Team Nom Nom Causes Nervousness

Team Nom Nom's Pork Banh Mi

This week on The Great Food Truck Race the three remaining trucks drove into Jonesborough Tennessee that has a total population of 5,000 people. Because the town is so small the teams are given an extra 24 hours to sell and a 400-dollar budget, which all teams agreed is a lot of money for a town of this size. Spencer on the Go, true to form gets on the phone with a local bistro to buy their food from. The generous chef not only gives them lots of food for cheap but a quick lesson on how to get a really nice crust on cornbread, you heat the cast iron to the point of smoking and then add the batter. This I did not know! Grill ‘Em All isn’t worried since this seems like burger country to them. Team Nom Nom is extremely worried that not only will no one have even heard of a Banh Mi, they won’t buy them.

The trucks have only one place to sell, the town square. This means they have to set up in a clump. Spencer gets open first and has adjusted their menu to cater to the crowd by serving things like sliders with a truffle emulsion and fried green tomatoes. There has been an announcement on the local news about the presence of the food trucks in town and all trucks find themselves busier than they anticipated. Then 7:45 pm rolls around and Jonesborough turns into a ghost town, seriously you could have heard a kitten yawn. All of the trucks look slightly stunned when they get a call from Tyler Florence who tells them to shut it down, go to bed and be ready early in the morning for the truck stop (challenge.)

The trucks roll up to three fire pits with spits and an actual ‘chuck wagon’ that is full of frontier era supplies, firewood, cast iron skillets, basic spices and outdoor cooking sized implements. The teams have to create a traditional 5-course frontier meal in two hours that consists of bread, beans, potatoes, meat and dessert. Team Nom Nom looks like they are going to pass out and/or cry, Neither Grill ‘Em All or Spencer on the Go look worried at all. The winner of the ‘truck stop’ gets exclusive access to a huge auto show that is going on one town over. Tyler points out that winning this ‘truck stop’ will basically guarantee that team a spot in the final show for 50,000 dollars. As Team Nom Nom are cooking they are blowing it big time and they know it. Mostly, they are having temperature issues and keep burning the bottoms of things. As I am wincing and eating a broccoli and cheddar double baked potato (not burned on the bottom,) I am relieved that I don’t have to eat whatever Team Nom Nom hands to the judges because even they look embarrassed.

The judges said that Team Nom Nom’s meat was tasty and their beans were bad. They really like Team Spencer’s dessert with lavender, but the corn muffin did bring anything to the meal, guess they should have listened more closely to their corn bread lesson, and the judges thought Grill ‘Em All’s beans had good flavor though they were a little undercooked and the dessert was nice because it wasn’t overly sweet.

Grill ‘Em all wins and drives off to the auto show where they serve a long line all night long. The two losing teams head back to Jonesborough to grab all the business they can before the town shuts down at 8:00pm.

On Sunday morning all the trucks head out ‘early’ trying to catch the church crowd when it lets out. Team Nom Nom has to stop at the store to buy supplies; they take a risk and buy twice as much as they did the day before. This also slows them down and they don’t get set up until almost 1pm which puts them behind in sales, and causes them to miss a good deal of the church crowd. Honestly, I thought that was it, and Team Nom Nom was going home. Oh, ye of little faith! Team Nom Nom is able to pick up some of the slack because the other teams start to run out of food. Team Spencer gets smart and calls their Bistro chef connection for more catfish that he delivers to them! Grill ‘Em all actually does have to shut down and drive to the market, all the while the line grows in front of Team Nom Nom’s truck.

At the end of the day the customers are dwindling and Grill ‘Em All really wants to get rid of all of their food, they have 10 burgers left. They cut their prices, find a police officer and ask him to give a shout out for anyone who wants to buy discounted burgers, and cross their fingers. Then amazingly a woman arrives at their truck and buys the last 10 burgers!

The three teams are grouped around Tyler to find out whose competing for 50,000, Team Nom Nom looks genuinely nervous, Grill ‘Em All looks like they are collectively going to barf and Team Spencer looks annoyed and uncomfortable. Tyler then announced that all teams sold the most they ever had before and that the team that came in 2^nd and the Team that is going home were separated by a mere 37 dollars.

1^st Place goes to Team Nom Nom with $3,117.

2^nd Place goes to Grill ‘Em All with $2,763.

3^rd Place goes to Spencer on the Go with 2,726

Those last 10 burgers made all the difference. Next week watch Team Nom Nom win 50,000 dollars!

Team Nom Nom Continues to Show Everyone Else How it is Done

Team Nom Nom!

This weekends The Great Food Truck Race, is much more entertaining now that I am not watching it as a contest but just to see by how much Nom Nom is going to outsell and out maneuver everyone else.

This weekend the trucks headed to New Orléans, which as a drinking town is fertile ground for food trucks. They were given a 400 dollar start budget and told that not only would they get an extra 24 hours to sell their food but in this weeks ‘truck stop” (challenge) the winner would get a distinct advantage and all the losing teams will suffer a disadvantage. As the teams are driving away clutching their 400 dollars team Nom Nom tells the camera that they have a friend who lives in New Orléans who told them where to park, where the good bars are etc. Need I say more? I was only disappointed that the paparazzi weren’t waiting for them.

Team Nom Nom pulls up in front of the one of the most crowded and popular bars and serves a long line all night long. The next day rain is coming down in sheets and this causes some equipment issues/failures for both team Grill ‘Em All and team Austin Daily Press. Not team Nom Nom though, they roll up into a parking lot right across from a Pickberry and start a drive through so the customers don’t even have to get out of their cars. Brilliant. Night comes and team Nom Nom drives back to the bar they were parked in front of the night before to find the other trucks are already there. After a failed parallel parking attempt where they do slightly ram one of the other trucks, a teeny tiny crack appears in team Nom Nom’s armor but they pull it together and decide not only park in the same place as the other trucks, but to pass out coupons for a dollar off Nom Nom Banh Mi’s in the doorway of the bar. Interesting because they must have had them printed up before hand. I liked the recovery.

Then the truck stop call comes from Tyler Florence. He tells them that they have to stop selling right then, go to bed and meet him very early down by the docks. All teams are pretty upset that they have to stop selling with lines of people still in front of their trucks. Fair enough, since judgement is based on final sales.

After showing up at a warehouse early in the morning each team has to fillet one catfish and make a dish out of it in 30 minutes to be judged by Jacques Leonardi. The winner gets 500 dollars added to their till total and the losers still face some unknown punishment. These are the quotes for each teams dish:

Nom Nom: “The coolness of the salad went so well with the fish, which could have been cooked a little longer.”

Team Spencer: “…He’s definitely a French man, he doesn’t know how to cook grits…” Zing.

Grill ‘Em: “the smokiness of the grilling and the quail eggs were a nice touch, a little too tart.”

Austin: “ Interesting Combo, something got lost in the translation, the olive mayo was too sour.”

Team Spencer wins, and they get to take off and start selling with 8 hours left on the clock. The losing teams as a group have to fillet 700 pounds of catfish! Which takes them around 5 hours. Team Nom Nom races back to their Pinkberry spot to sell what they can in the remaining 3 hours, not that they needed to, they probably could have gone and taken a shower and a nap. Even with the catfish stealing 5 hours and the theft of their spot, team Nom Nom wins with total sales of 2,103, Grill ‘Em All comes in second with 1,307, Spencer On The Go comes in 3^rd with 1,170 (500 hundred of which was given to them) and Austin Daily Press loses with $809. Again, team Nom Nom wins nearly 2:1!  Shocking and news breaking, I know.