Mt. Airy Street Fare

Street Fare, Mt. Airy’s food-centric evening street festival, boasts an assortment of food trucks, crafts and retail vendors, and musical entertainment. I was more than excited to take Septa’s Chestnut Hill West line out to the historical northwest Philly neighborhood. My friend and I arrived at the festival on Germantown Avenue around 8pm to a Caribbean influenced live band named Hennessey Bonfire. With the Cuban and African beats guiding us, we made our way from one end of the main street to the other, stopping at various southern BBQ, Latin, Mediterranean and dessert food trucks. I was more than impressed with the diversity of food options, which led me to stand in both the popular food truck lines and the lines for more eclectic options.

First, I managed to find Say Cheese- a gourmet grilled cheese truck that includes options such as fired mozzarella grilled cheese, grilled cheese with bacon, cheddar bleu grilled cheese, and the short rib grilled cheese. I elected to try the short rib grilled cheese while my friend chose the buffalo bleu grilled cheese. My sandwich involved BBQ short rib, caramelized balsamic red onion and a thick layer of Malton cheese on two hearty slabs of rye bread. The rye bread coupled with the tender meat and gooey cheese added a welcoming blend of sour, spicy, and savory. Although the sandwich was a bit pricey at $10, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

After perusing the street for some more choices, we stopped at Scratch’s southern biscuit food stand for their famous homestyle biscuits. I was looking forward to trying their popular yam fries, but the biscuits were their only options. I opted out of trying one, but my friend chose the brisket biscuit, which includes “mom’s” BBQ brisket, horseradish mayo and pickles—yum. My friend said it was delicious, so I’m a little bummed that I chose to skip the southern treat.

To finish off the night, I wanted to try something new. I settled on Foolish Waffles- the sweet and savory waffle food truck. Foolish Waffles offers fried chicken and waffles, pork belly banh mi waffles, PB &J waffles, and more. I chose the caramel apple crisp waffle, which includes a sugar waffle topped with honey roasted local Honeycrisp apples, mascarpone whipped cream, salted caramel and oatmeal crisp. This waffle was probably the highlight of my trip. I am a huge fan of anything with caramel and apples, so this dessert was the perfect choice. Plus, the whipped cream was homemade, so that was definitely a bonus.

Overall, the festival was enjoyable. I’m sad I waited until senior year to finally make it to the event, but I will try to make it up by attending more food truck events this school year.

– Ashlee Burris