Seoul Sausage Company - Interrupt

Date of Dining: 4/13/2013

Price: $7-10 per item
Location: 11313 Mississippi Ave, Los Angeles, CA
website

Previously, we discussed how food truck owners that were successful were able to parlay that success into brick and mortar establishments.  Today we discuss one of the most famous of those examples as the winners of The Great Food Truck Race Season 3 - Seoul Sausage.
After winning the Great Food Truck Race, owners Ted Kim, Yong Kim, and Chris Oh used the winnings to not only establish a food truck, but to also open a brick and mortar establishment. Situated in Little Osaka in Los Angeles, the storefront is the perfect location to get a late night (or in my case mid-afternoon) snack.

flaming ball - rice, kimchi, garlic, jalapeno, sriracha aioli

Famous from the show, the fried rice balls are one of the signature dishes of Seoul Sausage. I had to try one to see what all the fuss was about. While I've had my share of fried balls from various food trucks, I did enjoy the Seoul Sausage ball more. The panko breading was extremely tasty, and the filling of the ball had the right combination of seasoning, spices, and flavor. The sriracha aioli dip was a great complement as well.

Da KFC (korean fried chicken) - sweet and sour, daikon, kimchi cornbread

Rather than get a sausage, I had on good authority to try the KFC. The fried chicken was just as good as can be expected from a well-fried korean-style chicken, but the spicy and tangy sauce brought the dish to a new level. The daikon cubes were perfect as a refreshing palate cleanser between bites of the succulent chicken. The only disappointment was the rather bland cornbread.

Conclusion

Overall Seoul Sausage is a great addition to the Little Osaka - it provides some great fusion snack foods and variety that the area otherwise lacks. The group won The Great Food Truck race because the food was great, and the brick and mortar location shows just how good the food is. I look forward to a return visit - hopefully I'll try the Sausage next time!

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No So Fast Food Truck

Date of Dining: 8/1/2012
Price: $8-10 entrees, $3-4 sides
website

The Quick Bit

+ great sourcing of ingredients

+ seasonal menu items

Δ portions could be larger for price

Δ technical execution could be higher

It has been awhile since I have covered San Diego's Gourmet Food Truck Scene. I hope to get back into covering these mobile restaurants in the near future as there are many new trucks.

We start off this post with some news of gastrobits favorite Devilicious - it seems like the Mannings have sold the truck in an effort to concentrate on their new brick and mortar restaurant Wich Addiction. We wish the Mannings well as well as the new owners of Devilicious. The Devilicious truck keeps the same staff and the same exclusive menu items in the sale such as the lobster grilled cheese.

I was introduced to Not So Fast the week they opened due to their "signature" dish being my favorite protein for burgers. Hearing that a Gourmet Food Truck would have a bison burger and be in my area was a great thing to hear. I decided to make my way and try it out.

The Not So Fast truck is a truck that focuses on Paleo food, meaning none of the foods are processed and the cuisine should resemble food that our hunter-gatherer ancestors created. The truck is owned and operated by Bob Montgomery and June Sinclair, who have fourteens years of experience in the restaurant industry. This experience has translated to offering their sandwiches on buns upon request as they realize not everyone is totally ready to adopt the paleo food style.

watermelon gazpacho - cucumber, red pepper, onion, basil, parsley, lime

The gazpacho was a great starter. The first thing I detected was that the gazpacho had a huge kick in spice to it. This combination of spiciness to the cool watermelon was extremely refreshing and cooled me down right away on a hot day. The added herbs really brought out the flavor of the gazpacho and it was a great dish.

bison burger - red wine caramelized onion, kerry gold cheese, fried egg, bacon

Following the gazpacho, I had high hopes for the bison burger. Unfortunately the picture probably says everything you need to know. My fried egg broke and was overcooked, and the bison itself was cooked well done when I had ordered medium rare.

