This weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Kansas Food Truck Festival in Lawrence.
Although there were a couple of kinks, I still had a blast and tasted some good food truck food. It rained off and on but because it was warm it didn't bother me any and it didn't seem to bother anyone else, either.
Upon arrival, my group and I had to wait in line to get in. Then, because I already had a ticket, I didn't really say anything and just slipped through -- bad idea. If I wouldn't have just slipped through I would have received a $5 voucher for food, which came with each ticket. Later, I tried to explain this to a lady at the front gate, but she wasn't having it. No surprise there.
First, I tried Richie Rich's BBQ and Catering. They had cheap food -- two sliders and fries for $5, choice of turkey, brisket and pulled pork. I chose the brisket and pulled pork. I enjoyed the food -- obviously because I forgot to take any photos before I scarfed it down -- but it wasn't the best barbecue I've ever had.
After eating some barbecue, my group and I were thirsty and we wanted to look around a bit.
My biggest complaint about the festival is that it didn't seem as organized as I had hoped. To get any drinks you had to first purchase tickets, but you had to stand in like for them first. Then, once you got the tickets, you had to wait in line again to get your drinks. This included beer, water and soda, although a few trucks were selling drinks for cash. This was confusing to me and I wondered why it was necessary. We could have just used cash to buy drinks and skipped the unnecessary step of buying tickets. I also ended up giving away some of my tickets when I was leaving because I purchased too many.
After quenching our thirst, we were ready for round two of food truck food. This time we tried
Indios Carbonsitos, a Mexican food food truck. For their menu and photos of their food: click
HERE.
We searched for the end of the line to find that it curled back behind another food truck. We decided to wait in line because if the line was that long, the food must be good, right?
In the picture to the right, it took us 40 minutes to get to where we were pictured. What was even more disconcerting is that after waiting 45-50 minutes just to order our food, we still had another 25-30 minutes to wait on our orders to be served to us. The food was good, but I am not sure it was worth the long wait. I want to try the food again but probably won't wait that long again.
I ordered the Tinga Sopes. It was basically chicken on this round taco shell with sauce, onions, cojita cheese, pinto beans and cilantro. I liked the taco shell -- it was substantial and held all the toppings, and it stayed crispy. The order came with two of them and I couldn't eat them all because I also ordered some churros. Churros are these fried sticks of dough that are tossed in sugar and cinnamon. Can't go wrong there. I enjoyed my food, I just didn't enjoy the wait.
I had a lot of fun at the Kansas Food Truck Festival and can't wait until next year. I love that there were a couple of art galleries open for people to check out. One piece that stood out to me was a horse made of keyboard keys from old computers. It was interesting to look at the different keys, their shading and see how they contributed to the texture of the overall picture. Food is always better with art.
