0 Minnesota State Fair 2014 - St. Paul, MN

People like it when I do a breakdown of what I ate at the Minnesota State Fair. (Well, my mother doesn't, since she thinks I'm going to die...)

And my sister PalmMapper and brother-in-law Uncle DumDum came over from Michigan to experience this State Fair for the second time. We did some serious damage to the food here. I'll do a quick write up, in case you're planning to go in the next few days.

Here's how it shakes out:

Deep Fried Breakfast Sandwich on a Stick (from the Sandwich Shop) - ham, eggs, sausage, cheese, in a pancake sandwich, and then deep-fried. Pretty delicious way to start your day at the Fair!!!

Chicken in the Waffle (from the Blue Barn) - fried chicken pieces covered in sausage gravy served in a waffle cone. Probably the best thing we ate at the Fair. Just beware of the malted milk ball at the bottom of the cone. It ruined everything. Ask for yours without the milk ball at the bottom.

Pig Collar Korean BBQ with Kimchee Pickles (from Famous Dave's) - Pretty boring meat unless you added some Devil's Spit spicy BBQ sauce. Not bad, just underwhelming.

Alligator on a Stick (from Bayou Bob's) - Alligator sausage on a  stick. It just tasted like a brat. If you want alligator, get the nuggets. They're sooo much better than this sausage.

Liftbridge Mini Donut Beer - I mean, you HAVE to try it, right? It was surprisingly good. The sugary rim helped, as well.

Pretzel Curds (from O'Gara's) - Quite awesome, in all honesty. Pretzel and almonds crushed up in the batter and deep fried. Great dipping sauce as well.

Deep Fried Buckeyes (from Spaghetti Eddie's) - deep fried balls of chocolate and peanut butter served with strawberry jelly. Suuuuuuuper rich. You'll need to split these between your entire family. But they are good.

Jello Salad Ice Cream (from the Hamline Church) (see mom? I went to church.) - Ice cream with cranberry and lime swirls with some marshmallow bits. Served with an extra izzy scoop on top. I got the pomegranate and didn't love it. Overall, not the greatest ice cream I've ever had.

S'More's Beer (from Giggles Campfire) - A coffee stout with a chocolate graham cracker rimmed cup. Not a terrible beer on its own. I liked the Mini Donut Beer much better.

Cheese Curds (from Mouth Trap) - Best cheese curds in the world. Every time.

1919 Root Beer (from the 1919 stand) - I love this root beer.

Teryaki Ostrich on a Stick (from China Town) - Ground ostrich meat on a stick. Served with teriyaki sauce and we grabbed some sri racha, as well. Pretty good, honestly.

Cheese Curds Round 2 (from Mouth Trap) - I told you they were the best curds in the world.

Hot Patty - Spicy Beef (from West Indies Soul Food) - Good and spicy, but not as good as they are in the Bahamas. It's ground up spicy beef in a pastry shell, like a caribbean empanada.

Beer Flight #1 (from the Ag Barn) - All four of these beers were super good. ALL of them.

Beer Gelato (from Mancini's) - It's like ice cream, but beer flavored. Good and refreshing, but I don't know that I need any more of it.

Sweet Martha's Cookies (from Sweet Martha's Cookies)(My sister had to get some) - They're just burnt cookie dough. Next.

Hot Dago on a Stick (from Luigi's Fries) - garlic sticks and meatballs covered in mozzarella cheese and baked. Served with peppers and marinara sauce. I shouldn't like this as much as I do. It's sooooo good.

Fire Dog (from Pickle Dog) - It's like a ham roll up, but with pastrami. A layer of cream cheese and a pickle inside, and then jalapeños inside. Super good and I'm going to start akin these for parties. Parties of ONE at my house.

Grainbelt Blu (from Schell's) - Blueberry flavored beer, but then they added some odd slushy foam on the top. Just get the beer. It is odd, but good. And purple.

Blue Cheese and Corn Fritz (from the Blue Barn) - Corn fritters with a tiny bit of cheese inside served with chimichurri sauce. Great sauce and great fritters, but I really wanted to taste the blue cheese. These were good, but filling at the end of the day.

Farm Handsandwich (from the Blue Barn) - Braised beef with french fries and covered in pimento cheese. Great meat flavor. I liked this, but not as much as the Chicken in the Waffle. We may have gotten a second order of the chicken....

