Shiitake Swerve

We worked together with Denton Food Trucks, to highlight a few of our future lunch providers. On Monday we took an in depth look at The Pickled Carrot, purveyors of delicious sandwiches (catch them at the Denton Community Market this Saturday). Today, we get some more info from one of the other interesting food trucks that will be rolling the streets in the weeks to come, Shiitake Swerve. Read it and get hungry!

On their menu...

The original taco will be our go-to item. It is a grilled shiitake mushroom taco dressed with a cabbage slaw, scallions, homemade vegan garlic aioli on two street taco tortillas. Sandwich suggestion will be the Texas oyster mushroom po-boy made with homemade BBQ sauce and dressed with cabbage slaw, scallions, homemade vegan garlic aioli.

What sets them apart...

I hope all trucks can make a lasting impression of class and diversity. I believe our project is unique in regard to the menu and the concept. We are a vegetarian truck that is focusing on healthy, organic, and affordable foods. We will not be using any highly processed foods in our menu. We will also be making a strong effort at limiting soy products to edamame and soy type sauces. We may at some point use tofu in appropriate dishes, but soy products will not have a permanent home on our menu. We are also doing our best to source local food and services.

Operating hours...

We are planning on 11 am to 8 pm to have the strongest presence. We are also planning on being open for breakfast Saturdays and Sundays in the beginning, with a plan of expanding to weekdays.

On ordinance changes...

As little regulation as possible with safety still being as efficient as possible. Anything I perceive as unconstitutional I will challenge in court.

On locations...

I hope to service offices and the business crowd during the week for lunch. In the late afternoons I hope to serve the college, stay-at-home moms and kids, the unemployed or anyone available and hungry.

On their favorite food trucks...

Zombie's served me up a good sandwich and Lee's grilled cheese tastes great.

You can follow Shiitake Swerve’s goings on by liking them on Facebook. Or just keep up with the Denton Food Trucks Twitter account. We'll be taking a look at a few others in a few weeks and hopefully we'll be able to have a review of some up very soon. If you're a Dentonite food truck hopeful and want to be featured here, email us! Also, we're hearing that there may be a food truck festival at the DCTA station later in October. We'll let you know when we hear anything.  

The Pickled Carrot

The City of Denton recently lifted the ordinance that kept mobile food vendors from staying in any given location for more than 15 minutes. It was the single-most rule that had been keeping food trucks/trailers/etc... out of Denton during what is arguably their heyday. We were late enough on the whole cupcake thing. Do we really wanna miss out on this, too? The lifting of the 15 minute rule is a temporary measure during the indefinite amount of time it will take the city to draw up a new ordinance. In the interim, the city will hopefully see many interesting Denton-based trucks pop-up and bring an even bigger draw to town. Hopefully, that will cause the powers that be to be a little nicer to vendors when they actually get to rewriting the ordinance.

It’s now been about two months since this happened, and we’ve still yet to see many trucks out and about (UNT campus, withstanding). This is soon about to change. Many people are putting the finishing touches on their businesses and should be hitting the streets very soon.

We worked together with Denton Food Trucks, to highlight a few of our future lunch providers. First up, a truck centered around the most delicious sandwich known to man, the Vietnamese bahn mi. The Pickled Carrot have been operating out of the Denton Community Market for some Saturdays this summer, selling their sandwiches, Vietnamese iced coffee, and cucumber limeaid to the masses. We can’t wait to be able to purchase one any day of the week. Below is an interview with The Pickled Carrot. Read it and get hungry.

What sets your food/service apart from other trucks?

As we grow, one of our main goals is to be a strong supporter of the Denton Community. We will source as many of our vegetables as we can from local farmers. We have current UNT students working on our images and logos for our concept. We would also like to be part of charities and fundraisers around Denton. So that is kind of our vision which will set us apart from the others.

What’s the foremost menu item you will be recommending people order the most?

Grilled pork sandwich and a cup of our fresh squeezed cucumber limeade.

What are some of your favorite food truck grub?

We enjoy Ssahm BBQ's Korean tacos. Angry Friar has good fish and chips. And the double Decker? AWESOME! Visually, its my favorite. Reminds of my trip to London. Haha.

What are you planning for your operating hours to be?

Once we go mobile, our plans are to open from 10AM-2PM/5PM-9PM on weekdays and extend the hours on the weekends for the bar/nightlife crowd. Hours of operation, however, are subject to change depending on many variables.

What are you hoping for in the city ordinance changes regarding food trucks? 

After reviewing the proposed ordinance, we are fairly happy with it. We would like to see less restrictions on places we can and cannot set up to serve food.

Do you have any locations in mind?

Denton is our location! We want the fans to choose where we will be on certain days, but we also plan on being near UNT and TWU as well as Fry St. and the Square.

What are you hoping for in the ordinance changes?

We are hoping for changes that will make serving the community easier and more efficient.

Next up, Shiitake Swerve, the truck that will have Dentonites on ‘shrooms.