The Jersey Shore is home to restaurants of all kinds, from burger joints and taco shops to fine-dining places with an ocean view.
But some of the most fun food can be found on food trucks. The owners of these kitchens on wheels create menus that are as creative as they are delicious, and seeking them out makes for great summer fun.
Here are five food trucks and trailers to find this summer.
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SnowChi Peruvian Cuisine
Never tried Peruvian food? Be on the lookout for Gianella and Andrew Kaplan’s red and white food trailer.
Gianella is a self-taught cook who went into business last year thanks to encouragement from Andrew, their family and friends. SnowChi Peruvian Cuisine’s most popular dish is a fried chicken sandwich with a fried egg, shredded lettuce, mozzarella, potato sticks and yellow sauce.
“It sounds ordinary, but I promise you, people love it,” she said. “The reason why this was a must to put on the menu is because it was my favorite sandwich to get when I lived in Peru, and I just knew people would love it, too.”
Searching for street food? Try the salchipapas and salchipollos, named for its ingredients: salchichas (sausages), papas (potatoes) and pollo (chicken).
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“Our salchipapas consists of hand-cut fries with … (chopped) hot dogs and sauces like ketchup, mayo and mustard with shredded lettuce on the side. It’s always served with a tiny Peruvian flag toothpick on top. Or you can have it with all the Peruvian sauces (like (ají verde and the Rocoto).”
The Kaplans started SnowChi after Gianella lost her hotel job during the pandemic. They appeared frequently at Icarus Brewing in Lakewood, at events like the Latin Food Festival in Paramus, and at breweries, wineries, flea markets and farms.
Where to find it: At events on weekends, but weekdays at New Egypt Speedway, 720 Route 539, New Egypt section of Plumsted; snowchi-pc.com.
Zappa Food Truck
Named for an open-faced toasted sandwich loved across Poland, Peter Walkowski and Veronika Gawel’s Zappa Food Truck serves Polish food by the beach in Asbury Park.
A traditional zapiekanka, or zappa for short, is topped with mushrooms, onions, cheese, tomato sauce and housemade garlic sauce. The food truck serves this version and nearly half a dozen others — including Mexican with corn, red beans, tomatoes, cilantro and jalapenos, and Italian with arugula, basil, sundried tomatoes, olives and capers,
“It’s a kind of street food that is very famous in Poland,” said Walkowski, who was born there. “(There is the) gyro in Greece, the kebab in Turkey, but people don’t know what (a zappa is). We kind of have to make a name for it.”
Walkowski and Gawel import their ingredients from Poland, down to the ketchup, mayo, mustard, pickles and sauerkraut. The kielbasa, served on their Polish zappa and in a bun like a hot dog, is specially made for them.
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The menu also includes potato and cheese-stuffed pierogi; a smoked salmon sandwich; and a stew of meat, sauerkraut and fresh cabbage called bigos.
“The thing that is cool about (Zappa) is that it’s different,” he said. ” … It’s an introduction to that central and eastern European food.”
Where to find it: North Eats food truck court, 7th and Ocean avenues, Asbury Park boardwalk, through Labor Day, then at festivals; zappafoodtruck.com.
WindMill Hot Dogs
Picture everything you love about the iconic WindMill Hot Dogs, only on wheels.
After utilizing a smaller mobile kitchen last summer for private events, WindMill owner Ralph Epstein is hitting the road with a larger food truck outfitted with a 6-foot-long flat-top grill, fryers and a self-serve soda fountain.
“We’re going to be around and out doing private parties and trying to build our public schedule,” Epstein said. “Our menu is literally everything you can get from the WindMill.”
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The restaurant, which has two locations in Long Branch — and one each in Belmar, Red Bank and Asbury Park, with another on the way in Brick — is known for hot dogs, burgers and fries.
Epstein plans to add a milkshake machine to the truck, too, “to keep the full-on WindMill experience.”
Where to find it: Seaside Park Fire Department’s family fun day, Saturday, June 22, 6th and Central avenues. Also at a hot dog-eating contest on Fourth of July at OceanFest, Long Branch, and at Lunch Break’s annual community picnic on Saturday, Aug. 17, at Red Bank’s Count Basie Fields; windmillhotdogs.com.
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Santo Ceviche
If you attended Belmar’s annual New Jersey Seafood Festival this spring, maybe you tried the food at Diana and Artie Montoya’s food truck.
Their most popular dishes are a spicy tuna rice cake; Santo ceviche with calamari, shrimp, fish, octopus, avocado, plantain chips and sweet corn; blackened mushroom tacos with mango, cucumber, red cabbage and black mint sauce; and a Peruvian-style beef sitr fry called lomo saltado, said Diana, who started the truck with her brother in 2018.
They opened a Belmar restaurant a year ago.
“My brother is a chef. Ever since we were kids, he was obsessed with cooking and he would make meals for me,” Diana said. “It’s a passion that he was born with.”
They started their food truck by the beach in Highlands, and “people didn’t really know what ceviche was, so little by little we educated everyone.”
Where to find it: The truck is mostly booked for private parties this summer, but its dishes are on the menu at the Santo Ceviche restaurant, 811 Belmar Plaza, Belmar; santo-ceviche.com.
ORB O BYTES
Creativity fuels Sal Hobler’s food trailer, a galactic-themed mobile kitchen that operates roadside in Tuckerton.
“I have a wild imagination,” said Hobler, who serves cooked-to-order dishes like the “Extra-Torrestrial,” a chicken, bacon and ranch sandwich on a parmesan-sprinkled ciabatta bun; the “Big Mis-Steak,” a cheesesteak with garlic jalapeño aioli sauce; and the “Lazer Blaster,” a crispy chicken sandwich with hot honey, spicy mayo, housemade slaw and pickles.
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There’s also garlic parmesan fries, cinnamon toast sweet potato fries with cream cheese cinnamon dip, and onion rings with chipotles, bacon and cotija cheese — plus milkshakes and Refresher drinks made with iced tea, lemonade or seltzer, and flavored syrups.
“I wanted to make food everybody loves but with a twist to it,” he told The Asbury Park Press shortly after opening last fall. “I’m trying to make everything very visually appealing and fun.”
Where to find it: 156 East Main St., Tuckerton; 609-857-1422, orbobytes.com.
Sarah Griesemer joined the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey in 2003 and has been writing all things food since 2014. Send restaurant tips to [email protected], follow on Instagram at Jersey Shore Eats and subscribe to our Jersey Shore Eats newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Jersey Shore food trucks and trailers to find this summer
