Best Food Trucks 2012

Seattle magazine's favorite mobile eateries.

By Seattle Mag April 8, 2012

0412parfaitfoodtrucks

This article originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Seattle magazine.

Best Sweet/Dessert
The silken ice creams from Parfait (parfait-icecream.com) are made from scratch (unlike many other ice creams in town, which are made from an ice cream base) and come in sensational flavors like Meyer lemon, mellow and yellow; and mint stracciatella, with bits of dark chocolate and fresh spearmint-infused cream. Two flavors for $4; in a handmade cone $5.

Best Sandwich
Hmmm, is it the shrimp po’ boy popping with Mama Lil’s sweet-hot peppers ($10)? Or the incredible muffaletta, weighed down with tender mortadella, coppa, soprassetta, provolone and olive salad ($9)? It’s a tie. Lucky for us, they come from the same truck: Where Ya At Matt (whereyaatmatt.com).

Best Burger
Happy Grillmore
(happygrillmore.com), the admittedly Portland-based newcomer, gets the nod here. The nicely charred, juicy one-third-pound beef patty sits on a chewy ciabatta roll with cheese (cheddar, Havarti or pepper jack), red pepper mayo, arugula, spinach and mustard. Lucky Microsoft employees have been enjoying these beauties at a special price ($7; $1 off the regular price) while the Red West Cafeteria is being remodeled; here’s hoping the truck is here to stay.

Best Taco
When it comes to tacos from a truck, nobody beats El Camión (elcamionseattle.com). The freshest veggies, the tastiest salsas and oh, the fresh white fish in the fish tacos! Unbreaded, moist and tender, the fish is topped with crema agria (similar to sour cream), cabbage slivers and pico de gallo. Yum.

Asian
For spicy/sweet and addictive Asian, our clear favorite is Big Blue. Marination Mobile (marinationmobile.com)—the Hawaiian-Korean food truck—serves up warming bowls of kimchi fried rice with a fried egg on top (we like ours with tofu); Spam sliders with coleslaw and its famous Nunya sauce; and spicy pork tacos. You cannot go wrong.

Coolest Food Truck
We’re going with two here, so that we can squeeze in the cutest truck we know, the Top Pot Doughnuts truck, (toppotdoughnuts.com) with its glazed original on top. But for sheer wacky appeal, we can’t pick anything other than Maximus/Minimus (maximusminimus.com) the giant, slightly menacing metal pig doling out pulled-pork sammies.

 

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