This upcoming weekend, Durham Central Park will be home to yet another food-centric event: a Nacho Festival hosted by Qspresso Food Truck.
Featuring a multitude of food trucks, the Nacho Festival is set to take place Sunday, Sept. 23 from 1 to 4 p.m. Featured trucks include The Bamboo Cookhouse, Spanglish, Holy Mole, Las Gringas Tacos and Queso Monster, with dessert provided by Cocoa Forte.
“It’s a lot of fun, it's good food and it’s an activity for the people to come to on a Sunday afternoon,” said Courtney Caley, co-founder of Qspresso LLC.
Having already hosted an empanada extravaganza, Qspresso wanted to try something new — and they decided on a nacho festival. The festival features friendly competition for best nachos, of which the prize is a People’s Choice Award for Best Nacho Dish.
Upon purchase of a nacho dish, each attendee receives a ticket. The festival goer can then place the ticket in the truck’s corresponding voting jar and the truck with the most votes win. For this festival-turned-competition, Qspresso invited several food vendors to try their hand at nacho-making.
HOLY MOLE
Sister food truck to Qspresso, HOLY MOLE specializes in Cuban-Latin food, particularly enchiladas. All enchiladas are made with a chicken or veggie option, which can then be filled with a variety of ingredients. Given that their speciality is enchiladas, it will be exciting to see their take on the nacho.
The Bamboo Cookhouse
Featuring Filipino cuisine, The Bamboo Cookhouse is a food truck born out of a lack of Filipino cuisine in the Triangle area. The menu features items such as Pancit Palabok, a popular Filipino noodle dish made with shrimp sauce and topped with spring onions, pork cracklings, eggs, shrimp and fried garlic. They serve classic favorites but are said to “pride [themselves on their] Filipino street foods.” The Bamboo Cookhouse aims to provide a fresh-take on Filipino foods and are sure to offer an interesting twist on the nacho as well.
Las Gringas Tacos
Las Gringas is a signature Mexican taco that uses a flour tortilla and is topped with mozzarella cheese, pineapple, carne al pastor, and salsa roja or salsa verde. The Las Gringas food truck features four authentic Mexican meats — chicken, pork, beef and pork sausage — carved fresh. Las Gringas prides itself on serving authentic Mexican food, and for those interested in the authentic cuisine experience, this is just the place.
Queso Monster
Another Mexican themed food truck, Queso Monster wishes to “redefine the Mexican food truck,” according to website “Roaming Hunger.” Its owners Miguel Lopez and Patricia Martinez have over 15 years of experience in the food truck business and have traveled coast to coast bringing their twist to Mexican recipes. They claim to sell more than the “standard nachos,” which begs the question: will they live up to their self-proclaimed hype at this Sunday’s Nacho Festival?
Spanglish
The Spanglish Food Truck team consists of two married couples whose mission is to make Puerto Rican food with a Southern twist. They create their food using their grandmothers’ recipes, traditional Puerto Rican cookbooks and, most of the time, from combining authentic dishes with the Southern food they’ve come to know and love.
In addition to delicious food truck dishes, the Nacho Festival will have a live DJ and beer from Bull City Ciderworks. Admission is free, and the event is open to all ages. This festival is also in collaboration with Cecilia Henaine de Davis of Vega Metals and Becky Jo Cascio of Pie Pushers. There will be a private food truck rodeo, Trucks For the Park, to raise money for Durham Central Park after the Nacho Festival, but for this event tickets are $50. One ticket can feed up to three people and the event will last from 6 to 8 p.m.
Bring your friends, a raging appetite, and get ready to try some nachos!
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.