Conclusion

While the watermelon gazpacho was a really nice treat, the main event was a big letdown. At the prices they are charging, I would have rather gone to Cowboy Star for the rightful best burger as the price difference was not much. While the Gourmet Food Trucks are mobile restaurants, most diners still expect some level of price break and equivalent execution of a restaurant from the truck. 

I am willing to chalk up the execution of the bison burger to some mistake, but at the price point it is being offered, it might be too expensive to give a second shot.

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MIHO Gastrotruck

Date of Dining: 3/23/2012 
Price: $8-10 per item
Location: Two trucks, various location - check website

The Quick Bit:

+ high quality restaurant food in a food truck

+ rotating selection of menu items

+ most items made fresh

Δ some items were unbalanced

Δ restaurant quality food is still at restaurant prices

I've quipped about MIHO in the past in relation to what I viewed as their shortcomings (namely the small portions), but I never really did give them a fair shake. The reality is that MIHO was San Diego's first Gourmet Food Truck in the real sense of the word, and they are who many of the other food truck operators look to as the "top dog" of San Diego food trucks. 

MIHO is the brainchild of former Linkery Chefs Juan Miron and David Ho. Leaving The Linkery, they sought to establish a mobile restaurant in the same spirit of the restaurant where they worked; fresh, local, organic ingredients are used and everything that can be made from scratch is made from scratch. 

When I decided to visit MIHO for the blog, I decided that I would remove any past preconceptions from my mind and approach the food truck like any other first timer would. I enlisted the help of a coworker to make sure that I remained unbiased.

The Food

shrimp tacos - chipotle aioli, slaw

The shrimp was cooked to perfection, and the aioli was flavorful. Unfortunately, I felt that the dish did not quite come together in spectacular fashion. I was hoping for the sweetness of the shrimp to contrast with the spice of the chipotle and sing in my mouth, and those flavors did combine in such a way, but the resulting chorus was more of a pianissimo sound than the fortissimo.

fried chicken biscuit - free range chicken, local slaw. house made buttermilk biscuit

As people are starting to get to know, my guilty pleasure is fried chicken. Coupled with the biscuit and I knew I had to order this. The biscuit was made to perfection as it was moist, crisp, and full-flavored. The chicken was fried perfectly to retain moistness and tenderness. This was the best dish of the visit, and not just because it was my guilty pleasure. While I normally never order chicken from a restaurant, I was happy to have this dish and would readily order it again.

Perhaps most importantly, the serving size of the sandwich was a full portion. Eating this alone is enough for a normal person to get full.

Lamburger - all natural lamb, harissa aioli, goat cheese, caramelized onion, local arugula, local ciabatta

We ordered the lamb cooked medium rare and the chef complied to cook it exactly as per specification. The lamb was super moist and the medium rare cooking caused all the juices to overflow throughout the ciabatta. The combination of flavors really worked well in the context of the sandwich and was satisfying. While I was ready to anoint the lamburger the best dish, my co-worker pointed out that he was really put off by the bread to meat ratio in that the flavors of the ciabatta really muted the flavor of the lamb. Instead of being the best dish, the lamburger will have to settle for a close second.

bacon chocolate chip cookie

We finished with a dessert item. Other than the bacon chip visible on the top of the cookie, we detected no other flavor of back throughout as the chocolate seemed to overpower the flavor. Further, thought the price of the cookie did not justify what we received. This was easily the worst dish, and we both recommend against anyone ordering it in the future unless the price is dropped.

Conclusion

Overall, there were some hits and misses at MIHO, but I came out of the experience with a much higher opinion of the truck than I held previously. Most importantly, MIHO is now offering true restaurant quality food out of the truck in the proper portion sizes to be full. While the price isn't any cheaper than a restaurant,  the location of the truck in certain certain culinarily desolate locations may trump the higher price point - the food out of the MIHO Gastrotruck is easily better than most restaurants.

For the high quality restaurant food out of a food truck, MIHO is awarded the bit award.