Seriously, this was one of the best State Fairs ever. I'm so glad my sister and brother-in-law got to come from Michigan to hang out with me!

Great time. Now, it's time to die.

Detail: Minnesota State Fair 2014 - St. Paul, MN

0 Cora’s Best Chicken Wings Foodtruck – Eden Prairie, MN

My company has started to try to healthy its workers up, so they have been doing a farmers market in the parking lot during lunch every other Thursday. It isn’t much of a market. In fact, there’s one vegetable booth with produce from Aramark (the people that run our office cafeteria), a lady selling jewelry, a booth with a sno-cone machine, and bread from some health food store. Recently, they’ve gotten a few food trucks to show up, as well.

I went outside in the 800 degree heat and found two food trucks today. One from Stanley’s in Northeast and one from Cora’s Best Chicken Wings – a restaurant I’m familiar with from St. Paul – I’ve reviewed it before. I wasn’t going to hit up Stanley’s without D.Rough, so I went to Cora’s.

The menu had some unique things on it, including a Filipino dish I wanted to try (Beef Afritada) – which they were out of. It took me a while to find the chicken wings on the menu, but there it was at the bottom of the list without any sort of flare. That’s ok – I knew not to get the wings. They were out of Canton Steak, as well, so I went with the Nacho Relleno Fusion. I love nachos, so this was sure to be my best bet.

My food showed up quickly, as it is pretty simple preparation. I went back into my building to get out of the heat. The dish looked pretty good, actually. Ground beef, lettuce, sour cream, plenty of jalapenos, but not many tortilla chips. Hmmm.

I dug for the chips and found they were buried in a pool. Of grease. I’m normally not grease-adverse, but this was a surprising amount, even for street food. It hadn’t even sat 60 seconds and there was already a pool of grease a half inch deep in my waxed paper basket. Yikes. I tasted it to see if it was chili oil or something adventurous, but it wasn’t. It tasted like grease.

I only found about 7 or 8 chips in the bottom of the basket, none of which had the slightest amount of crispiness left in them. They were sogged through completely. That’s a pretty disappointing number of chips for an order of nachos. The meat itself was actually pretty flavorful and seasoned well, as long as you ate from the part of the meat mound above the grease line. Once you got below that, it wasn’t the best. The lettuce and jalapenos were good, again, above the grease line.

I was sad after I ate as much as I could from the basket. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t feel very spritely after I ate this, either. In fact, for the rest of the day. I’m guessing a few other people in the office got slowed down as well. I’m surprised the company I work for didn’t suggest people make healthy dishes since this whole farmers market Thursday thing was intended to get people to eat better.

I don’t think I’ll hit up the food truck from Cora’s again anytime soon. But I will likely be back to the actual restaurant in St. Paul for fried rice and chicken nuggets, however….

Not enough for a top 5 on this one.

Detail: Cora’s Best Chicken Wings Foodtruck – Eden Prairie, MN

0 Minnesota Stars FC soccer game – Blaine, MN

I’m a nominal fan of soccer, having had played it growing up through high school (I broke a LOT of pairs of glasses back in the day). When I moved up here to Minnesota, the Thunder had folded and moved on, along with the Lightning (the women’s team), so I was pretty bummed that I wouldn’t get to see any big games for a while. Thankfully, the Minnesota Stars popped on the scene and actually won the championship last year. That’s a BIG deal for the North American Soccer League. So yeah, Minnesota has a rockin’ team.

I’ve got friends with season tickets to the games, and who travel to see them out of town, so it was only a matter of time before I made it to a couple of games. I made it to the season opener for my bachelor party, but it was in the Metrodome and not the same feel as being outdoor at the National Sports Center in Blaine – their home field.

The night started with some tailgating with A-Wow, Killsbury Doughboy, and David Deckhim. Actually, the night started by sitting in traffic after leaving work and driving to the stadium, but you all don’t want to hear about that. Tailgating consists of drinking beer (Surly is a big sponsor) and eating chicken wings (Buffalo Wild Wings is also a big sponsor). We consumed both of those things.

Then we went inside the stadium to eat and drink some more. The Anchor Fish & Chips food truck is parked in the “beer garden” and provides a whole host of British-ish footballer food. I’m a major fan of their restaurant, so this mobile version put a smile on my face right away. You basically have your choice between a battered and deep fried sausage or a meat (or veggie) pasty. A-Wow and I decided we’d split one of each between the both of us. That was a smart move.

