Trailer food seems to be a thing here in Austin. I've been to a few, but when I heard there was going to be an event where a good number of them will be in the same place with sampler sized stuff, I could not resist!
The Gypsy Picnic Trailer Food Festival was at the Auditorium Shores just south of Town Lake. I was leary of the parking situation, as I have not conquered that annoyance factor since moving here, but luckily my friend gave some excellent directions to a FREE lot within walking distance. After a morning Zumba class and a short walk to the festival, I was ready to eat!
The place was packed. This was the festival's first year, so lines were really long. I'm glad we decided to go for a lunch outing rather than a dinner outing, as trailers were already starting to run out of food.
Our first stop was Coolhaus. The line was long, but it moved relatively fast. We got two mini ice cream sandwiches - Chocolate Chip cookies with Bacon Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and Ginger with Lemon. They were the perfect size and they were divine! Definitely inspired to use the flavor combination of lemon and ginger. Their lemon ice cream had such a nice lemony flavor and was perfect for their strong ginger cookies. The Bacon Chocolate Chip was also delicious. I was happy that the bacon flavor was not so overpowering. If you've ever had the Voeges Bacon Chocolate bar, you know what I'm talking about. The salty and sweet was just a nice combination. The mini ice cream sandwiches were a nice cool treat for the perfect Austin day we had!
There were lots of people who brought their dogs. I couldn't believe how many Ridgeback mix dogs I saw, and I was thrilled! I was just glad it was them and not me, my guy would have been way too excited for an event like this. Some fools were even carrying their chihuahuas around...which I thought would be a difficult feat in trying to consume trailer goodies and also care for the little dogs. To each their own.
Next we stood in line for the Pick Up Stixx trailer. The pierogy caught my eye, so we stood. I think my friend and I were easy marks, as everyone seemed to cross through the lines in front of us - didn't matter where we were standing. Everyone was totally friendly though, so no worries! There were quite a few comments about how long the lines were, my favorite being how the line for beer is shorter than the line for food! We finally got to the Pick Up Stixx table, to find out they were in between batches of pierogy and there was a line to the right to stand and wait for them to come out. In the meantime we had their Greek Chicken Croquette. It looked like a mini Wimpy burger with a patty in between made of chicken, spinach, rice, and feta. It came with a side cucumber yogurt sauce. It overall had good flavors, I removed half of the bun because I felt like the bread took away from the patty. The yogurt sauce was an excellent add. We finally got our pierogy, which was also served with a packet of sour cream.
Since our stomachs were sending up the "I'm done" flair and the lines seemed to get longer by the second, we found the shortest line at the time being at what I want to say was The Flying Carpet. I can't quite recall but we were in the South Congress area of the festival so that is what I remember. On our way from Pick Up Stixx to The Flying Carpet we noticed several trailers were already sold out of food! It was probably about 1:30-2pm at this time. The shortest lines were the coffee trailers, and you could literally walk right up to them.
While in line at The Flying Carpet, we opened our foil packaged pierogy. To my surprise it had been deep fried. I was curious how they would pull this off anyways, and I was wondering why it was taking so long - well know I know, because they had to deep fry them! It was kind of dry on its own, the potato filling was just that - I didn't taste any other flavors in it. The sour cream came in quite handy and saved the day for the pierogy. The only other time I've had sour cream on my pierogy was in San Francisco at Cinderella's Russian Restaurant. I'm used to butter, salt, and pepper.
At the Flying Carpet we got the Medjool Date. It seemed like the right thing to get to level out our sweet-salty-sweet pattern. The date was amazing, and again something I'd like to try out on some friends. Basically it's a date sliced in the middle, stuffed with almond butter, and sea salt sprinkled on top. I loved the combination of salty and sweet - and really to me, this was more of a savory dessert, and a not so guilty one at that.
The people kept pouring in as we were leaving. It was lovely weather for this event, and I think since it was the first year, the kinks will be worked out over time. I'm not really sure how they would resolve the line problem other than getting more trailers to jump on the bandwagon. Still a good time outside!