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Wich Addiction Preview Soft Opening

Date of Dining: 4/2/2012 

Price: $4-8 per item

Location: 6625 Flanders, Mira Mesa, CA 92129

website

I'm back a little early, but this is just a teaser post. Back when I first covered Devilicious, I mentioned that many food truck owners operate the food truck to try and open their own proper restaurant. I will cover this a little more in the subsequent post, but Devilicious owners Dyann and Mark Manning have converted their food truck dreams into a proper brick and mortar location.

Instead of extending the Devilicious name, they decided to call the new restaurant Wich Addiction and build up a new following. The menu is completely different from the food truck, but features some "retired" favorites from the truck in the restaurant. While the food will remain strongly rooted in comfort food, many of the dishes will be things that cannot otherwise be served in a food truck.

Wich Addiction is set to have its grand opening on April 12, but you can check it out ahead of time during its soft opening. Just be patient as they work out some of the kinks. I will have full coverage of the location for its grand opening. Until then here are some of the highlights.

Wich Addiction First Day Menu

The menu features a range of sandwiches, salads, and "special" appetizers. It is not too much unlike the Devilicious Food Truck Menu in its first incarnation.

The coffee and tea is provided by Cafe Virtuoso, and is created using a reverse osmosis water system to give a pure and clean flavor to all the coffee and tea.

passion fruit iced tea

 I really enjoyed the ice tea and felt that I could taste some of the natural sweetness in the tea despite there not having any sugar added.

chili fried yummies

The arancini-style fried yummies are back! The first flavor of the month is the tried and true chili flavor. These were better than I remembered them as there did not seem to be any over or under-seasoning issues with the yummies. I'm glad they are back and look forward to the mushroom risotto yummies again in the future.

corn beef sandwich - house kraut, swiss, dill pickle aioli

All sandwiches are served with thick-cut house made chips. The corn beef was cooked so well that I felt I didn't need to chew the beef. The seasonings were spot on and the kraut and aioli rounded out the proper flavors. While it may not have been piled high like a Jewish deli, the flavors were really strong and well-rounded.

poutine - red wine braised short rib, new york sharp cheddar, french fries

While this poutine lacked the chese curds, Dyann assured me that this was an otherwise authentic Canadian poutine. I'm not sure what it was but the short ribs were cooked to be perfectly tender and packed full of braising liquid flavor. I liked that the braising vegetables were also included. I felt this was one of the top three dishes that I've ever been served by Dyann, and it shows a lot of promise for what is yet to come.

Wich Addiction is off to a great start and is now open for business. 

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Hoangie's Banh Mi on Wheels Food Truck

Date of Dining: 3/22/2012
Price: $7-9 per Banh Mi
Location: Food Truck Weekly Schedule:
Monday - 4000 Ruffin Rd
Tuesday - 8945 Rehco Rd
Wednesday - 5600 Oberlin Dr
Thursday - 9540 Towne Centre Dr
Friday: Greer Dr and Shoreham Pl
website

The Quick Bit:
+ authentic Vietnamese flavors on a food truck
+ fast friendly service
+ large selection of beverages
Δ price could be more reflective of banh mi
Δ protein choices could reflect more authenticity

It has been awhile since I covered food trucks, and I apologize for the lack of coverage for those interested. I can't promise that I will be covering more food trucks, but I do plan to try and try out more of them in the near future.

Hoangie's Food Truck is a truck that specializes in serving Vietnamese Sandwiches otherwise known as banh mi. The concept of selling Banh Mi on a food truck was popularized by the Nom Nom Truck in the first season of The Great Food Truck Race. With the success of the truck and the popularity of the show, I'm actually more surprised that we haven't seen another Banh Mi truck in San Diego even earlier.

Hoangie's is a family owned and run operation. The name of the truck is a pun on the Hoang family's name along with the hoagie roll, which resembles the French roll that banh mi is served in. Upon ordering at the truck, one is greeted by the effusively friendly and positive smile of Jenny Hoang, who takes the order and then calls it out to her brother(s) working the line. By the time Jenny finishes taking an order, the previous order is usually ready to be picked up.