The deep fried sausage is pretty delicious. It’s exactly what you’d think it is and not much surprising about it. It’s good – end of story.

The pasty is a deep fried meat packet. The insides were a little mushier than I expected, but thankfully, the flavor was also good. So, clearly, you can’t go wrong with either thing. Next door to the food truck is the beer truck, which serves really cheap Lime-A-Rita’s (Bud Light’s version of a margarita). So we filled up on those – Trashy AND tasty.

The belligerent-fan cheering section at the Stars’ games are known as the Dark Clouds. As in “everywhere you go, there’s a dark cloud following you.” These are the die hard fans that wear all the gear, make homemade flags, pay to have professional flags made, bring smoke bombs, and drink like fish in the stands. Additionally, many of the Dark Clouds bring band instruments, including various drums, trumpets, and noisemakers – which they play almost non-stop during the games. On top of all this, the group’s unofficial ringleader (Ben) keeps the Dark Clouds chanting various cheers and singing various songs with the lyrics changed. The entire time. Seriously, the entire game. This is why the NASL reporter has described the Dark Clouds as “what a marching band would be with a three drink minimum.” It. Is. Awesome.

And it isn’t even as if the actual game part is secondary. Somehow, they manage to keep it ALL at the front-of-mind and maintain focus on game action, heckling players (including their own) and refs, singing, chanting, lighting smoke bombs during goals, and parading huge flags made out of Hot Nuts wrappers around the field. All at top volume. So much fun, I can’t even describe it adequately.

During this particular game, the Stars beat Puerto Rico 4-nil and you can imagine how loud these fans got. The Minnesota Stars are still an awesome team, so it makes it that much more fun to watch! There are as many people in the cheap seats with the Dark Clouds as there are in the fancy grandstand stadium across the field. My suggestion, sit with the Dark Clouds and meet your three drink minimum (of lime-a-ritas).

That was seriously some of the best fun ever. I can’t wait to go back.

www.mnstarsfc.com

Detail: Minnesota Stars FC soccer game – Blaine, MN

0 Fork in the Road Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

Food Truck Wednesday! Since it’s getting colder, I think the food truck party in downtown St. Paul is slowing down (at least for the vendors, not for the eaters). When we arrived at our usual lunch spot (Wabasha and Kellogg), there were two trucks, instead of the usual 5-7. Bummer. Thankfully, both trucks were winners. Un-thankfully, this meant the lines were 15+ people long. Sigh…

I compared both posted menus for both trucks and decided I wanted the pulled pork grilled cheese sandwich from Fork in the Road. It sounded delicious. I had to wait much longer than usual to get to the front of the line, but it eventually happened. And then we had to wait for the backlog of food to be made. I understand it isn’t Fork in the Road’s fault. I truly do and am not complaining – I’m allowed to take a slightly extended lunch if I need to (especially when my boss is on PTO…)

The food arrived and smelled absolutely delicious. It also came with a side of potato chips, which I hadn’t expected. I ate some of the chips to let the sandwich cool – they were just alright, nothing fancy. As I waited for the sandwich to cool, I noticed a couple of onions in the meat. No biggie and I figured I wouldn’t even worry about them. (I am slightly allergic to onions, even though I like the flavor). Well, it turns out there was a HUGE amount of onions in this thing. It wasn’t written on the menu at all. Just pulled pork and grilled cheese. Even the other sandwiches explained ingredients and toppings and sauces. This one, I thought I was safe with.

Fortunately, this thing was delicious, even with the onions I couldn’t pick off the sandwich (just too many). LOTs of pulled pork with really good BBQ sauce on it. And plenty of melty tasty cheese. I WILL order this sandwich again and I will try to order it without onion (not sure if they’re adde3d later, or if they’re mixed in with the meat. But, this is a good grilled cheese. I’m a fan, even though it encouraged my guts to claw their way out of my body later that afternoon. Worth it.

www.forkintheroadtruck.com

Detail: Fork in the Road Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

0 Foxy Falafel Foodtruck – St. Paul, MN

I met Garrison for our regularly scheduled Wednesday food truck lunch in downtown St. Paul. There were only a few trucks to choose from, however, there were delicious-sounding things at all of them. We decided on the Foxy Falafel truck, since I hadn’t been there before. I’ve eaten a lot of falafel in my day, so I for sure needed to try Foxy’s.

