Pictures: Chicago Food Trucks Guide

By ChicagoTribune.com

We love red velvet. Truly, deeply, madly we do. So does the rest of the city, apparently, as the Flirty Cupcakes truck can’t seem to keep those cupcakes in stock. Rich, with a hint of chocolate and cream cheese icing on top, it really is a perfect cupcake. Flirty owner Tiffany Kurtz says she decided to take the cupcake craze mobile after seeing a, er, competitor. “I saw an old ice-cream truck and got all excited like when I was a kid, and then I quickly thought, ‘Man, that thing is beat up and looks gross; guy is kind of creepy as well!’ And then it hit me: Update it and make it something grown-ups will want to chase again.” 

Best bet: Red velvet cupcake (all cupcakes are $3.25). Additionally: The Raspberry Stole My Heart (chocolate cupcake with raspberry cream cheese filling) and the Curious George (banana chocolate cupcake with salted caramel butter cream frosting) are other favorites.
Score: 3.5 trucks
— Steve Cavendish

The one bad thing about Matt Maroni’s otherwise crave-worthy postal truck-turned-culinary experiment? He can’t cook on his ride, so his flat, spongy Indian bread of choice — so good at his brick-and-mortar shop in Edgewater — becomes spongier as it sits, waiting for customers. Which is one reason Maroni has been the leading advocate for Chicago’s joining the food truck movement, going so far as helping to draft the legislation sitting in the City Council. That said, what’s not to love about a guy inspired enough to use pickled cherry with buffalo sausage? Apple chutney with duck confit? 

Best bet: Among the ambitious, naan-wrapped sandwiches ($10), order anything meat-centric (wild boar belly, coffee-roasted venison). Additionally: Maroni doesn’t just stick to the Loop; he parks alongside a CTA or Metra line at dinnertime.
Score: Three trucks

Odd as it seems, considering Chicago’s culinary history, only now are we seeing a fancy sausage cart. Stranger still, the origin: Rich Levy, who drove one of Phillip Foss’ Meatyballs trucks and caught the food truck bug, grew up in South Africa. His menu is a clever triptych through Midwestern bloat (Wisconsin brats), his brief stay in the Middle East (hot lamb Marrakesh sausage with roasted eggplant), and South Africa (a mellow, almost American-ish boerewors farmers sausage, topped with onions and beans). 

Best bet: Among the truck’s specialty homemade Afro-Midwestern sausages ($8 each) is the Sheboygan brat (with mustard-seed sauerkraut and cheddar). Additionally: Served on a soft roll, sausages are plump, if not especially distinct from one another. (And why offer “crisp” onion topping for an otherwise fine mint-spotted lamb sausage when you can’t fry anything on-site yet?)
Score: 2.5 trucks
— C.B.

This is certainly the most slobbered over by other truck owners for a couple of reasons: No. 1, because it operates in Evanston, which has a food truck ordinance, cooking is done on the Hummingbird; No. 2, it’s a sweet ride, a customized (for roughly $100,000), 28-foot-long mobile kitchen with two stoves. The owners run Campagnola and Union Pizzeria, so occasionally the best offerings of executive chef Vince DiBattista hit the roving menu. “But mostly, it’s all original, made for the truck, different all the time,” says Heather Behm, one of the partners. The truck goes out twice a week, tops. 

Best bet: The stars among the lunch classics (grilled cheese, cup of soup, etc.; $5 to $7 a dish) on offer are meatballs in tomato jam; braised lamb sandwich. Additionally: Honey gelato between lavender shortbread, short-rib tacos — made to order! Imagine! Nothing wows, though. But nothing disappoints, either.
Score: Three trucks
— C.B.

If the Chicago City Council ever changes the law to allow cooking on trucks, the fleet of Meatyballs trucks (now three strong) probably won’t be joining them. “We might have,” says chef Phillip Foss, if Chicago’s drawn-out process hadn’t taken so long, but instead he found kitchen space on the West Side and has his operation humming, cranking out a few hundred sandwiches a day in varieties that touch on every double entendre possible. 