The sandwiches offered by Hoangie's consist of the same basic banh mi fillings - pickled daikon, pickled carrots, jalapeno, cilantro, cucumber, and spicy aioli - along with several different protein choices - free-range chicken, rib eye, pork butt, ground sirloin hamburger, tuna, or panko crusted tofu. It should be noted that while the chicken is free range, none of the other proteins are of abnormal quality.

oink banh mi

I settled on the oink banh mi as it is the most popular sandwich. While I wasn't floored by my first bite, but the end of the first half of the sandwich, the flavors started to win me over. The pork contained the great flavor of pork and was complemented by the sweet pickled flavors of the daikon and carrot. The jalapeno and aioli added a spicy contrast that built up on my palate and had enjoying the flavor contrast. These flavor contrasts demonstrate some of the basic tenants of Vietnamese cuisine. 

While the sandwich won on flavors, it did fall a bit short in some areas. The temperature of the protein was lukewarm, and the bread was cold. I also felt that the inclusion of the spicy aioli was trying a bit too hard to dress up the banh mi - traditional banh mi contain butter and perhaps some pate spread.

vietnamese (pork) egg rolls

I also took the opportunity to order the vietnamese egg rolls. Freshly out of the fryer, these egg rolls were well-made traditional vietnamese egg rolls. Instead of the traditional fish sauce dip, they were instead accompanied by the spicy aoili sauce. While I ate these, I found myself missing the fish sauce dip as well as the lettuce wrap and mint that usually accompany egg rolls.

Conclusion:

If I had been given the food for free and asked to judge whether it had come from a restaurant or food truck, I probably wouldn't be able to differentiate; the food that Hoangie's serves is on par with the better Vietnamese restaurants in San Diego.

Unfortunately I did pay for the food, which brings up my biggest issue with Hoangie's. While the size of the Hoangie's Banh Mi is about 1.5 times larger than other restaurants, the price of the sandwich is about double. Furthermore, at a restaurant the egg rolls usually cost twice as much, but one receives six egg rolls as well as accompanying vegetables. 

At the price point set by Hoangie's, I want a little more differentiation - the ingredients need to be higher quality or there needs to be more innovation in the cuisine. While the chicken is free range and reflective of the higher quality, the other proteins lack any special quality to differentiate them.

Ultimately Hoangie's is making tasty food, but should perhaps consider prices in comparison to both other food trucks and other brick and mortar Vietnamese restaurants.

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Burger Shootout #1 [Updated]: Gourmet Food Truck Burgers - take 2

It has been a long time since the last burger shootout. Part of the reason for the delay is that I've eaten so many burgers that I'm a little sick of them. The other reason for the delay is just that I have had less time to travel around to the various burger restaurants. The other issue is last time I did a burger shootout, I said that my scoring methodology for fast food burgers was a little off. Thus, I'm posting the first shootout again with the updated scoring system as well as two new additional trucks.

Also, if anyone wants an opportunity to be on TV, Eat Street will be shooting some of San Diego's Gourmet Food Trucks this coming week.

If there was one food that epitomizes the hunger that San Diegans have, it's the burger. While outsiders might think that San Diegans go crazy over the fish taco, the true food that all San Diegans love is the burger. It's so in demand that every restaurant has to have a burger on their menu.

Naturally, it only makes sense for an intrepid blogger as myself to embark on a journey of adventure and discovery to find San Diego's best burger. However, with the format of this blog, it wouldn't be fair to pick one best burger. Therefore I have decided to pick the best burger in each of the following "tiers": food trucks, fast food, casual dining, restaurants. In the coming months, I will have a series of "burger shootouts" where I compare the burgers from all of these levels on some set of criteria, which will vary by each tier.

This week, I'll start with the gourmet food trucks:

The Criteria:
I've decided to try and revise the overall scoring mechanism by first normalizing scores within each category and then weighing the categories. The three categories I've settled on are taste, value, and miscellaneous. Within each gourmet food truck burger evaluation, the category weights will shift based on the category where the burger lies. The taste category covers aspects concerning taste including overall taste, taste of each individual component, and cooking temperature. The value category is simply the amount of food received for the money (including sides). Finally, the miscellaneous category covers the items that are inherent to the category of the challenge.

