'Tis the week for free food in Manhattan, especially from trucks.
On Monday, I caught up with the Air France Taste the Journey truck for a sampling of their new menu designed by acclaimed chef Joel Robuchon. It was fairly cold out and none of my coworkers wanted to join me fearing a huge line, so I ventured out by myself and was pleasantly surprised. Not only was the line short but by the time I finished filling out a form to enter to win a trip to Paris, I was at the front.
I was lucky enough to drop by for lunch on their last day of service, and was surprised by how pretty a plateful of food from a food truck could look! On the menu was Cucumber and Smoked Salmon Brochette, Grilled Beef Filet with Wine Truffle Sauce, Potatoes au Grain and a Carrot Cake Petit Fours.
I tried dropping by for dinner service, which included Smoked Salmon and Shrimp Rondelle, French Shepard's Pie with Duck Confit and French Macarons, but they were out by the time I got to the truck. Our friends over at I8NYC made it though, and has awesome pictures to show for it. This truck promotion is done for now, but several more are making their way through the city this week.
Though I missed the Air France truck for dinner, I wanted to make sure that I got to the Game of Thrones truck in Union Square - a promotion for the new HBO show featuring "medieval food" cooked up by star-chef Tom Colicchio. Duped again. The line was more than halfway down the block by the time I got there and they hadn't even begun serving yet. There's a lot of things I would do for free food, but waiting in the cold for an infinite amount of time isn't one of them.
However, I saw that The NYC Menu Girl was successful with this truck and hopefully you can be too! Follow them on Twitter @GameofThrones and they will tweet their location every day this week. Today they will be near Lincoln Center at 6 p.m. and tomorrow who knows where they will end up.
Courtesy of Living Free NYC, I saw that the History Channel show Swamp People is also sending a promotional food truck around Manhattan, through tomorrow. The menu sounds, um, interesting, (swamp rabbit anyone?), but if you're open minded and want free food, track them down and then report back. Tomorrow they will be in Union Square at noon and 14th and 9th at 5 p.m. Happy hunting!
Just in: HBO will have another truck roaming the streets tomorrow serving up New Orleans-style food to showcase the show Treme. Grub Street has the deets.
