(credit: NYSF)

One of the true pioneers of the NYC food truck scene is Kim Ima and The Treats Truck.  They have been around since 2007, and were given a Best Dessert award at the 2008 Vendy Awards, before the Best Dessert category even existed.

Always evolving, last year Kim came out with the Treats Truck Baking Book, and last weekend, the Treats Truck Stop opened at 521 Court St in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.  We heard there was a toast (with milk and cookies) and a ribbon cutting.  The closest subway stop is the Carroll stop on the F or G.

But this column is about food trucks, and last week I stopped by the Treats Truck to sample a selection of different treats.  I got a Mexican brownie, a raspberry ring and a kitchen sink crispy.

raspberry ring (credit: NYSF)

My whole family are big fans of Kim’s Mexican brownies, which are $3 each.  Not only is there enough chocolate to satisfy chocolate lovers, but the spices are subtle and incredible!  Mixed into the batter are cinnamon, cloves, chocolate chips, probably a few spices I can’t detect, and chili powder.  The chili powder is just enough to tickle the tongue, but not enough to be spicy.

I could eat everything on the Treats Truck, and the Mexican brownies would still be my favorite! The photo may not look like anything special, but take my word for it, the various flavors in this brownie are incredible.

Mexican brownie (credit: NYSF)

The raspberry rings cost $2 each, and were similar to Linzer tortes, but these had sugar crystals on top instead of confectioners sugar.   On the first bite, I could taste vanilla extract in the cookie dough, and the sugar crystals added a nice crunch.  On the second bite, I got to the delicious raspberry preserves in the center.  Very, very yum!

The last item I tried was the aptly-named kitchen sink crispy.  Baked into the dessert were pretzels, M&M’s, chocolate chips, and peanuts.  It was a large cube, which made it a little tricky to eat, but the reward was worth the effort.  There was a little of the sweet & salty thing going on, and every bite had something besides cereal and marshmallow.

kitchen sink crispy (credit: NYSF)

It’s easy to see why the Treats Truck is so beloved by New Yorkers.  I’ve been there many times, and have never been disappointed.  You can see the truck’s menu here, although items do rotate.

As of last weekend, you can get all of these goodies and much more at the Treats Truck Stop in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.  For a closer look at the shop, click here for a write-up by Blondie & Brownie.

Or you can bake these treats yourself with the Treats Truck Baking Book.  Or you can find the Treats Truck on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

There are many ways to get these treats – and they’re all good!.

 

Citibank is kicking off a month long celebration of small businesses with a week of FREE treats in 10 New York City neighborhoods.

The Citi Small Business ThankYou Truck will stop in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens from May 7 – 11 with treats from popular New York eateries such as Fat Witch Bakery, Grandaisy Bakery, Sugar Cake Flower Shop and Mille-Feuille, the French bakery and coffee shop.

Click through for more details of where to get one of these delicious FREE treats.

mille feuille macarons

The FREE treats will be provided by four small New York businesses:

• Brownies from Fat Witch Bakery (www.fatwitch.com), home of New York’s legendary brownie;
• Biscotti from Grandaisy Bakery (http://www.grandaisybakery.com/ ), a European-style bakeshop tailored to modern New York sensibilities.
• French Macarons from Mille-Feuille (http://www.millefeuille-NYC.com/home), a new French bakery and coffee shop in Greenwich Village;
• Trifle cups from Sugar Flower Cake Shop (www.Sugarflowercakeshop.com), the home-sweet-home of custom cakes featuring realistic flowers and decorative objects handmade from sugar.

The truck is scheduled to deliver the goodies in 10 different neighborhoods, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each stop will last for two hours.

We have seen the schedule, but were asked not to publish it.  There are stops in Park Slope (2), Upper East & West Sides, Flatiron, Union Square, Greenwich Village, Meatpacking District, Middle Village and Forest Hills.

Check Citibank on twitter to find out the schedule each day.

Fat Witch brownies

(credit: NYSF)

See below for UPDATE.

We don’t usually post on weekends, but this is special!

Last year at Taste of the Parks, our friends at Kelvin Slush told us about a new cart they won a bid for with the NYC Parks Dept.  We were even more excited than usual because the park they were coming to was in our neighborhood!

Today we were out running errands and ran across the new Kelvin Slush cart in the Little Red Park on the corner of Bleecker St & 6th Ave!  It has all the same great menu items that helped them win the 2010 Vendy Award for Best Dessert.

Now you know where to get a Kelvin Slush without having to worry about where the truck is.  Once the new cart is up and running, they expect it to be open from 12-9pm seven days a week.  Lots of train come into the West 4th St Station, and Kelvin is only a couple of blocks away.