• Taste: Worth 50% of the overall score
  
  • Overall Taste - worth half of the taste category
  • Patty
  • Bun
  • Other fillings
  • Cooking Temperature
  Value: Worth 20% of the overall score
  Miscellaneous: Worth 30% of the overall score
  • Ease of consumption
  • Sides
  • Ticket Time

Additionally to qualify for this shootout, the truck needed to serve an actual burger of some form. I also decided that instead of trying to order the same burger at each food truck, I would allow each truck to serve me what they considered to be their signature dish.

The Contenders:

In the following section, I will give a brief overview of each of the contenders (in alphabetical order) in the shootout.

Bitchin' Burgers: website

Bitchin' Burgers is one of the newer food trucks in San Diego. As the name of the truck suggests, they specialize in burgers. What is not said is that they specialize in burgers made of grass fed beef. I did some searches to find out more about who owns and runs Bitchin Burgers, but the information does not seem to be readily available on the web at this time.

Devilicious: website

I've previously covered Devilicious in this blog, but since I last covered them, demand has them creating a new burger of the week every week for the menu. Additionally, since the last time I covered them, there has been some staffing changes. Chef Dyann HuffmanManning now fully owns and operates Devilicious while her husband Mark operates little brother truck Kalbiq.

The Gooch: website

The Gooch is possibly San Diego's newest gourmet food truck. Like Bitchin Burgers, not much comes up in a search about the owners of The Gooch. The Gooch seems to be focused on bar food, which fits their modus operandi as they frequently can be found serving food to bars. What attracted me to The Gooch was their naming convention on their two signature dishes; The Goochie Pop and the Goochie Mama.

Green Truck: website

While many food trucks try to portray an environmentally friendly image by using local and organic ingredients, the Green Truck is truly environmentally friendly. The truck runs on recycled oil and their kitchen is solar powered. The Green Truck isn't actually a single truck, but a collection of three trucks that run in LA, OC, and SD. Their signature dish is an all made from scratch veggie burger called The Mother Trucker.

MIHO Gastrotruck: website

While many of the trucks in this shootout are newer trucks, MIHO is one of the first gourmet food trucks on the San Diego scene. MIHO is run by Kevin Ho and Juan Miron (hence MiHo from the first two letters of each of their lats names) and focuses on organic and local produce. Miron and Ho both worked in the kitchen of the popular North Park restaurant, The Linkery before deciding to partner up to purchase the food truck. MIHO's menu changes weekly but has always included some form of grass fed burger.

Curiocity Catering: website

Curiocity is run by Chef Jason McAllister who is partners with Chef Antonio Friscia of Stingaree. The focus on the food is to provide seasonal, sustainable, and organic restaurant quality food on the truck. Chef McAllister previously worked with Chef Friscia in the kitchen for five years before opening the truck. Their signature dish is a king crab risotto called the deadliest catch.

Eat at Recess: website

Eat at Recess is a truck that focuses around bringing the nostalgia of playing in an elementary school playground back to the streets. The food is high class variants of what you would have expected to find in your elementary school cafeteria and there is some adult playground fun built into the truck itself.

The Shootout:

Bitchin' Burgers: (I apologize for the poor image quality as I had to use my camera phone for this)

Chipotle Gouda Burger

I was extremely surprised from this burger when it was served. I thought that they had given me a regular bacon cheeseburger instead of the chipotle burger. Upon asking for details about the burger, I was told that the gouda cheese is mixed into the hamburger meat before it is formed into a patty. This didn't really work with my idea of a great burger because the juiciness of the burger was reduced by the cheese that was already integrated with the meat. Additionally, they burger was cooked medium as they had to cook the burger long enough to melt the cheese. Finally (as can be seen from the photo), the 1/3 lb meat+cheese patty was out of proportion with the thick brioche bread. The chipotle flavor from the aioli was also lacking to some degree and needed to be stronger. This burger was pretty much like a bad Blood Brothers song

