Curbside Cuisine in Albuquerque

Out here in the southwest, we cultivate patience – sometimes we’re on the frontier of innovation, and sometimes, we watch the trends slowly migrate from the coasts like very slow motion waves. I’ve been drooling over my mother’s iPhone snaps of the Los Angeles food truck scene for years. The culmination of craftiness, artistic motor vehicular renovation and incredibly focused and unique food is, frankly, drool worthy. While I loved the taco trucks of my native bay area, this is a whole new thing – it’s the epitome of fast food – beautifully idiosyncratically decorated trucks serving a limited and surprisingly gourmet menu – in some respects, maybe this is the American road-version of the incredible south east asian food markets I long for form No Reservations. Finally, the curbside culinary phenomenon is starting to roll into New Mexico. In Santa Fe, there’s Le Pod, Vinaigrette’s “Mini-Vinny” and “Slurp“, Santa Fe’s only “Airstream Eatery”.

Down in Albuquerque, there’s an actual weekly curbside convergence in the parking lot at Talin. Organized by “Steps“, Curbside Cuisine is a food cart pod that opened in March 2011 in Albuquerque’s International District. Local Flavor sent me down in August, 2011 to see just what street food in the southwest is all about. What struck me, once I got over the sheer delight of the visual spectacle, and did the hardest work of the day (figuring out which treats to get, given the limitations of one girl’s appetite), was that “Street food” is really about the people – each truck had a unique paint job, sure, but moreover a unique personality, defined by the people serving up the food and it gave the entire experience a more personal and exhuberant feel than your typical table-side service.