Food Truck Haven near Outlets of Orange

Food Truck Fans rejoice!!

There’s a new lot located across from the Outlets of Orange (formerly known as the Block of Orange) called the Food Truck Haven. The lot is run by food truck BellyBombz, and is opened for lunch AND dinner on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and the food trucks vary each day. Follow them on twitter: @FoodTruckHaven for updates.

Where’s this lot?
It is located off City Drive, near El Torito restaurant, across from the Dave and Buster / Lucky Strike parking lot. If you need to add it to your GPS, use 333 City Boulevard East, Orange, CA

I came here on a Wednesday night and by 6:00 there were cars filtering into the small parking lot. The lot is made for bus parking, so the slots are long. If you’re meeting up with friends, two cars can easily share one space, although you will be viewed as “double parked”. By 6:45 the lot was fairly full, and people were either creating spaces, parking next to the food trucks, or just parking across the street by Dave and Busters, and walking in.

The Food Truck Haven have tables and chairs to accommodate 20-30 people, but the seating is tight, so you have to be willing to shuffle the chairs, move the tables around, or inhale deeply to make room to squeeze in. You are also next to the mobile DJ, so the music can be a bit loud. On this occasion, 971 AMP radio kept it to a comfortable, listening level, and offered free gifts to the fans.

On my visit, the following long time veteran food trucks were serving up grub:
– BellyBombz (korean fusion)
– Piaggio on Wheels (Argentine)
– Dos Chinos (Asian-Latin)
– Cousins Maine Lobster (lobster/ seafood)
– Los Lobos (comfort food)
and Frijolito cafe truck, a coffee truck with a Latin twist.

The trucks on August 5, 2015

97.1 AMP radio played music and gave away free swag

The location is between the 5 and 22 freeway, off City Drive, making it a convenient place to get food before a midweek Angels baseball game. The only downside on my visit was only 2 trucks had provided trashcans, and they were not very big ones. As a long time follower of food trucks, this has always been a pet peeve of mine at food truck lots… the trash. If there’s no where to dump your trash, customers tend to get lazy and either leave it on the ground, or worse, toss it under the food truck. Hopefully they’ll have the trash can situation under control. I would also hope they could set up a recycle can for those who are green friendly.

Quesadilla from Piaggio on Wheels

Pulled pork sliders from Piaggio

Tacos from Dos Chinos

Coffee truck Frijolito was also at the Food Truck Haven. They said that they are a coffee truck “with a Latin twist”. There’s not too many food trucks that serves coffee, so I decided to give them a try.

As I walked up to the truck, I noticed a sign that said: check into yelp to get a free gift. The gift was a free hot chocolate. Sure, why not? The young lady asked if I wanted a Mexican hot chocolate or an American hot chocolate. In fact, she suggested I could get it iced, since it was so hot that night. I decided on a iced Mexican hot chocolate, and paid $0.50 to have it made with soy milk instead of whole milk.

While consuming the drink, I realized it would have been better to have the drink warm, as the undissolved chocolate was clumping at the bottom of my cup. The warm milk would have melted the chocolate, making it more consumable. I couldn’t complain at the price, thought, as it was pretty much a free drink.

The two ladies were very friendly and they provided quick service. Follow them on social media and give them a try. Their truck schedule is posted on their website http://frijolitosmobilecoffee.com/