Yesenia Hernandez
Palate Party is scheduled to appear at Jupiter’s first major food truck party

Good news, thin-blooded South Floridians. Last weekend’s “frigid” (read: glorious) cooler temps will start melting away in the next few days, and the forecast for the weekend is looking pretty damned fine. Get out of the house, sans parka this time, and check out what’s shaking in the Broward and Palm Beach County food and drink scenes. Five ideas for the weekend, after the jump.

5. Passover Cooking Contest
Josef’s Table in Boca Raton has called on locals to share their favorite seder side and dessert dishes in a Passover Cooking Contest at 3 p.m. Thursday. Contestants have been asked to bring along their recipes and samples of the dishes like vegetable medley, sponge cake, meringue cookies, and spinach kugel. The contest is in anticipation of Josef’s Table’s Passover dinner on March 25 and 26. Call 954-290-3521.

4. Stout App Night: Drink on the Dark Side
Beer and tech geek cultures converge at Thursday night’s Stout App Night: Drink on the Dark Side at Kahuna Bar & Grill in Deerfield Beach. The bar will host a launch party for the new beer app, Stout, starting at 8 tonight. There’s no admission charge, and the first 50 attendees get a free beer. Other food and drink specials — including craft brews — will be available.

3. The Ultimate Chefs’ Dinner
Four South Florida chefs, including Lenore Nolan-Ryan, will chip in for a four course chefs’ dinner Sunday night at the Pavilion Grille in Boca Raton. The dinner is 6 to 8 p.m. and tickets are $100. Proceeds will benefit United Cerebral Palsy of South Florida. Call 954-315-4057.

2. Nosh Fest IV: South Florida’s Jewish Food Festival
Passover is just around the corner and The Nosh Fest will be stocked with tons of tasty and traditional Jewish treats. The fest is 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday at Temple Beth Emet in Cooper City. The cost of admission is five nonperishable food items. The collected food will be distributed among Feeding South Florida of Pembroke Park, WECARE Food Pantry of Broward County, and Jewish Family Service of Broward County. Bites will be available for $2 to $4 with options like a Romanian pastrami sandwich, falafel, and stuffed cabbage, plus other dishes.

1. Food truck fest in Jupiter
About two dozen food trucks are scheduled to appear in Saturday’s Food Truck Fest at Riverwalk Events Plaza in Jupiter. Among those expected are Bite Gastrotruck, Palate Party, Tacos Al Carbon, Fry Daddy, and many others. The event is 5 to 10 p.m., and there’s no admission charge, though you should bring cash to purchase dinner and snacks. Attendees can vote for a People’s Choice winner from among the trucks. Bring your own chair.

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2013/03/south_florida_events_march_2013.php

credit: Libby Volgyes
The Ming Dynasty Duck Wraps at 5-Spice Asian Street Market in Boca Raton cost $7.99 for three wraps filled with slices of tender roast duck meat, accompanied with scallions, cucumber and Hoisin sauce. (Photo by Libby Volgyes/Special to the Palm Beach Post)

The 5-Spice Asian Street Market is the sort of spot you can slip into on a 45-minute lunch break and actually have time to eat. And there’s a lot to be said for that alone. But the fast-casual spot is also attractive, with a wide variety of Asian street foods and reasonable prices – very few items on the menu are more than $10.

Throw in the tasty food and bubble tea and you’ve got a winning combination.

“In Asia, we have a lot of street food stalls,” said Chee Piong, 5-Spice’s director of franchise development. “The concept is the food itself all comes from that street food stall concept.”

That’s street food, as in the Ming Dynasty Duck Wraps ($7.99 for three), tender roasted duck rolled into soft flour “tortillas” with crisp scallions and cucumbers and a nice, contrasting Hoisin sauce – just enough sauce to give it flavor, without making the roll soggy.

