Food truck quick bite: Serendipity, comfort food for a cold?

Motivation, a word that comes with a lot of baggage which can weigh a person down. Even though I do this blog for fun and enjoy it (what? you thought this was my job? hahahah!) sometimes it is hard to pull yourself up and just write something. This past week was a great example of that for sure, though I do have a good reason (yep, here comes the excuses!). A super fun combo of allergies and cold totally sidetracked me. Fortunately, the SO was out of town on business which allowed me to wallow in my "not feeling wellness" by curling up in a blanket on the couch and watching mindless crap on the TV or computer. Fun times!

Sadly, or not, whenever I fell bad my appetite usually suffers or more directly, just disappears all together. Stuffed sinuses lead to a heavy head and taste buds that have become numb to flavor, probably from all the meds. But eventually, as the week ends I find myself coming out of my blanket induced cocoon and feel my stomach yearning to catch up on all the food I didn't get to eat. This is when I veer towards craving some old school comfort food in as large a quantity as my wallet and belly can stand.

Since I felt good enough, I figured I might as well broaden my chances of something sounding tasty by hitting up the StrEat Food Park. I know what you are saying, but that is outside! Well, it was a bright and sunny mostly warm day and I really needed to shower and get the F out of the house for some fresh air.

As I wandered among the food trucks, I could exactly express what I was looking for, but would know it when I saw it. That is what ultimately lead me to a truck I hadn't seen before called Serendipity.

**Serendipity food truck. And see, it's sunny and that guy even has short sleeves on!**

Right there on their sign it says American comfort food, it is like they are calling my name. Though I'm totally ignoring the fact it also says the secret ingredient is always love. I mean that would be fine if there is some grandma type in their cooking, but it's a big dude and I'm just looking for some good hearty food. Their menu is brief with about five options, though I'm not gonna say all of the choices are "comfort food." However, they are offering up meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of vegetables for $10 and that is right up my alley in this instant.

Two decent sized slabs of meatloaf with copious amounts of gravy, a swath of mashed potatoes and some sauteed vegetables. Well, for the price out of a food truck, it was definitely a nice portion size. And, well,.....

(blank thought)

.....sorry, total mind lapse there as I tried to think of something else good about the food above. Oh yeah, the potatoes were decent. A few cute little lumps and they did actually taste like potatoes. Though they really could have used some seasoning like salt or pepper or butter. Or they possibly could have used some of the too much seasoning they used on the soft and over cooked vegetables! You can even see it in the pic, they killed them with cooking and then assaulted them again with an abundance of Italian seasoning like oregano, basil and what not.

When I think of the meatloaf, one word comes to mind, mealy, that was the texture profile that came across. So much so, I almost wasn't sure it was ground beef they used. I know you use bread filler in meatloaf, but not at the expense of texture and flavor, which this also lacked. Now maybe I could say my taste buds hadn't returned to full strength yet, but I was off the meds and my tongue was doing nothing but desperately searching for something with taste, and I don't mean a bunch of dry Italian spices either.

You would think the gravy would help but you'd be wrong. I think they might have been served well to just to drown this in ketchup like some white trashy dinner from my childhood. Or better yet, put the meatloaf on some toasted white bread with loads of mayo, lettuce and tomato. That way you could at least cover up the lack of taste with condiments and toppings. It would also help with that weird texture.

It is always possible I was looking or asking for too much in my "I'm no longer sick" meal, but meatloaf and mashed taters seemed to be an easy win. Instead, I could feel my lack of appetite returning. Oh well, at least it wasn't my cold coming back.

They can't all be winners, though when you have barely eaten for a week, you'd think whatever you have would the best thing ever. In this instance, you would be wrong. Ultimately it was no big whoop, food trucks are kind of a crap shoot anyway and while this one didn't quite work out, it won't keep me from trying again. Not this one, but others of course. As for my "comfort food" craving, fortunately for me, Tony's Slice House is just around the corner from where I live and I can hit them up for a tasty giant slice. Pizza, yeah, probably should have just gone there first.

(P.S.--I'm gonna highlight some better comfort this week, plus food news and nosh will be back next week since, you know, I was like sick and all)