I opted for the Curry Falafel combo, which came with a side of quinoa salad. The food doesn’t take long to get prepared, so we were eating within a few minutes of ordering.

I was really pleased with this falafel. It was moist without being oily from the fryer. And I’ve had a ton of dried out falafel – thankfully this wasn’t one of them. The curry flavor could have been a little stronger, but I say that because it was delicious and I wanted more of it. It was really good and the other ingredient (cucumber and tomato) were very flavorful and fresh. The pita was fresh and didn’t crumble apart.

The quinoa salad was quite tasty as well. I’m a big fan of both hot and cold quinoa salads, and this one I could have had 5 more containers of an not gotten sick of. Again, it had the fresh tomatoes and cilantro and was the perfect accompaniment to the falafel.

I’m a fan of Foxy’s and would recommend it highly. You won’t get dried out falafel balls here – they’re just about perfect. Enjoy!

www.foxyfalafel.com

Detail: Foxy Falafel Foodtruck – St. Paul, MN

0 Potato Champion – Portland, OR

As you know (if you’ve been reading this blog for even a few days), I’m part of a poutine crawl – a group of us in the Twin cities like to try all the poutine in the area as a large group and then chat about it like faux-foodies. We even seek out poutine while we’re out of town. One of my favorite poutine places in the country is in Portland – the Potato Champion. It’s a food truck (even though I don’t think it moves) sort of poutine housed in a small circle of food trucks with a central picnic table area – actually these tiny food truck villages are really common in Portland. Get wise to it, Twin Cities!!!

This place has an incredible respect for the dish, as well as taking some liberties with it. Delicious liberties. They have traditional poutine, but they also have some variations of it, including satay poutine, pulled pork fries, PB&J fries, chili cheese fries, and beer battered cheese curds.

They also do some home-made sauces you can add to your dish. Pesto mayo, rosemary truffle ketchup, curry ketchup, chipotle mayo, bourbon honey mustard, harder mustard, veganaise, terragon anchovy mayo, and standards like ketchup and mustard. They were already sold out of a bunch of the sauces they usually have, since they carry about 20 different sauces.

Seriously, this place knows their business and there are so many combinations, that you’ll never get sick of eating here.

I was with Coach and Babo, so I didn’t want to blow their minds with anything too wacky. Besides we had been drinking a few beers – some of us more than others – and we needed late-night no-frills poutine to soak up some of the adult contents of those beverages. I went with the standard poutine. And a large, since there were three of us sharing. It’s a pretty generous helping that I’d be hard pressed to finish on my own. I’m glad I didn’t try.

The curds were some of the best I’ve ever had. I’m not sure where the curds come from, but they’re delicious. They hold their shape, but they’re soft and have a nice tang to them. The gravy is a meat gravy, probably beef, but it was dark and blurry outside. Hahahaha. The fries were crispy but moist on the inside – they’re double fried, if I’m not mistaken, which makes them extra crispy and amazing. This, in my opinion, is perfect poutine. This is how I judge all other poutines and have since I ate here the first time with ChickenLittle a few years back. It’s a great price, as well!

Do yourself a favor and hit this place up after a night of fun in Portland. It’s a great place to show people what real poutine is, but keep in mind, they’ll be ruined for all other poutine from here on out. Enjoy!

Potato Champion
1207 Se Hawthorne Blvd

Portland, OR 97214

Detail: Potato Champion – Portland, OR

0 R.A. MacSammy’s Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

It’s food truck Wednesday! I saw on Twitter that R.A. MacSammy’s was going to be at Mears Park in downtown St. Paul. That’s the truck that has eluded me for a number of months of going to Food Truck Wednesday in St. Paul. It’s a Mac n Cheese food truck. Brilliant idea!

While waiting for Sithlet and Garrison to arrive, I scoped out the offerings of all the food trucks at the park, but I pretty much knew I was going with the mac and cheese. There are a couple of offerings on the menu, obviously all of them are based around mac n cheese or at least cheese itself. There was a broccoli spinach mac and cheese with a bacon vinaigrette that I almost got, but I was feeling like building my own. Basic mac n cheese price and then you add toppings from the list for $.50 each.

I decided to first ask if there was a limit to toppings – the man working said absolutely not. Whatever you want. That’s what I wanted to hear. I still felt bad, so I slimmed down my topping additions to brats, bacon, jalapenos, blue cheese, and broccoli. It sounded glorious. Thankfully, it was.