“It gets to the table pretty quickly,” Piong said of the duck wrap trio. “It’s very tasty and unique.”

credit: Libby Volgyes
The Singapore Noodles with Chicken ($8.49) from 5-Spice Asian Street Market in Boca Raton. (Photo by Libby Volgyes/Special to the Palm Beach Post)

The eatery offers a variety of Asian dishes from noodles ($8.49 to $9.49) to noodle soups ($7.99), salads to wok rice bowls ($8.49 to $9.49) or the new Vietnamese Bahn Mi sandwich ($5.99, introductory price). The dishes are seasoned with restraint – the pho wasn’t too salty, the Mongolian beef wasn’t too spicy.

Diners order at the counter and minutes later the food is brought to their table, ensuring they’re fed and out the door quickly. And if the diners show the same eating restraint the kitchen does with the seasoning, they could be leaving with leftovers, as all the servings are more than generous for the average diner. (One noodle dish makes two to three meals). But then again the Singapore Noodles ($8.49) are so tasty, I’m not sure it’s possible to put the chopsticks down.

credit: Libby Volgyes
The 5-Spice Asian Street Market in Boca Raton serves up fast, tasty and affordable variety of Asian dishes. (Photo by Libby Volgyes/Special to the Palm Beach Post)

The 5-Spice Asian Street Market: 1200 Yamato Road, #A1, Boca Raton; 561-989-1688; open Monday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.

http://www.pbpulse.com/news/entertainment/dining/asian-street-food-served-fast-and-fresh/nTmsW/

Gourmet Truck Expo - The food trucks lined up outside Boomers in Boca Raton offering everything from Gourmet Tacos to Crab Cake sliders. (pictured) ITropica Shaved Kona Ice offered something cool and refreshing after having dinner at the foodtrucks. (Michael F McElroy, Sun Sentinel / May 12, 2011)

“I am very excited,” said Jochen Esser, organizer of the Gourmet Food Truck Expo that packed 20 of South Florida’s mobile kitchens into the parking lot of Boomers in Boca Raton on Wednesday. “It’s even more successful than I hoped. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have more of these events soon.”

More than 2,000 South Florida gourmands waited in line as long as 45 minutes to sample upmarket eats ranging from Korean barbeque sliders, fried truffled macaroni and cheese and pork belly bahn mi to Michoacan-style carnitas tacos and street food favorites such as wings, hot dogs and burgers.

Today’s food trucks are more gourmet-to-go than the “roach coach” of old, and the number of trucks in cities across America has boomed in recent years.

As the food-truck wave has washed over South Florida, rallies are common in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, but none came north to Palm Beach County, Esser said.

“I fell in love with the trucks about eight or nine months ago, and I’ve been driving down to Miami to try new ones,” he said. “I thought we needed something up here, now that more trucks are in Palm Beach County. As far as I know, there hasn’t been [an event] like this here.”

The expo was a boon for the area’s burgeoning food-truck scene, said Marshall Goldberg, a partner at 4 Alarm Pizza, a Boca Raton-based fire truck kitted out as brick-oven pizza joint, complete with cappuccino bar, 46-inch 3-D TVs and gaming systems.

“It’s crazy in a great way, to see everyone and to get to try all the new food,” he said. “The creativity out here is amazing, and the quality of the food — it’s like a 5-star restaurant from these trucks.”

4 Alarm Pizza usually works private events and parties, but the crew was excited to get more exposure from the expo, Goldberg said.

Many attendees learned of the event from Facebook or Twitter, which have allowed chefs to set up shop with minimal overhead and maximum marketing exposure, said Craig Agranoff, a Boca Raton-based social-media consultant who attended the expo.

“Social media allows these truck owners to share their exact location, their specials, their menus directly with their customers when they’re somewhere different every day,” he said. “It’s almost like free marketing compared to what a bricks-and-mortar store might have to do to get someone in the door.”

The event was so successful that parking was scarce, and some trucks ran out of their most popular dishes. Many attendees said they were looking forward to the next gathering.

