While City Hall continues to make food trucks jump through hoops, and restaurants in Deep Ellum complain about unfair competition, someone finally figured out what to do with the city's mobile meal makers: throw them a party.
This weekend Ginger Man invited food trucks to come park in its lot and serve the masses, while the bar poured beer, offered live music and let patio-happy dogs lick up grease drippings everywhere.
Nammi, Ssahm BBQ, Rock and Roll Tacos, Easy Sliders, Three Lions and relative new comer, Little Vessel Grill worked the lot.
Little Vessel started peddling chef-driven eats from its bare bones truck back in February. Mike Brown, the tatted chef who focuses on catering when he's not wheeling around Dallas, is responsible for the truck's Asian leanings. I tried the bombshells: little sliders topped with a tomato heavy barbecue sauce melted cheese and a pineapple slice perched on a soft supple bun. At $7 they were worth it, but fries offered as a side seemed skimpy. They were a little too oily, too.
Inside the Gingerman, I asked a bartender pouring me a Deep Ellum IPA if the bar was still serving food during the event. Yes, she said. When I asked about competition concerns and whether, like other restaurants, the bar would take a cut, she told me that the bar asked nothing of the trucks in terms of commissions or payouts. "We just want every one to have a good time," she said, handing over my beer.
I drank it quickly, while talking to two guys at the bar about local brews, the dearth of good Italian-American food in Dallas and the greatness of Jimmy's. They easily talked me into a second beer I didn't need. I followed it with up an afternoon nap.
