German Food Truck

This last Food Truck Friday was one I was looking forward to even more than usual. I’d scoped out the list of trucks prior to and they had a new one in the mix, StrudelTeig.

A food truck with German food or at least German inspired food, sign me up.

As usual my first stop was the beverage tent where I procured a Catawba Brewing Co White Zombie witbeir to go with the warm evening and whatever I selected from StrudelTeig.

There was only a short line and all the options looked good but I settled on their Pretzel + Brat meal.

It was a nice choice. The bratwurst was a fine imported specimen that had a great taste. The pretzel was warm, soft and made from scratch and the sauerkraut was actually not very sauer due to it being “apple infused”. I didn’t really taste the apples but it did have a sweetness to it that I was surprised about until I reread the menu and saw the apple bit. I liked it and it paired well with the salty pretzel. Let’s talk about that pretzel. It was amazingly good.and if you notice it is a bit more rectangular than a regular pretzel and the holes are smaller. That’s because they use this for sandwiches as well including a grilled cheese that sounded pretty awesome. The obligatory mustard was a wonderful coarse ground Bavarian mustard that I dipped the brat and the pretzel in.

So while I sat enjoying my meal by the fountain a Journey cover band called Trial by Fire entertained the crowd.

They were ok but best when the music was a little louder than the vocals. I was more entertained by a group between the band and I.  I first noticed three “old ladies” really into the music.  Then it struck me the “old ladies” were actually about my age so what my mind meant was three “classic ladies”.  One really had the 80’s going and just to reinforce the whole vibe the rest of the Breakfast Club started showing up as well.  First was a dude wearing a flannel shirt with the arms torn off and long hair and a two day growth of beard channeling his inner Judd Nelson.  Next up was the jock wearing a Carolina Panthers jersey and his gothy / emo lady friend.  So in case you’re wondering they aged well after the movie and are hitting the Rock Hill food truck scene.

After being entertained for a while I decided to head back to the food truck and grab a Cherry Strusel Cake to go.  That and the interesting sodas they had caught my eye the first trip.  Turns out  first I had to deal with a significant line that wasn’t there the first time.  In a venue like this line standing is a bit of an art because you have a lot of traffic going perpendicular to the food truck lines and they need to cross somewhere.  I’m usually pretty good at line standing due to all my DragonCon experience but my mind wandered and the guy in front of me moved up and the gap between us opened a couple of centimeters and the crowd spotted the weakness in the line and surged for the opening.  It was like watching the sand in an hourglass go through the choke point.  I shifted back just a hair and hit the lady behind me who had apparently honed her sense of personal space on a Japanese subway.  Fortunately the line moved forward and during the shift I regained optimum distance to prevent line breakage.  Anyway I finally got my cake and soda.

The strusel cake was good, not too sweet and just enough cherry filling to give it a nice flavor without overwhelming the whole package.  Another thing I wanted to mention since you can see it clearly in the photo but these folks use wooden utensils.  The wooden knife did the job on the sausage but I wouldn’t want to try it on a steak but it was something I haven’t run into before and if your replacing plastic it’s not a bad way to go.

The interesting soda I selected was a Summer Pear, which was pear, green tea and honey.  I’m sure more than one of you went “Yuck!” but it was not bad at all.  The honey flavor was most prevalent and the pear was more of an undertone and the green tea seemed like an afterthought.  I could see adding some alcohol to this and calling it some fancy cocktail name.

In summary it was another enjoyable Food Truck Friday at Fountain Park.