For our inaugural slush from Kelvin’s Ice Cube, we had our new friend Josh make a ginger base with raspberry mixed in. What an amazing combination!

UPDATE 5/6/12 – The Ice Cube will not be out for a few days so they can tweak some things on the cart.  We will let you know when it returns.

(credit: NYSF)

(credit: NYSF)

The FREE cupcake promotion today from Food Network Magazine and Sweetery NYC celebrates the specialties of 8 different travel destinations, 7 of which are US states.  For example, I had a Cinnamon Praline cupcake (above), which is a specialty of Louisiana.

Other cupcakes being given away were Rocky Road (Colorado), Mississippi Mud (umm?), Vanilla Peanut Brittle (Virginia), Sweet Potato & Marshmallow (South Carolina), Pineapple Crunch (Hawaii), and Banana Pudding (Texas).  There is also a Tropical Rum Colada from the Cayman Islands, which is like another state to our 1%’ers.

The truck will only be at Hudson & King until 10:30.  After that:

11:00a-1:00p – 50th St between 6th & 7th Ave.

1:30-3:30p – 7th Ave between 36th & 37th St

4:00-5:30p – Broadway between 52nd & 53rd St.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to send us a tweet with your photo!

(Credit: NYSF)

How would you like to score a FREE cupcake tomorrow, May 2nd?

The Food Network Magazine and Sweetery are joining forces for a FREE cupcake giveaway.

The truck is currently being wrapped, but it will look like the mock-up above.

There will be 4 different locations and times for the Cupcakes On The Road giveaway.  Click through for more details.

Wooly's Ice wins Best Dessert (credit: NYSF)

Update - Just heard from Danny, and they hit a snag with their opening.  They will be back out very soon, and we will keep you updated on exactly when.

Last year’s Vendy Award Winner for Best Dessert, Wooly’s Ice, will be coming out of hibernation and kicking off their season on Tuesday, May 1st.

Danny (middle of photo) from Wooly’s Ice told us about some changes in store for this season, including their location and a new menu item.

Starting tomorrow May 1st, Wooly’s Ice and their yellow shaved ice machine (below) will be at South St Seaport all summer, through the end of October.  Their hours will be from 12-9pm, and they are expected to be open 7 days a week!

Wooly's ice shaver in action (credit: NYSF)

Wooly’s will also be at various events throughout the summer including the Brewers Picnyc over Memorial Day weekend at Governors Island.  They snuck out one night recently at the Taiwanese Night Market, that was hosted by TAP-NY.

The most exciting news is that the menu has been updated with a brand new flavor: Mango! The new mango flavor will be served at least for the first month of operation.

You can follow Wolly’s Ice on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

Shaved ice with brownies, strawberries & leche sauce (credit: NYSF)

(credit: NYSF)

Cupcake Crew has been around the streets of NYC since late 2010, and are easy to spot with their distinctive black and pink truck.  But the nicest looking truck won’t last if the food being served is not up to snuff, and Cupcake Crew delivers on that front.  They were Best Dessert Finalists at the 2011 Vendy Awards, and you’re about to see why, if you haven’t already tried them.

Their menu rotates on a daily basis, and you can see the selection and prices here from the day I visited last week.  In order to try a few, I usually get an assortment of 3 mini-cupcakes for $5.  I got ‘smores, Brooklyn blackout and the very last red velvet mini-cupcake.

red velvet mini-cupcake (credit: NYSF)

I started with the red velvet, which had that sweet cream cheese frosting found on red velvet cake.  Frankie put little candy hearts onto the frosting, which added sweet crunchiness, and the cake itself was moist and tasty.

Next up were the ‘smores and Brooklyn blackout cupcakes.

'smores & blackout mini-cupcakes (credit: NYSF)

Both the ‘smores and blackout cupcakes had dark chocolate cake that was delicious.  The ‘smores had a couple of dusted marshmallows on top, and some ground graham cracker mixed into the frosting.

The blackout cupcake is a tribute to the blackout cake from the old Ebinger’s Bakery in Brooklyn.  When I was a kid, my grandparents used to bring Ebinger’s blackout cake from Brooklyn to our house, and it was amazing – dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate pudding frosting and chocolate crumbs!  Ebinger’s Bakery is no longer around, but they were one of the best at the time.

Cupcake Crew’s homage does not have chocolate pudding frosting, but it was still very good.  If you love chocolate, this one’s for you.

I enjoyed the mini-cupcakes very much and was about to leave, when Frankie said I have to try a bacon maple cupcake, his most popular seller.  I didn’t want to be rude, so what else could I do but accept his offer.

bacon maple cupcake (credit: NYSF)

He didn’t have any minis left, so I had to take a full-sized cupcake.  The sacrifices I make for NYSF are unbelievable!

