The busy bees over at the Food Network are hard at work right now shooting The Great Food Truck Race, an old-fashioned elimination-style competition that takes the model put forth by Survivor or The Amazing Race, and replaces Machiavellian small-group dynamics with hash-slinging battles. A starting fleet of seven trucks embarked a few weeks ago from a small town somewhere in America, and after each city’s receipts were tallied, the truck with the lowest sales drove home. The remaining group moved on to another city: In the past two weeks, the final four became three in Fort Worth, Texas (host Tyler Florence blogged about it), and three became two in Tennessee’s Tri-Cities (where the local news had an all-access pass). Grub Street can authoritatively confirm that this weekend, the two finalists will roll in to New York to battle it out for fame, glory, and $50,000 in prize money.
The trucks will sell their wares Saturday and Sunday, at locations to be determined — they’re required to scout out their own parking spots, a much taller order here in New York than in Jonesborough, Tennessee — and, in a crippling handicap, aren’t allowed to publicize their location through social media. Given the ubiquity of food blogs and Twitter, we’re sure the word will spread somehow. If you’re out of town this weekend, the show premieres August 15.
Spoiler alert!: We have it on impeccable authority that the two finalists are both from L.A.: The Nom Nom bánh mì truck will be up against heavy-metal burgermobile Grill Em All. San Francisco’s Spencer on the Go! was the unlucky sod who was eliminated last week. End of spoiler, though if you’re wandering around the city over the weekend you’ll probably spoil it for yourself anyway.
