San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
This mac and cheese surpassed by none
‘Healthy-ish fat kid food’ among best in series
If you miss that part of your childhood where your diet was made up of mac and cheese, burgers and Kool-Aid, Satisfried is the food truck for you. With a slogan of “healthy-ish fat kid food,” owner and chef Brianna Esmeralda has created a menu of sliders, tacos and sandwiches with creative sides, including a killer mac and cheese.
The playful menu reflects Tex-Mex and Asian influences, and Esmeralda makes everything but the bread from scratch. It’s quality you can taste, though “healthy-ish” might be a bit of a stretch.
“Food trucks traditionally have limited menus anyways, so you need to put your best effort into everything that you offer to make you stand out,” Esmeralda said. “I feel like I’m hitting my stride as a chef.”
Indeed she is. Satisfried checks out as one of the finest food trucks in the city.
Best dish: The Crack & Cheese ($11) is the best take on mac and cheese that I have ever had in San Antonio in 21 years. Period.
Everything about it works. The perfectly cooked spiral pasta is doused in a creamy blend of Gouda, Parmesan, and white and yellow cheddar cheeses. Then it’s topped with a buttery crust of panko breadcrumbs that takes it to the next level.
After my first bite, I just sat there in a trance, shaking my head in amazement. Satisfried sells this as an entree, and you can add protein for an additional $4, but it’s perfect as is.
Other dishes: Esmeralda put her creative chops to work with the Caultato ($4), a play on potato salad where cauliflower subs for the potato for a cold and tasty dish. You get about a dozen florets to an order, and they come with feathers of dill and just enough mayonnaise to give them a light coating that doesn’t overwhelm.
Say no to fast-food chicken nuggets, and say yes to the Satisfried
Chickapeños ($4). Esmeralda adds a sliver of jalapeño to bites of chicken breast meat, wraps it all in bacon and tosses them in the fryer. When finished, they are doused with an amazing sweet barbecue sauce that tempers the heat from the peppers for a perfect bite. Served with ranch dressing, they come four to an order, and if they last more than five minutes, you’re doing it wrong.
The Spicy Liu ($4.50) takes center stage on the slider menu. It features a buttermilk-soaked chicken patty that’s breaded and fried, creating a crunchy golden armor that yields to the juicy chicken inside. That is topped with a tangy Asian glaze and coleslaw for yet another menu winner.
Esmeralda makes her own corn tortillas for her tacos. And while the corn flavor was great, there were texture issues, and they couldn’t make it past one bite without breaking up. Still, the flavor of the Texas Bon Temps tacos ($4.50 each), which came stuffed with four Cajun-style shrimp topped with a poblano aioli sauce, slaw and cheese, was so good, I just brought out a fork and kept eating.
Esmeralda calls her food trailer the culmination of a dream, and that’s passion you can taste with Satisfried, one of the best food trucks of this series.