Best bet: The traditional meatball subs ($3 for “grenades” and $7 to $9 for “torpedoes”) are good, but the Thai’d Balls are even better. Additionally: A modified Waldorf salad mixture pairs short rib and bleu cheese. There’s even a Veg’ta Balls for nonmeat eaters. The BBQ balls, slow-roasted pork shoulder with red cabbage, apples and cola-based sauce with a little bourbon, are excellent.
Score: 3.5 trucks
— S.C.

Befitting a food truck that’s a spinoff from a Gold Coast cupcake boutique, Patty Rothman’s More Mobile rolls along in a tricked-out, $162,000 Mercedes, with a custom window that recalls the shop’s minimalist, white-on-white display cases. It’s also doing well enough that Rothman — whose surprising flavor creations (maple bourbon, chocolate and champagne, BLT; $3.50 to $5) brush nicely past the trendiness of the cupcake itself — is considering a second truck (and even began applying for suburban food-vending licenses). Weight watchers, please note: The passion fruit meringue is a mere 220 calories. 

Best bet: The goat cheese with apricot mousse (going out on a limb here is rewarding). Additionally: The truck holds about 15 flavors a day, from yellow cake with a liquid caramel center (sprinkled with black Hawaiian lava salt) to a cupcake with a grapefruit and gin filling.
Score: Four trucks
— C.B.

It all started with a simple premise: Who doesn’t love mac and cheese? The answer, apparently, is “no one” as the mac-and-cheese truck launched by The Southern has sold out almost daily since launching just after the blizzard in February. As successful as it has been, we wondered how many people will line up for mac and cheese ($9) when it’s 85 outside instead of 15. Executive chef Cary Taylor isn’t worried. “Everybody wants a hot lunch,” he says. “And that weather is only going to last for about a month.” He’s preparing a couple of pasta salads — all macaroni based — just in case. 

Best bet: The bacon, blue cheese and apple mac and cheese. Additionally: Taylor says that the truffle smoked Gouda or the white cheddar may be his best-selling items, but for our money that bacon and blue cheese with apple hits that perfect sweet/savory/smoky spot.
Score: Three trucks
— S.C

Now here’s an interesting story: Nahum St. Martin and wife Laviyah Israel bought an old food wagon from Soul Vegetarian on 75th Street. “My husband cooks, and people would come over and they’d go, ‘You need to sell this food,’ but we didn’t want to open a restaurant.” Instead, they owned a small vegan cheese business, then started a truck. OK, now this gets interesting: In January, two months after launching the truck, St. Martin went to jail in Cleveland, sentenced to six years for mortgage fraud. Anyway, the truck continues. Israel makes the food, using her husband’s soul-vegan recipes. 

Best bet: The large, spicy and addictive cheesesteak ($10), made with seitan, vegan Gouda, Muenster and pepper jack; Tuesday and Wednesday only (by request, Thursday and Friday). Additionally: The wings are a soy meat substitute with sugar cane sticks for bones. There’s a basil and tofu sandwich, on focaccia.
Score: Two trucks
— C.B

The mobile offshoot of the bakery started by the Rev. Stan Sloan, the longtime CEO of Chicago House, the SMG truck offers brownies, cookies and cupcakes with 100 percent of the profits going to help formerly homeless and HIV-affected men, women and children. The truck launched in January, and SMG’s Dana Lieberman says the response has been good. “People can’t seem to get enough of cupcakes from a truck.” 

Best bet: The German chocolate brownie, a sweet coconut layer on top of a rich chocolate cake ($3 for brownies and cupcakes). Additionally: We’re also fans of the cream cheese brownie and the oatmeal raisin cookie; ice-cream sandwiches are coming for summer.
Score: 2.5 trucks
— S.C.

Sweet Ride @SweetRideChi

(Steve Cavendish/Chicago Tribune)

Tamalli Space Charros @tamalespaceship

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