C-Town Chows Down

Yesterday a "convoy of Cleveland's finest food trucks" gathered at Lincoln Park in Tremont for the first C-Town Chow Down. Clevelanders could enjoy some tasty treats from our favorite food trucks (including Dim and Den Sum), and be introduced to some new trucks (like Umami Moto) hitting the scene this spring.
The event was advertised as 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., but I had a sneaking suspicion that we should get there early on. The RSVP list on their Facebook page was over 1,300 people alone! So we headed up shortly after 11, and quickly jumped in one of the already growing lines. Our first stop was StrEat Mobile Bistro, who were celebrating their official launch date yesterday. Their menu jumped out at me right away, and I wasn't even sure what I wanted as I stood in line and waited.
Our wait was about 30 minutes, and as we crawled towards the truck I decided on the Eggs Benedict Roll and the Buffalo Mac n' Cheese. StrEat handled the logistics of the event very well. Orders were taken as quickly as possible, delays on certain menu items were communicated, and the food came out piping hot with only about a 10 minute wait after ordering. With the egg roll packing the full breakfast experience into one roll (although very greasy), and the mac n' cheese a subtle spicy hit...I was off to a nice start.Then we cruised around and checked out a few of the other trucks without jumping in line.Chef Rocco Whalen from Fahrenheit was there serving up some specialty items out of his truck. His lamb sliders peaked my interest, but Rocco sold out quickly and we watched him pull away as we stood in our next line.
Which was the ever-popular Dim and Den Sum food truck...the pioneers of the Cleveland food truck scene. They had done an excellent job of pre-promoting their coffee braised short rib slider, and my mouth was watering just thinking about it. Alas, when we finally arrived at the order window around 1:00 p.m.- they were SOLD OUT of the slider (no surprise there, I knew it would happen). I wasn't that hungry when we placed our order, so I settled on the Chicken Confit Wings with Asian flavors. We moved over to the food window line, and watched all of the other items sell out as we waited 1.5 hours for our order to come up.Good for them, but man were people disappointed to not be able to try their food! Not to mention the growing discomfort and hostility in the waiting line. One woman was complaining so loudly, and it was never ending, that a fellow diner finally asked her to shut her trap. The crowd cheered, and she walked away without her order. Not quite the atmosphere that I was hoping for at this festival, but entertaining at the very least. I do have to mention that my Chicken Confit was not worth the wait (very fatty and I didn't like the flavor of the sauce), and I was hungry enough by the time we got our food that I should have ordered the famous PBLT or the Kobe Beef Burger. Oops! I heard very good things about both of these items.

So, overall we enjoyed a fun and unique experience. Even though it was freezing cold...the sun was out, spirits were high, live music entertained us from afar, and Cleveland proved its point once again what a truly amazing culinary scene we have. Let's just hope that there are plans in the works for a future Chow Down, with a few logistical tweaks!