Taste - 38.75

• Overall - 30
• Patty - 75
• Bun - 15
• Other - 50
• Temperature - 50

Value - 20 - $8.50 for a 1/3 lb grass fed beef burger (probably more like 1/4lb of meat), no sides

Miscellaneous - 65

• Ease of Consumption - 90
• Sides - 40 - Sweet potato fries were standard frozen ones

Overall score: 40.625

Devilicious:

Pasilla Pepper, grilled onions, sweet corn topping with fried egg on a burger

This burger from Devilicious was the best burger I had eaten this year when I tasted it. The pasilla chili added a nice depth of flavor and was only mildly spicy. The sweetness of the corn juxtaposed with the spiciness of the pepper was very welcome flavor combination, especially when paired with the grilled onions for additional depth of flavor and the earthiness of the oozing egg yolk to marinate all the flavors together. Additionally, Chef Manning prepared my burger to a perfect medium rare maximizing the juiciness of the meat. Eating this burger was like listing to a Linkin Park hit.

Taste - 90.625

• Overall - 100
• Patty - 50
• Bun - 75
• Other - 100
• Temperature - 100

Value - 70 - $7 commodity beef burger + $1 for egg + free side salad

Miscellaneous - 45

• Ease of Consumption - 10 - It got all over the place
• Sides - 80 - I enjoyed this burger with some mushroom risotto fried yummies

Mushroom Risotto Fried Yummies

Normalized Score: 74.0625

The Gooch:

The Goochie Pop

Disclaimer: I was suffering from some palette fatigue when I tried this burger as I had already had another burger and alcoholic beverages, so I've gone ahead and bumped the taste portion up a little to compensate for that.

I was excited for The Goochie Pop because people seemed to like the reviews for it. I was also intrigued by the "bacon jam." Ultimately, I was disappointed. They took my "as rare as you're willing to go" statement a little too far and served a rare burger. This wouldn't have been a problem except they didn't seem to get a good sear on the outside of the burger, so the burger was completely lacking the charred goodness that is expected from a burger. I also felt that for a rare burger the meat to fat ratio was probably more of a 90-10 than the expected 80-20 as even the rare burger wasn't very juicy. Finally, there either wasn't enough bacon jam or the flavor of it just wasn't intense enough to not be drowned out by the thickness of the bread.  The burger from The Gooch was similar to the famous Dramarama song as the lyrics (or the bread in this case) was so thick that it distracted from the other elements of the song.

Taste - 65

• Overall - 60
• Patty - 90
• Bun - 55
• Other - 75
• Temperature - 60 - Rare

Value - 50 - $8 for a grass fed beef burger and no sides

Miscellaneous - 70

• Ease of Consumption -70
• Sides - N/A

Normalized Score: 62.5

Green Truck:

Mother Trucker

The mother trucker sauce seemed to be a combination of beets and something else. The beets gave it the red color as well as the sweetness. Overall, the burger was pretty enjoyable for a veggie burger. However, it distinctly lacked the juiciness and the savoriness in a regular burger, which totally removed a lot of the enjoyment for me. The trucker sauce, although it tasted good, was a little too thick and dripped around while eating. The burger from the Green Truck was like listening to a classic rock song where the lead vocalist is female instead of male.

Taste - 61.67

• Overall - 70
• Patty - 50
• Bun - 35
• Other - 75
• Temperature - N/A

Value - 90 - $6 for a burger made from fresh and local produce

Miscellaneous - 72.5

• Ease of Consumption - 85
• Sides - 60 - hand cut sweet potato fries with chipotle ketchup - unfortunately the fries were soggy, but the ketchup was awesome

Normalized Score: 71.46

MIHO Gastrotruck:

MIHO Grass Fed Beef Burger

It's been awhile since I had this burger, so I don't remember exactly what the topping was. From the photo it looks like a brie burger with mixed greens and bacon. When I ordered this burger, I was extremely happy with the result. I had previous meals from MIHO where the burger was mediocre at best and I felt swindled for paying as much as I did. Of all the burgers I tried, this was probably the closest to a standard american cheeseburger, and sometimes all you want is the standard burger executed to perfection. This burger reminded me an all time rock and roll classic.