“It’s a phenomenal idea, and I think this is exactly what Palm Beach County and Boca needed,” said Ted Hecht, 65, as he sampled a shrimp dumpling. “They should take it to a bunch of different places all over town — downtown, the beach, wherever.”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/boca-raton/fl-boca-food-trucks-20110513,0,4388584.story

Broward Palm Beach New Times

Is a bear Catholic? Does the pope shit in a forest?

Based on last night’s first-in-the-county Gourmet Truck Expo in the Boomers entertainment complex in Boca Raton, PBC foodies aren’t just hungry for the food truck experience; they’re willing to gnaw their own arms off to get it. Which they might have had to, since about half the 20 or so trucks that showed up ran out of food before the night was over, according to Expo organizer Jochen Esser.

How crowded was it?

The Airport Road access to Boomers was a half-mile-long parking lot for much of the early evening, spilling what Esser estimated to be at least 2,500 people from the real parking lot at the Cinemark Theater door. Waits in line for up to an hour at popular trucks like Nacho Mama’s and Aaron’s Catering weren’t uncommon, nor was finding out there was nothing left to eat when you finally got close to the front.

Still, everyone seemed pretty excited about it.

“I had an idea it was going to be popular, but I was definitely surprised” at the turnout, Esser said.

That turnout means there will definitely be more Expos, both at Boomers (later this summer) and other sites around the county. In fact, after noting this Expo’s raging success, Esser said he’s already been contacted by several companies eager to host another on their property, probably sometime in June.

When that happens, expect more trucks, more people, and one more indication that the local food scene is finally starting to grow up.

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2011/05/food_truck_expo_boca_raton_palm_beach_county.php

We may be a little behind the curve here in NoSoFla when it comes to the now furiously trendy food truck movement, but Jochen Esser is hoping to change all that.

The former “hotel guy” turned West Palm Beach Internet marketer turned food truck aficionado has come up with an event he hopes will show Miami’s hot-shot food truckers that there’s a market for their gourmet on wheels cuisine up here, and maybe even spur a few locals to join in.

He calls it the Gourmet Food Truck Expo, more than 20 trucks from the trendier climes to our south gathering at Boca Raton’s Boomers (3100 Airport Rd., 561-347-1888) entertainment complex from 6 to 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 11. Some of the biggest names in SoFla food truckery are expected to be there: Cheese Me, Gastropod Miami, MisoHungry, Nacho Mama’s, Red Koi and more.

A handful of newbies will unveil their ware too, Caza Paninis and Wiseguys among them. As for PBC’s lone local trucker, Curbside Gourmet, it’s apparently off the streets for a couple of weeks resolving some “management issues,” but Esser says chef Rick Simek is invited and hopes he’ll be able to show.

Along with more different kinds of food than you can shake a tire iron at, the expo will feature DJ The Silver Fox, while Boomers will be offering special discounts on its various attractions, which range from go-kart racing and “bumper boats” to bowling and laser tag.

Esser says he became “fascinated” with food trucks after watching The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network, then began making regular trips to Miami to check out the scene there. “I’m hoping to show that North Broward and Palm Beach County are food truck friendly. I really think there’s a void here that needs to be filled.”

If this initial expo is successful, Esser hopes to launch monthly or even bimonthly food truck roundups. For more details or to let him know you’ll be coming (he’s trying to get a rough idea of attendance before the event happens), go to the expo’s website or Facebook page.

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2011/04/food_truck_expo_boca_raton.php

I’ll post more on this as I learn more, but just received an email from Jochen Esser who’s organizing what he calls the first food truck event at 6 p.m. May 11 in Palm Beach County.

The Gourmet Truck Expo, as he calls it, will be at Boomers! Boca Raton – 3100 Airport Road, Boca Raton.

There’s much more information on the Web site GourmetTruckExpo.com.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/features/food/restaurants/blog/2011/03/first_gourmet_food_truck_expo_1.html