Andrew Zimmern / Baton Rouge Food Truck Roundup

I was hungry for some food truck grub and today was my lucky day! Andrew Zimmern, from the Travel Channel’s series, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern was in town recording a LIVE episode of his hit show “Appetite for Life“. I love his show and so I just had to stop down to meet him.

As part of the festivities, a Cajun-themed “Food Truck Throw-down” came together, with Ignatius Reilly’s Gourmet Street Food, Curbside, Taco de Paco, and the The Cuban Connection food trucks battling it out for top honors. The event also benefited the local United Way; bowls of jambalaya were sold for 5-bucks to benefit the agency, and the food trucks themselves donated 10 percent of gross sales to the charity. The throw-down was judged by a cast of local celebrity foodies, and I think Bobby Flay would have approved.

Speaking of local celebrities, I finally got to meet local celebrity chef Jay Ducote which was pretty much awesome. I’ve been following Jay’s blog, Bite and Booze ever since I moved down South and I really admire the guy for livin’ the dream. I mean, it’s his J.O.B. to eat, drink, and then write about it…sounds like a dream, right? Anyway, he was super cool and an all-around nice guy…he even offered to contribute to a little Southern cookbook I’m working on!

I also got to hang out with author Shannon Hurst Lane, aka “Cajun Mama“! Shannon’s a super-foodie and travel writer that I’ve also been following for a long time through her blog. She’s also the creator of the award-winning travel blog, TravelingMamas.com. She has the greatest smile! She lit up an already sunny afternoon, it was wonderful to meet her in person.

The real celebrities, through, were the food trucks. These things are like gourmet restaurants on wheels. This ain’t your average street meat, my friend. I’ve been following Taco de Paco on Facebook and twitter for a while so that’s where I started…the Dat Foo pulled pork taco was just divine; tender pork, spicy slaw, chili sauce, yum. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to sample from all of the trucks, but I plan on hunting them down on a weekly basis till I hit them all.

Oh, and Andrew was a nice guy, too. Just regular folk like you and I…very endearing.

UPDATE: Check out Jay’s blog post, “Andrew Zimmern Visits Baton Rouge and the Food Trucks Go Crazy!”

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