The Rodeo Is In Town

Moving to East Durham must have addled our brains. Though I vaguely knew that there was a Food Truck Rodeo down in Central Durham this weekend, I completely forgot about it until this morning at around 10:30. And then I was out of the house at 11 in order to get there before the 12:30 start time. A few tips for the next rodeo, especially if it’s your first:

• The best time to go to a food truck rodeo is before it starts. Most of the trucks will be up and running at around noon. If you go later, even around the announced start, the lines will be building up. At around 2pm, you might as well go somewhere else.
• Why not go somewhere new? American Meltdown is always going to be out and about. Chirba Chirba too. Skip their queues and visit them when they’re next at Fullsteam - try one of the newer trucks!
• on that bent, Chai’s Global Food is pretty good - I’m sad that I didn’t have enough room for their ramen burger special, but the bulkogi taco and Momofuku-esque pork bun were rather tasty!)_
• Pace yourself! One thing that the rodeos could do a little better is recognize that there’s always about 50-60 trucks about at one of these events. You want to sample as much as possible, but most of the trucks only offer their usual full-meal venue. It’d be great if there was a food truck flight option that saw the trucks offering much smaller sample options. In the meantime, go with a bunch of friends and share.
• Bring water! When I left the house, it was a warm temperature, but there was a good breeze. By the time I got to DCP, the temperature seemed to have risen by about five degrees (Celsius!), and I was sweating horribly. If you plan on making a day of it, water will prevent you from either dying or becoming destitute by buying bottled water over and over again.

All in all, it was a good diversion after discovering that the mold has destroyed a lot more of my CD collection than I initially realised.