Sam's Chowdermobile

My nicer half was looking for new material, so asked me to add an entry of my latest food adventure. I've been swept up by the hype surrounding the gourmet food truck trend. After reading a review in the Mercury News of Sam's Chowdermobile, I eagerly anticipated trying one of their lobster rolls. I still have a vivid recollection of an extraordinary lobster roll I had in Maine in the '90s which was full of large pieces of lobster tail in a butter sauce. Thus, I checked the Chowdermobile's website to see when they'd be in my area, and marked in it my Outlook for 11:30AM. Unfortunately, I was stuck on the phone with IT until 12:15, and by the time I got to the truck, there was an extremely long line. But I figured I'd had the lobster roll on my mind for a while, so I might as well stick around. I ended up getting my food an HOUR later, but was denied my lobster roll : ( -- they ran out shortly before I placed my order. I was not a happy camper. I ended up ordering two fish tacos ($5/each). Each taco had a large piece of fried fish on a bed of cabbage and some kind of slightly spicy orange sauce. Given that I was rather cranky after the long wait and no roll, I was pleasantly surprised to find the taco exceeding my expectations. The fish was hot, perfectly cooked (I think it was cod) and coating was crisp. However, the efficiency of the ordering process was unacceptable. In addition to running out of the lobster roll, the Chowdermobile also ran out of clam chowder, which many in the line were hoping to order. I felt that the people in the truck should have updated the whiteboard listing the items to indicate that an item was no longer available. Instead, the waiting time in the line was unnecessarily prolonged because people often ordered one or more items only to be told that it was no longer available. From what I saw, the lobster roll had a fair amount of lobster, but consisted of many small pieces of claw/legs and not large chunks of tail. I don't think I'd go back for the lobster roll if I had to wait more than 15 minutes. For the real thing, I guess I'll have to wait until my next trip to Maine.