Maple Leaf Meats, Yarraville Gardens

The initial buzz that attended the arrival of food trucks in the west has long since faded.

Trucks still park at Yarraville Gardens and elsewhere, but they have become for us – and no doubt others – just one of many eating scenarios.

For this Saturday lunch, our post-kung fu, food-seeking rambling finds us parking and intent on doing the “truck thing” for the first time in a long while.

We do really, really good.

After perusing the line-up of vehicular vittles on offer, we opt – for no great reason and with only modest expectations – for Maple Leaf Meats and their cool, old-school truck/caravan.

I say modest expectations because part of our general disinclination to have any truck with this style of food comes down to quite a few disappointments of the mediocre and over-priced food variety.

The Maple Leaf Meats crew goes a long way towards restoring our faith in food trucks and what they offer.

The menu (see below) runs to barbecue offerings such as ribs and wings, but we’re not up for that kind of full-on meatiness or expense (in the case of the ribs), so opt for the burger route.

My Maple Leaf Burger ($14) is a very fine production with its cheese, pickles, tomato, lettuce and chipotle mayo.

Had I been paying more attention, and not in such a hungry hurry, I may have noted the presence of caramelised onion and therefore opted for another burger selection, caramelised onions being another offering we often find very disappointing and dull.

Here, though, they’re fine – a plus on what is already a fine burger.

Best of all, the patty is of robust and delicious beefiness.

Bennie does even better with his Smoked Meat Burger ($15).

In addition to the routine fillings, including in this case mustard, this winner comes with “Montreal smoked meat”.

This turns out to be pastrami, which – we’re told – is a Montreal specialty.

But this is not just pastrami – it’s Really Good Pastrami and there’s heaps of it.

This is not merely a matter of the sort of flavour tingle that a rasher of bacon gives to a burger.

So profound is the smoked meat’s impact that it’s more about creating something wholly new and different.

Bennie loves it.

In tune with the rest of our meal, the small serve of chips ($5) is excellent – each and every one is hot and crisp.

The best part of an hour later, we’re pretty much in Werribee and getting on with our day.

After a longish period of silent grooving to the car music, out of nowhere Bennie emphatically opines:

“Man, that was a good burger!”

Dude Food Man at Yarraville Gardens

We head for Yarraville Gardens in a ridiculously brisk and windy spring twilight without dad doing his sums – figuring that $31 plus change should cover us.

We are forgetting, of course, that food truck food as it’s swept through the suburbs is not necessarily all that cheap.

So our immediately available funds fall a tad short of what’s required for our two burgers, chips and a couple of cans fizz.

This doesn’t faze the Dude Food dudes at all.

In the interests of happy customers, they happily make up the shortfall – and for that generosity we thank them.

But how do their burgers stacks up?

Especially when their goodies are more pricey than the outfit with which we are able to make a direct comparison – Mr Burger?

Darn well, actually.

In this case at least, it’s a matter of getting what we pay for.

Or mostly pay for …

(I have toyed with idea of relegating the close-ups of our sandwiches to the bottom of this story or not using them at all, so unappealing do they make our dinner appear.  Both burgers fall into a category that might usefully be termed “over-dressed”. But they’re here in all their technicolour glory – just rest assured what we enjoy tastes a whole lot better than it looks …)

Bennie enjoys his pulled pork slider with “48hr cooked pork, crackling, coleslaw, house-made BBQ sauce” ($13), especially the smokey flavour of the sauce.

The coleslaw strikes me as a creamy delight.

My Dude Burger with “160g Wagyu patty, iceberg, cheddar, tomato, caramelised onion, pickles, American mustard & aioli” ($13) is even better – a real hands-on treat.

The patty is of pronounced beefiness and has great, chewy texture.

In many ways our chips ($7 with roasted garlic aioli) are the biggest surprise of our chow-down.

These are super-dooper chunky, hot, crisp, perfectly cooked and far and away the best chips we’ve had from a Melbourne food truck.

In truth, and on account of the cold blast of the weather, our meal is something of an eat-and-run excerise.

But on a warm evening and right next door to this or another park, we’ll be happy to return for more.

Best way to find out where Dude Food Man is serving is through his Facebook page.

Mr Burger, Somerville Rd, Yarraville. Phone: 0312 345 67

What’s this?

Looks like a food truck shootout in Somerville Rd.

Although having no plans to eat anywhere except at home, I’d noted courtesy of Where The Truck at that Beat Box Kitchen had plans to be at Yarraville Park in the evening.

Then about 6.30pm, I discover via a Facebook post by White Guy Cooks Thai, that they, Dos Diablos AND Mr Burger are all planning to set up shop there, too.

That’s too much fun to miss out on, so off I go.

It IS a festive scene that greets me at the park.

There’s three trucks up and running – no sign of Beat Box Kitchen.

I figure this is a foretaste of how the west-loving food trucks are going to go in winter.

There’s about 50 or so people milling about. Some are deciding on what they’re going to eat. Others are waiting for their orders.

There’s families, cyclists, toddlers and dogs.

Just about everyone, except the cyclists, is suitably rugged up.

Some people are, um, “eating in”. Other are grabbing their goodies and heading back to their cars and, presumably, home.

The interests of journalism, food blogging and spreading myself around a bit dictate that I opt for Mr Burger, having already tried the other two trucks present.

My food takes about 10 minutes to get prepared. The Mr Burger crew is working hard.

I like the way my side and sandwich are served in the same cardboard box.

A small serve of chips is a fine deal at $3 – they’re plentiful, fresh, hot, crunchy and plain. None of your sea salt ‘n’ rosemary here.

My basic Mr Burger – beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mustard, mayo and tomato sauce for $9 – is wrapped in both paper and foil.

It appears both modest in size and like a sodden, mushy mess.

But it tastes great and is adequate size-wise!

The meat has a nicely char-like exterior, the lettuce is crisp, the tomato fresh and the dressings just right.

I wonder, though, how such a burger would handle even the briefest of drives home.

I’m halfway through my meal when the Beat Box Kitchen vehicle turns up. It’s up and running with surprising speed.

Maybe next time.