All the dishes are made to order, but it’s quick. It took just a few minutes for all of it to be assembled and work its way through the line of people waiting for their own orders. You have the option of having toasted bread crumbs on the top as a finisher if you want, and of course I did.

The cheese itself has a great flavor, but the toppings were really fun. Every bite, was a different combination of toppings. There was plenty there, as well. Sometimes when I do food truck Wednesdays, I get a little appetizer from one of the food trucks. I’m glad I didn’t do that today, I was stuffed at the end of this serving of mac n cheese. And I was really happy. I look forward to going to R.A. MacSammy’s again!

www.ramacsammys.com

Detail: R.A. MacSammy’s Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

0 Marie Antoinette Crepes and Taco Cielo Foodtrucks – St. Paul, MN

It was food truck Wednesday for our little lunch group. We met in Mears Park this time for a change of culinary scenery. There are fewer trucks here, but they all had many things I wanted. It was a difficult decision, but thankfully, Fanny convinced me I could have an appetizer Crepe and still get tacos. She’s super smart.

Standing in line at the Marie Antoinette Crepe truck allowed me to change my mind on what to order at least 15 times. Everything on the menu sounded good. I thought about going light with a dessert kind of crepe. They had one with fresh strawberries and a cognac sauce, and another one with bananas and salted caramel, and another one with lemon and butter. But then the savory ones sounded incredible too: Turkey and cheddar with paprika aioli and one with fig preserves and goat cheese and another one called the Croque Monsieur (apparently the most popular seller). I went with what was popular, though it wasn’t an easy decision. The girl whips them up right in front of you. Ladles the batter onto the flat top, spins it with the spinny-flattener-thing (technical French culinary term), flips it, puts the ingredients in it, and folds it up like a pro.

The Croque Monsieur has ham in it, along with swiss cheese, Mornay sauce (which I don’t even know what that is, but I love it), and a small bit of mustard made with Stella Artois. It was incredible. Not light at all, but not too much to fill you up. You can’t eat it with a fork, so you have to pick it up like a small burrito pocket. It gets a little messy towards the end, but you simply can’t stop eating it. It’s really quite tasty. I almost called off the entrée portion of food truck Wednesday after that. ALMOST.

While I was finishing up my crepe, I went to the next food truck – Taco Cielo. I had perused the menu when I walked past the first time, waiting for the rest of the group to get here. Then when I saw Skully had gotten the trio of tacos (one of each kind they make), that made up my mind for me. I ordered them and they arrived at the window very quickly. The tortillas basically have the meat on them and then you add your toppings at the little topping station – keeps people moving and lets you focus on the ingredients you want. There is a chicken (shredded) taco, a carnitas (shredded pork) taco, and an al pastor (BBQ pork) taco. I added some cilantro and pico de gallo to mine. I also grabbed some of the medium/hot salsa to spice them up a bit. The guy also put on a small jalapeno popper on my plate, I was thrilled to see. And it had bacon on it!

I started with the popper. It was surprisingly delicious. The jalapeno was sweet and was filled with cream cheese and covered in bacon bits. Really good, even when the burn of jalapeno kicked in. The al pastor taco was quite good. Really awesomely good and it made mw wish I had gotten three of them. The chicken taco was a bit bland and I almost went back for more hot salsa to give it some flavor. It wasn’t bad, just a bit underwhelming. The same went for the carnitas in my opinion. I liked the flavor, but wish there was more of it and more moisture.

Overall, the lunch was delicious and I got good and full. You can’t go wrong with any of the crepes Marie Antoinette has, so just get a few of them. And my recommendation (take that for what it’s worth) is to either just get the order of three al pastor tacos, or get the trio and load up on the delicious salsa they have to put on them.

We ate over by the wonderful ladies of the Bacon Trolley. They’re really awesome folks and are funny and personable and even came out and threw away our empties when we were done eating. That alone makes me want to go back there and eat everything on the menu (the bacon on there MIGHT have some small part in that, as well).

http://www.tacocielo.com/

Detail: Marie Antoinette Crepes and Taco Cielo Foodtrucks – St. Paul, MN

0 Ngon Bistro Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

Food truck Wednesday! Time to meet some friends downtown and see what the food trucks have to offer. Today was a special treat – Ngon Bistro’s food truck was here and I didn’t even know they HAD a food truck. Ngon is pronounced “non”, for the record. I really enjoyed the food at Ngon’s restaurant when I went there with D.Rough and Rita, so I was looking forward to this!

