to try the least amount of food from, it's the one I'm most excited to go back and eat from. Juan also told us about at least 4 more food trucks further south, it was getting really late and there was just no more room in our bellies, but we will be back to explore some more one weekend real soon, maybe you can join us?! :)

Las 4 Estaciones Orlando
Peruvian
9867 South Orange Blossom Trail Orlando, FL 32837-8917
407-488-4336
Friday-Saturday 6pm-4:30am
Sunday, Tuesday-Thursday 6pm-3am



Thanks to Julius/Droolius for tirelessly exploring with us, he's a much more adventurous and skilled cameraman than I, so check out his blog for some excellent pictures of it all. http://droolius.com/

Arepas El Gran Saman on Urbanspoon

Chimi King Food Truck on Urbanspoon

Las 4 Estaciones Orlando on Urbanspoon

La Tripleta Subs on Urbanspoon

6 comments:

  1. This is an awesome guide, thanks for putting it together. My wife and I used it to explore the South OBT food trucks the other night.

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