Trailers Leading the Way

With so many food trucks in Austin, it’s hard to make the rounds and get a sampling from all over the city… or is it? Not when it’s Gypsy Picnic weekend! For the second straight year, my husband Morgan and I got there when it opened to have first dibs on all the trailers. However, unlike last year’s approach to try something from every single trailer (at which we failed miserably when trailers ran out of food and lines were hours long), this year’s approach involved sampling food from trailers we haven’t yet tried. Gordough’s, you were so tempting, but rules are rules.

Right off the bat, we tried some deliciously spicy vegetarian eats from Conscious Cravings and then downed a hot and crispy slice from Spartan Pizza. As a native Chicagoan, I’ve been on a quest for great thin crust pizza here in Austin and this was a shining light of hope – I’ll definitely be headed back to Spartan soon. We walked around a little more, found one trailer that was already hopelessly struggling to keep up 15 minutes after opening and wondered if there would be a repeat of last year, with hungry attendees hopelessly wandering in search of anything to eat. But with the festival more spread out this year, Gypsy Picnic seemed to avoid many of the problems it faced in its inaugural year, and many happy GP-goers got plenty to eat.

Other highlights? Crispy, straight-out-of-the-fryer eggs rolls from Fresh Off The Truck were one of my favorites while Morgan enjoyed deep fried steak mac n’ cheese from Trey’s Cuisine. It was most definitely as sinful as it sounds. To make up for it, I had a bright, fresh, and delicious mini O.G. from Blenders and Bowls. What’s that, you ask? Blended acai topped with fresh fruit, hemp granola, and Round Rock honey. That’s healthy, right? With some other less memorable stops in between, we wrapped up our gorging with Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches. Dirty Mint Chip sandwiched between Chocolate cookies and Salted Caramel between Chocolate Chip Cookies – it’s hard to go wrong. I even checked out their website and saw a Brown Butter with Candied Bacon ice cream – yes, please!

This year’s Gypsy Picnic was certainly an improvement over last year and I was happy to find some new trailers to frequent. Ready for Gypsy Picnic 2012? You bet I am!

Written by Becka Brown, Community Relations Director