The popular event, Food Truck Mash-Up, returns to the Coachella Valley for the fourth time on Oct. 13 due to high demand. More than 60 different food choices from a culinary posse of more than a dozen celebrated food trucks — and their seasoned chefs — will compete for the title of Best Food Truck 2019 in the one-day-only gastro-fest.
To be sure, the Southern California chefs manning these vehicles aim to please. Their culinary creativity has helped fuel the growing popularity of the Food Truck Mash-Up scene in recent years, taking the gourmet food experience out of high-end restaurants and right onto the streets.
Food trucks provide customers with a broad and trendy selection of local flavors and the inclusion of celebrated chefs also enhance the overall experience. According to Business Wire, the introduction of food trucks into cities and at themed events is a critical factor in boosting market and tourism growth.
That should be great at the Food Truck Mach-Up at Big League Dreams Sports Park in Cathedral City, where nationally recognized food truck titans, Mess Hall Canteen and Cousins Maine Lobster will be on hand. Mess Hall is veteran-owned and winner of Food Network’s “Food Truck Face-Off.” Cousins was featured on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
Meanwhile Mess Hall Canteen, the brainchild of Jake McPeck, goes for a military-theme and evokes a sense of camaraderie found between military men chowing down. The menu is robust with such items at War Pig Tots (a spicy mac-n-cheese over tots delight) and a Drunken Sailor Grilled Cheese, featuring lobster, crab, shrimp, bacon, cheddar cheese with cheddar cheese crust.
It didn’t hurt that Tselikis and real-life cousin/business partner Sabin Lomac had a winning ingredient to their food truck concept: Heart. The fellas basically recreated the signature lobster dishes they consumed while growing up in Maine.
“We are two cousins from back east and I think our story and the authenticity of our roots literally trying to recreate our childhood in our business really resonated with people,” Tselikis adds. Their Cousins for a Cause program donates 100 percent of its donations directly to Big Brothers Big Sisters.