A Rainy Day of Food Truckin' in the Windy City

Yesterday, on my first full day in Chicago, my friend I’m staying with, Joe, and I started my mission to hit up Chicago food trucks. We mapped the locations of three separate food trucks, but before we headed out a thunderstorm hit the area. We followed the trucks diligently on twitter and saw that some were delaying their start while others were still heading out rain or shine. We braved the rain, umbrellas in tow, and made our way via the “L” underground system to downtown.

The rain started to die down as soon a we reached our first destination, Meatyballs.

The Meatyballs Truck

I was sad to see that they weren’t serving their veg balls that day, but my Meatyball experience did not go to waste. Joe got a sandwich with buffalo style chicken meatballs in it. He said it was delicious:

Buff Balls Sandwich from Meatyballs

We also shared an order of their chocolate salty balls which came in this cute bag.

Chocolate Salty Balls Bag

Here’s what the inside of one of the balls looks like:

Chocolate Salty Ball from Meatyballs

I enjoyed the chocolate salty balls so much that I really wanted to try their white chocolate ones as well. After we had eaten, I went back and got some to go for dessert later in the day. I had to try one right away though, of course.

White chocolate salty balls from Meatyballs

Since Joe and I are 27-going-on-12, this experience led to an endless stream of ball-centered jokes throughout the rest of the day. When we had eaten enough of both kinds of salty balls, I made a joke about needing to consolidate our balls. Another thing worth noting about Meatyballs is that they had a special when you checked in on foursquare where if you showed them the check in you’d get a free drink, so our water was provided by Meatyballs! I think more food trucks should think about running this kinda foursquare special, but I might be biased

In the same block as Meatyballs were a couple other trucks I hadn’t even heard of. I love it when that happens! We next went to La Adelita, a truck I’m assuming is rather new because it’s not on roaming hunger (or even twitter that I could find!) and doesn’t have a website.

La Adelita Truck

We each got an elote from this truck, which is something I had never eaten before but thoroughly enjoyed.

Elote from La Adelita Truck

Next we made our way to the truck I most wanted to try, The Southern Mac and Cheese Truck.

Southern Mac and Cheese Truck

Armed once again with double the Lactaid, I ordered the sundried tomato, smoked gouda, and caramelized onions macaroni and cheese. To say it was fantastic is an understatement.

Sundried tomato, gouda cheese, and caramelized onion mac and cheese from the Southern Mac and Cheese Truck

I wasn’t able to finish it completely after all of the other food I had eaten, but I took the rest to go. It was just as good cold as it was warm.

I noticed a running theme with the Chicago trucks that all of their food was pre-made and just being sold out of the trucks. While it was still tasty and it made the service faster, I can’t help but wonder why they don’t cook the food in the trucks like the trucks I’m used to seeing. Joe thinks there might be some kinda city rules against it, and that’s why there are less trucks here in general. Hmmm… maybe I should do some research.

Tomorrow we’re going to road trip into Wisconsin and spend the night in Milwaukee. I have a couple Milwaukee food trucks I’ve been following on twitter, and if they happen to be convenient to visit I’d like to. With all the museums we hope to go to, though, I don’t know if it’ll be in the cards. We shall see!