Fruit Street Kitchen
Food TruckSo, I’ve been on a food truck streak lately.
Work brought me back to South Haven over the July 4th weekend. The 3rd of July is not the day you want to be in town unless you want to be in town for the fireworks. I didn’t have the 3rd off and my job required me to be in South Haven that night, so here we are.
I did my best to avoid downtown. I knew if I wanted to get dinner, I’d have to do it right as I was getting to town around 4:00. I had ideas including a food truck that I knew wasn’t near the beaches.
Fruit Street Kitchen is the food truck that pushed for new regulations in South Haven. The owners wanted to be able to operate all year round and have a little more leniency on places they could set up away from the restaurants downtown. Right now, they’re semi-permanently parked behind A & D One Stop on the corner of Indiana Avenue and Elkenburg Street right next to Elkenburg Park.
Fruit Street Kitchen calls their food family home style cooking. The permanent menu has some turkey options, wings, pork chops, and some fried fish. They usually have a few specials listed on a chalkboard they set up near the road. I was just about to order the chicken wings when I noticed they had rib tips.
I put in an order for rib tips and an order of fries. The woman who took my money told me it’d be just under ten minutes because they had to cook the fries. the cost for my meal was right around $18. I got there just in time too. As I was waiting, a guy pulled up in a golf cart and asked about putting in an order for 18 people.
When the fries were done, I was handed a bag with two Styrofoam containers. I headed back to my car then to my job site for the night to dig in.
I started with the fries on the way because I knew I could eat them while slowly making my way around South Haven. The fries are pretty standard frozen fries that they threw a salt and pepper seasoning on. The guy cooking my order leaned out and asked if I wanted sauce on the fries…I did..but I also knew I’d make a mess if I did that so I passed. They were really tasty with just a little bit of seasoning on them so I didn’t miss the sauce too much.
I seem to be eating food truck rib tips a lot lately and with good reason. The best tips come from food trucks. They’re something that’s fairly easy to smoke and they hold up well in warmers. The tips from Fruit Street Kitchen were huge. They were big slices of pork covered with a thick, sweet sauce. The tips were tender but still had a little resistance to bite so it wasn’t like I was just biting through air. The sauce was liberally applied and I used the slice of white bread that was in the box to soak up as much of it as I could after I was done with the tips.
Fruit Street Kitchen turned out to be just what I needed. Quick, delicious food. I knew getting something from a downtown restaurant would have been a nightmare but I didn’t want McDonalds either. This was perfect. I got a delicious meal with less than a ten minute wait. Exactly what a food truck should be…..now if they could just convince City Council to put them at the beaches……
SW Michigan Dining 