I’m often asked which food truck is my personal favorite. It’s a difficult question to answer because many of the Dallas food trucks offer great food at a terrific value. In early 2011, the options were limited to Green House and City Street Grille. Then, at the beginning of Summer 2011, we got hit with a new wave of trucks such as Gandolfo’s New York Deli and Nammi Vietnamese. I love the food at all four. They’re easy to find as they make regular stops in the Dallas Arts District. However, as much as I love Green House’s miso flank steak sandwich and rice bowl and Nammi’s banh mi and Gandolfo’s pastrami, the new gal on the block, Easy Slider Food Truck, is my current go-to truck.The gal running the kitchen has some serious pedigree.
Jump for more on Easy Slider.
Easy Slider is an all-girl food truck, run by Caroline Perini and Miley Holmes. Caroline is the “Official Slider Slinger,” and Miley is the face at the window. Caroline built her restaurant and steak cred at her family’s award-winning restaurant Perini Ranch, in Buffalo Gap. Both Miley and Caroline worked together at House of Blues in Dallas, but Easy Slider is now their full-time job.
The sliders start with a terrific bun. The sweet, sourdough slider bun is baked locally daily especially for Easy Slider. No day-old Tom Thumb King Hawaiian sweet rolls. Easy Slider recently had to cancel a lunch stop when their bread didn’t arrive in time. The girls take the idea of “fresh” seriously.
The slider is a 2.75 oz. patty and has been perfectly seared with a touch of pink every time I’ve eaten at Easy Slider, an event that is now in double digits. While consistency is a problem with some food trucks, theses gals hit the mark every time. One slider has been enough for kids under 10 years old. A hungry adult will more than likely want 2 sliders. The sliders are all $3.50 each (tax included) or $10 for two sliders, chips, and a drink.
The menu changes from day-to-day, but there are a few mainstay items. While you can start with a standard “Classic” slider, the “Sweet and Low-down” should be your first must-try. The sweet and low-down packs the flavor with beef, goat cheese, bacon, and strawberry jam. I know, it sounds odd, but it all comes together to create a unique flavor. The Roadside brings some heat with grilled jalapenos, fried onions, BBQ sauce, and cheddar cheese atop the beef patty. The Baby Bella, when they have it, is a terrific portobello option, adding mozzarella, tomato, and pesto. The Black and Blue comes and goes on the menu as well, but it’s one of my favorites. So is the blue cheese slaw with bacon. Easy Slider recently added The Nutty Pig, a slider topped with bacon, peanut butter, onion, lettuce, and tomato. The Nutty Pig is the only slider that I’ve found to be just a little bit too odd on the flavor profile.
Easy Slider has a Facebook page and you can follow them Twitter @EasySliderTruck. Typically, but not always, they are off on Sundays through Tuesdays and in the Dallas Arts District for lunch on Wednesday and Preston Commons on Thursday. They work dinner in different locations and are often working after-hours at Doublewide or the House of Blues.
Now, some backstory and a mea culpa. After following the food truck market develop in Dallas, I have noticed several recurring patterns. There are food trucks like The Butcher’s Son and Gandolfo’s New York Deli which are well-run and firmly-capitalized. Then, there are a few food trucks that are under-capitalized (often by the operator’s parents) and try to get by with little marketing and business sense. You can recognize these when the food truck is a short-term leased truck, with a poor website (if any at all), little Facebook and Twitter activity, and they work perhaps 2-3 lunch periods per week. The recently demised Jackalope Vegan food truck is a textbook example.
When I first heard of Easy Slider, I thought they would be short-lived. The idea of two gal-pals serving mini-burgers to late-night drunks sounded like a hard gig to pull off. But color me wrong: Caroline Perini’s restaurant background combined with their experience at handling the mobs at House of Blues has this truck running like a well-oiled operation. Plus they did their homework: Before leaving HOB, they talked extensively with Teena Ng and Gary Torres from Nammi, two of the hardest working people in the local food truck market.
As most everyone knows, men hate admitting they were wrong, but this time, I was w-w-w-w-w-wrong.
Have you been to Easy Slider yet? If so, what did you think? If not, go.report.