The frosting was maple flavored with a small strip of bacon on top.  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I bit into the cake.  Not only was it maple flavored, but there were small pieces of bacon mixed into the batter. Yum!

Cupcake Crew make it around to different neighborhoods, and you can find them on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.  Give them a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Wooly's Ice with Maker's Mark sauce at the 2011 Vendy's (credit: NYSF)

Friday marks the reappearance of Wooly’s Ice, Winner of Best Dessert at the 2011 Vendy Awards.

Wooly’s will be one of the vendors at the TAP-NY Taiwanese Night Market on Friday night.  Tickets are sold out, but our friends at Google Places are giving away 10 tickets.  Click through to find out how you can win tickets to this event.

Similar to the Ice Cream Social we co-hosted with Google Places and Coolhaus, you have to sign up for Google Places and review as many NY businesses as you want.  Each new quality review is a new entry, so the more reviews you write, the better your chance to win!

Hurry because on April 12th (tomorrow), they will assign all the reviews written points for overall quality, and whoever has the most points, wins a pair of tickets.  There will be 5 winners of 2 tickets each.

Click here to enter and good luck!

TAP-NY’s first ever annual Night Market is an escape to Taiwan’s most iconic and well known attraction.  One ticket gives you the chance to taste wonderful Taiwanese snacks (小吃) and foods like snowflake ice, Asian-inspired cupcakes, pork chop rice, and Taiwan Beer! Tickets also give you access to Taiwanese night market games, performances, and a chance to win fun raffle prizes like an Apple ipod, Apple Sidra, and more!

Wooly's wins Best Dessert at the 2011 Vendy Awards (credit: NYSF)

Crowdfunding is coming to the food truck world with a bang.

We recently told you about the Snap Truck raising the last $10,000 they needed to get their truck on the street via Kickstarter.

Now we hear Dessert Truck, the two-time Vendy Award Finalist, is looking to raise money for packaging to get their products into grocery stores.  We had their warm chocolate bread pudding w/vanilla custard sauce at the 2010 Vendy Awards, and it was spectacular!

Jerome Chang, owner of the Dessert Truck and DT Works is working with Paperwhite Studio to create a new brand and packaging so you can enjoy delicious Dessert Truck goodies in the comfort of your own home.  They have already raised over $3,000 and there are still 3 days left.

You can help fund the project with pledges of $5, $25, $50, $100 or $500.  For your pledge, you get desserts worth more than your pledge amount in return.  If the goal is not reached, your credit card is not charged for the pledge.

Jerome is using Lucky Ant for this project.  Check out the short video below for more details or click here for more details.

We also heard about another crowdfunding project coming down the pike from a Vendy-nominated food truck, but have been asked to keep quiet until the vendor is ready to go public.  We’ll let you know about that one soon.

(credit: New York Street Food)

Everybody raves about the savory food at The Cinnamon Snail, as well they should, with Adam & crew having two Vendy Award nominations under their belt.

But at the 2011 Vendy Awards, The Cinnamon Snail won the Maker’s Mark Challenge for a dessert.  People attending the event voted Adam’s vanilla bourbon creme brulee donuts as the best use of Maker’s Mark bourbon in a recipe.

So in addition to great vegan food, Adam is also a master baker.  That should come as no surprise since a cinnamon snail is actually a pastry, but it’s no mean feat when you can’t use eggs.  The window on the truck (above) looked wonderful, so I asked for a sample of different baked goodies and let them choose for me.

(credit: New York Street Food)

When I opened the box, there was a cruller, two donuts and an apple turnover.

I started with the cruller, which had Mexican chocolate glaze on it.  This was a BIG pastry that could easily hold you until lunch if you had it for breakfast, but it was more of a dessert.  The chocolate glaze had a little bit of spice to it, but it wasn’t spicy.  It was yummy though, and filling.

The chocolate and peanut donut was next, and it had that sweet and salty thing going on.  The donut glaze was very sweet and the peanuts were salty.  I’m not sure what Adam uses for donut dough, but the dough was definitely richer than other donuts I’ve had.

(credit: New York Street Food)

I gave the strawberry creme donut to a co-worker, and while I didn’t get detailed feedback, they did say it was delicious.  They had no idea it was a vegan donut, and were quite surprised when I told them.

The apple turnover was a good way to end.  I’ve always loved apple, whether in pies, pastries or anywhere.

The apple turnover was much less sweet than the donuts.  There was a nice, strong taste of apple in the filling, and really flaky pastry dough around it, with a light sprinkling of sugar on top.  This was probably my favorite of the three, but that’s because I love both apple and flaky dough.

I don’t usually get dessert with lunch, but at The Cinnamon Snail, it’s very difficult not to.