The best time of the month is here once again – FIRST FRIDAYS. And it’s featuring a host of native Kansas City food trucks.
First Fridays’ feasts frequently flourish, featuring fathomless, famished fellow food fanatics fervently, fondly foraging for fresh, flavorful food fixings.
Was that failingly, facetiously flippant of me? Frighteningly so, frankly.
That week I tried three new (to me) trucks – Da Poké Wagon, La Plaza, and KC Smoke Burgers. All tasty, worthy contenders, but there was only one true standout (spoiler alert, it was Da Poké Wagon).
KC Smoke Burgers
From KC Smoke Burgers I tried, you guessed it, a burger. If you’ve ever had a burger in your lifetime then you won’t need anymore description for this one.
Sometimes you might just want a regular, simple, predictable yet still filling burger – KC Smoke Burgers delivers on that.
If you’re the type that orders chicken tenders from every restaurant you visit, their take on the hamburger is probably exactly what you’re looking for. They have chicken tenders here as well, along with corn dogs, hot dogs, various fries, and some phillys.
If you’re in the mood for something slightly more adventurous and nutritious than a regular burger, keep reading.
La Plaza
Next was La Plaza, featuring some Mexican staples like sope, flautas, tostadas, huarache, and, of course, tacos.
If language is any indication of authenticity to you, you’ll be pleased to find that no English was spoken here. No worries if you don’t speak Spanish through, La Plaza employs a few children to stand at the front, translating for those of us lacking in the multi-linguistic department. Just tell them if you want chicken, steak, or pork and you’re good to go.
The tacos from La Plaza come with radishes – which is a great texture contrast for a taco, especially when you have a soft tortilla. It also cuts through the grease and makes you feel like you’re having an actual meal – not just going on another late-night taco bell run. Finish off with a spritz of the complimentary lime wedge and these are some above average tacos.
La Plaza doesn’t have a website, but if you’re in the mood for some good $2 tacos, you can call them at 816-469-3270.
Da Poké Wagon
I saved the best for last.
Da Poké Wagon is a Hawaiian cuisine truck featuring customizable poké – a traditional Hawaiian dish featuring chunks of raw, marinated fish. It’s become a popular food trend in the past few years and for good reason – it’s absolutely delicious.
Poké in the Midwest?? Yes, please!
Da Poké Wagon ordering operates like a mix of chipotle and a sushi restaurant. Customers choose from an assortment of ingredients to be crafted according to their selections. Making the bowl consists of five main criteria: size, base, protein, topping, and sauces.
Get the large so you can save some for later.
First select whether you want rice (brown or white) or chop salad for your base, then choose a protein: tuna, salmon, or tofu. You can choose to have the meat marinated or leave it naked. Then for toppings you can have sweet onion, edamame, scallion, seaweed, jalapeno, wasabi, ginger, tobiko, crunchies, pineapple, cucumber, and sesame seeds. One or all of those can be included, but I also chose to add avocado for $1 more (worth it!).
Then come the sauces: spicy aioli, chili aioli, wasabi aioli, yuzu vinaigrette, unagi, and shoyu sesame. Choose one or mix them all together – I’d recommend pairing a nice creamy aioli with a lighter sauce or vinaigrette. Go for the chili if you’re feeling spicy.
If you’re trying this for the first time and not feeling totally confident in your decision-making skills, Da Poké wagon also has a couple of signature bowls, Da Hawaiian (fresh and sweet), Da Works (why choose one topping when you can have them all), and Da Heat (hot and zesty).
Whatever you decide, it’s going to be ‘Ono. The founders and operators of Da Poké Wagon didn’t just knock off a dish, they spent time traveling, eating, and tasting in Hawaii in order to find the freshest, most flavorful poké ingredients they have shipped straight from Hawaii to your stomach.
They also grabbed some sweet aprons.
So far, Da Poké Wagon is my favorite Kansas City food truck. It’s unique, innovative, and most importantly it tastes amazing.
Let me know which food trucks you can love so I can try them next…
Mahalo!
About Me!
KCFoodGal is a Kansas-City based food blogger with a capricious, ceaseless appetite and a penchant for trying new, sometimes wacky, foods. When she’s not on the hunt for the nearest food truck by night, you can find her in downtown Kansas City, daylighting as a professional business writer.
There’s no culinary comfort zone here at KCFoodGal, and the only thing off limits is cantaloupe. The hope of this blog is that you’ll try something new and explore all of the diverse, delicious fare that Kansas City has to offer.
Let’s go eat!