Food

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Getting Acquainted with New Food Trucks

By now, you’re aware that good things come in pairs. Also, celebrity deaths come in threes. But here’s a new one: monumental food truck debuts come in fours. Below: the vitals on a shiny armada of mobile lunch spots launching now and in the coming weeks. It’s time to take back the streets.

Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches

Origin: Los Angeles.
Distance from Origin: 2,790 miles.

Coolhaus’s architecturally themed snacks—less ice cream sandwiches and more 1920s-modernist-design-inspired chipwiches—can be tracked down to a converted postal van with chrome rims. For your order: combine a seasonal ice cream (like White Russian) with a homemade cookie (like Red Velvet), or just ask for whatever Frank Gehry’s having.

Important Consumable Contribution to Society: An edible potato-and-soy-ink wrapper.

Gorilla Cheese NYC

Origin: Your mom’s kitchen.
Distance from Origin: That’s between you and your mom.

There’s a time and place to play it safe. Lunch, however, is not it. So you’ll stop by this truck, where they’re playing fast and loose with grilled cheese tradition by adding prosciutto di parma, Daisy May’s pulled pork or sriracha soy mayo. It’s the very definition of a well-calculated risk.

Important Consumable Contribution to Society: The Grilled S’mores Sandwich on homemade graham cracker bread.

Red Hook Lobster Pound

Origin: Brooklyn.
Distance from Origin: 6.7 miles for the truck, 320 miles for the fresh Maine lobsters.

You take lobster rolls very seriously. Meaning you’d prefer to eat them on a breezy Cape Cod dock as opposed to a busy city street curb. But there are exceptions, such as Red Hook’s newest wheeled outpost. Now serving authentically overstuffed Maine (mayo) and Connecticut (drawn butter) rolls from the starboard side.

Important Consumable Contribution to Society: The super-condiment-absorbent toasted J.J. Nissen buns.

The Frying Dutchmen

Origin: Belgium.
Distance from Origin: 3,665 miles (or 3,184 nautical miles if you take the sub).

Of all the things you’ve experienced in Amsterdam, the perfectly crisped, twice-fried pommes were, well, the one that went best with malt vinegar. Now, they’re also the only one with a roving SoHo food truck. Expect traditional skin-on fries, with nontraditional, experimental sauces. You’re about to enter a lychee and sweet chili phase.

Important Consumable Contribution to Society: A liquefied loaded-baked-potato dipping sauce.