Taste - 84.375

• Overall - 90
• Patty - 90
• Bun - 50
• Other - 75
• Temperature - 100

Value - 35 - $8 for a grass fed burger with no sides +$0.75 for bacon

Miscellaneous - 82.5

• Ease of Consumption - 85
• Sides - 80 - hand cut kennebec fries with house made ketchup, these fries were double fried also, so they had a nice crunch (unlike previous miho visits with the soggy fries)

Normalized Score: 71.56

Curiocity Catering Truck:

All Natural Brand Beef Burger - organic vine ripe tomato, local romaine, pickles,
curiocity sauce, potato bun

The Curiocity Catering burger takes a Brandt Beef patty and tops it on a potato bun and features the traditional toppings from local producers. While the burger seemed like a good idea, it suffered from horrible execution. My patty was cooked to be well done, which really ruined the burger for me.

Taste - 27.5

• Overall - 30
• Patty - 20
• Bun- 35
• Other - 45
• Temperature - 0

Value - 75 - At only $7 for a brandt beef burger, the food was not overly pricey despite the lack of execution

Miscellaneous - 80

• Ease of Consumption: 80
• Sides - N/A

Overall Score: 52.5

Eat At Recess

The Bully - 1/3lb grass fed beef patty, smoked applewood bacon, bbq sauce, grilled onions, cheddar

I was excited about the Eat at Recess concept when I heard about it. Paired with grass fed beef, I thought that the formula would be the recipe for a home run. Unfortunately, when I tasted the burger from Eat at Recess, I was disappointed in the results. The main issue with the food is that while all the individual components are good, the meat to bun ratio is heavily skewed in favor of the bun, which unbalances all the flavor combinations. Additionally, despite having a conversation with the owner about rare meat in juicy burgers, my patty came out somewhere closer to the medium well side.

Taste - 46.875

• Overall - 50
• Patty - 75
• Bun - 0
• Other - 75
• Temperature - 25

Value - 75 (7.50 for a grass fed burger with no sides is still on the expensive side, but it remains affordable)

Miscellaneous - 67.5

remedial tots

• Ease of Consumption: 85
• Sides: 50 an order of tater tots was obtained with this. Unfortunately I didn't agree with the flavor combination in the tots

Overall Score: 59.0625

Conclusion:

From these results, Devilicious took a narrow victory over the surprisingly showing of the Green Truck. Devilicious scored high in the taste, but nearly lost the shootout due to the mess that was created from eating the burger. The Green Truck scored high in the value segment where other trucks struggling, making up for the above average taste, possible suggesting that the weighting of the scoring system may have been inaccurate. Following in a close third was MIHO, which had a great burger, but was undone due to the pricing of their burger.

In the lower tier, we had The Gooch, Bitchin Burgers. Curiocity Catering, and Eat at Recess. Originally The Gooch offered tater tots with the burgers, which would have increased the value score, but since there were no tots, they fell out of competition. I also didn't order any sides from The Gooch, who perhaps needs to add some more compelling sides than just onion rings. The truck that needs the most work in my opinion is Bitchin Burgers. I feel like that truck is still trying to find its way as it originally started with burgers on ciabatta bread (luckily for me they moved beyond that), and now is mixing the cheese with the patty. Not only does this seem to lessen the serving size of the meat to the customer since it is measured to 1/3 lb, it also seemed to remove some of the juiciness of the burger. Curiocity suffered from execution issues when I visited, but they could be churning out great burgers now. Finally Eat at Recess's burger suffers from the meat to bun ratio, which clouds the flavors of an otherwise successful buger.

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