I knew other people were coming to meet us, but they werne’t here yet, so that meant it was time for an appetizer!

…And since I was standing right next to Romocky Cheddar Brats and Dogs, I thought I’d better grab a snack. And by snack, I mean a bacon-wrapped cheese brat covered in BBW sauce. Hahahahaha. Yup, I was about halfway through it when Garrison arrived. This actually confused the lady in line behind me when we got to Ngon because I was already eating something. I told her I needed a snack if I was going to stand in line and what’s better than a brat appetizer. I think she was horrified. Whatever, lady. I’m in front of you and I’m not letting you past.

The Ngon Bistro food truck is one of the most unique food trucks I have ever seen. It really isn’t a truck, it’s a VAN - it’s a Ngon-truck (get it? Non-truck. Nevermind.). It’s a Volkswagen van from the 70’s, but it’s been super retrofitted to serve food. The top of the van pops up into the air and has a menu written in chalk, but this also serves as a sun-shade for the cook inside. There is an order taking standing outside talking to people about the food, taking orders, and making cash and card transactions. Super efficient, really. It’s a beautiful operation.

I wanted a few things on the menu, but I always like to try new things when I see them. Today, they were offering Pig Tail Sandwiches. Yes, the part of the pig you don’t ever see, nor ask about. Today, I see it in sandwich form. Garrison was going to bite the bullet and get the same, so I figured I might as well. I also saw they had fresh squeezed ginger lemonade and that’s just the thing to beat a 93-degree day. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this sandwich. Would the tails be curly and pink? Would they be like bacon? Would they be covered in bbq sauce?

I was wrong on all counts. The sandwich was a baguette with what looked like pulled pork on the inside. If someone hadn’t told me this was pig tails, I wouldn’t have known. The tails were covered with a layer of gruyere cheese and fresh arugula. The meat was actually quite tasty and falling apart, like good pork should be. The cheese was flavorful, as well as the lettuce on it. However, the pork was so juicy it got the bread completely sogged and it turned into a mess. I think the downside to this sandwich was the bread, sadly. The ingredients were vibrant and fresh tasting and I’d eat them again, but maybe if it had a toasted baguette or some sort of more substantial roll, it would have been a top notch sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, the sandwich was delicious and I’d recommend it, but be eat it fast or split it between two people.

Sadly, the Cupcake Social truck wasn’t downtown for dessert, so I had to go home and eat ice cream while I listened to a conference call on mute. That’s how I roll.

Detail: Ngon Bistro Food Truck – St. Paul, MN

0 Gastrotruck again – St. Paul, MN

Another food truck Wednesday for me and my friends! Today we had a huge group! Skully, Shotty, Fanny and her two kids, Garrison, Myrna, Killa, and myself. I’m sooo glad this Wednesday thing is working out for us. It’s totally worth me saying I’m working from home every Wednesday so I can meet these folks.

I’ve been to Gastrotruck before, but today, I actually read the menu PAST where it said “pork belly”. Normally I stop right there and order. But I noticed they had a Peruvian burger on the menu. What the heck is a Peruvian burger, you ask? Are you sure you want to know? It’s an alpaca burger (raised locally for Gastrotruck) with goat cheese and olive tapenade. Sounds delicious doesn’t it?!?!? That’s why I got it. I also got a salad with local greens, cucumber, feta, beets, and a lime cilantro vinaigrette.

I didn’t tell any of the vegetarians I was dining with what I was eating, since I respect them and don’t wish to weird anyone out. However, there is something to be said for eating cute furry animals. That thing that should be said is they are tasty. If you just think of it as a gourmet burger, you’ll be fantastically pleased with this burger. It’s very tender, perfectly cooked, had a light crisp on the outside of the meat, paired well with goat cheese and salty tapenade, and not too large. I really enjoyed this. I also enjoyed the heck out of the salad I got. They really know how to make a salad more than just a salad.

I will say I’m still a beef burger fan, but I do enjoy the exotic tastes that fancy chefs are working into burger form. Elk, Bison, Camel, Goat, Sausage, Bacon, Turkey, Black Bean, and now Alpaca. I was worried it would taste like a camel burger, which I am NOT a fan of, but Alpaca is soooo much more tasty than camel, in case you were wondering.

Vicugna pacos is latin for delicious!

Detail: Gastrotruck again – St. Paul, MN