The Great Food Truck Race is a new breed of food competition shows

If you like cooking shows, competition shows and travel shows, now is the time to check out Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race (in its third week). The show, hosted by Tyler Florence, takes two parts Top Chef and gently folds in one part The Amazing Race to serve up a cooking/reality competition that pits the owners of food trucks against one another to see who can prepare the best food, make the most money and ultimately win $50,000.

When you think of food trucks, you probably think of pre-packaged snack foods and sandwiches but the teams here feature everything from toasted, pressed sandwiches to fine French cuisine. The teams consist of Austin Daily Press (Austin, TX) which specializes in the toasted, pressed sandwiches, Crepes Bonaparte (Fullerton, CA) serves up handy breakfast, lunch and dessert crepes, Grill ‘Em All (Los Angeles, CA) features a menu full of burgers, Nana Queens (Culver City, CA) has the unlikely combination of wings and banana pudding, Nom Nom Truck (Los Angeles) features the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, Ragin’ Cajun (Hermosa Beach, CA) serves up cajun cuisine and Spencer on the Go (San Francisco, CA) brings along their own tables and tablecloths to serve their fine French cuisine including the popular escargot lollipop. Each week, the team with the lowest cash total for the two day challenge is eliminated and Tyler Florence also pops in unannounced to throw a Truck Stop Challenge at the teams.

Each week the teams start out on a level playing field with empty cupboards and an allotment of cash. Each team received $500 the first week, $300 the second week and $400 the third week. Teams are allowed to shop anywhere at each location and so far they have traveled to San Diego, Santa Fe and Fort Worth. Spencer on the Go owner Laurent Katgely complains each week about how much French food costs and how little money they have but he always manages to find a French restaurant in the area that is willing to sell him food from their pantry at cost. Misa Chien, from Nom Nom Truck, has proven herself over the three episodes to be an extremely savvy businessperson. She researches each location, knows what’s going on in town, knows where to shop and even partners up with local merchants to get the best parking spot in town. She’s also been awarded three wins in a row.

The show manages a good balance of cooking and competition as each team gets equal screen time. To date, there’s been little suspense in way of knowing who has made the least amount of money but it’s been fun to watch the teams try to navigate each new town, trying to find the best parking spots and then lure customers to their trucks. Most of the drama has come from bad decisions (paying $1000 to park at a festival), mechanical problems with the trucks, and the Truck Stop Challenges. The Grill ‘Em All guys picked a spectacularly bad location in Fort Worth – an alley next to a tattoo parlor. A dark alley as far away from foot traffic as they could get. No one dared take up the tall, bearded man on his offer to accompany them to the dark alley for a sandwich. Truck Stop Challenges have asked teams to cook with chili peppers in Santa Fe and a side of beef – that had to be butchered no less – in Fort Worth. The Santa Fe elimination actually boiled down to the Challenge as one of the bottom two teams won immunity regardless of their total. The Fort Worth Challenge gave the winner an extra $1000 and even with a win, the Grill ‘Em All guys only managed fourth place because of that location.

Next week, The Great Food Truck Race heads to New Orleans. The show is well-produced and thankfully refrains from including a lot of manufactured drama since teams are mostly on their own. That’s not to say the show is boring by any means because it offers a whole new take on the food competition show. It’s very interesting to see how each team works, from the laid back to the business savvy, and at the moment one team seems to be a shoe-in for the win. It’s also given me the desire to try some of the dishes from the crepes to the banh mi sandwich (I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for an escargot lollipop) and if nothing else, that’s reason enough to watch. But you’ll get sucked in by the competition and the team dynamics and be introduced to this wild, wonderful world of food truck cuisine. By the end of the race, I think we’ll all be craving more.

Clacked by Guest Clacker
on Aug 31, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT