"The Great Food Truck Race" airs at 6 p.m. Sundays on Food Network; repeats throughout the week
There was no lack of confidence at the Aloha Plate food truck during the Minneapolis-St. Paul leg of the "Great Food Truck Race."
At this stage in the competition, it was apparent that a major factor in the truck’s success has been the "coconut wireless," where word of a Hawaii presence draws instant support from former isle residents, relatives of isle residents and others associated with the islands.
In Minneapolis, host Tyler Florence provided each team with a whopping $400 in seed money, saying the Twin Cities had "a lot of people to feed with higher expectations."
On the first day, sales had barely begun before Florence told the teams to shut down and revamp their menus to sell food on skewers. Teams that hit $1,500 in sales could try for bonuses of $750 and $250.
Aloha Plate parked at a tiki bar and served marinated grilled sirloin with Asian glaze and Asian cole slaw but failed to hit the $1,500 mark.
In fact, no one did.
The next day, trucks were told to move to St. Paul. Aloha Plate found a busy spot on Grand Avenue and drew a long line of supporters. Rain presented challenges to everyone except Aloha Plate, since the team set up a tent to keep customers dry. Someone in the crowd even played ukulele, keeping the mood festive.
Florence presented a "Speed Bump" that forced the teams to close their trucks and figure out a special dish using … Spam! The first team to sell $500 worth of Spam plates would be free to travel to the Peace Officers’ Memorial to claim immunity. Anyone else who completed the challenge would be awarded $500.
As Aloha Plate’s crowd cheered upon hearing the news, the rest of the teams scrambled to figure out how to present the canned meat in an appealing way.
The outcome was no surprise. Aloha made quick work of selling teri Spam sandwiches and easily claimed immunity.
Other teams didn’t fare so well. Tikka Tikka Taco eventually met with success only by verbally explaining its dish to curious customers.
The Slide Show team had difficulties the entire episode, first struggling to open in Minneapolis, then falling short in sales in St. Paul.
Philly’s Finest Sambonis, always its own worst enemy, mistakenly ordered bread from two locations of the same market and failed to reimburse one store. That cost an extra $120.
Later, when their truck failed to start, the team lost an hour trying to fix it. It turned out the battery was dead, something they had failed to test.
The results, in earnings:
Aloha Plate led the way with $4,550 (though they had immunity); Tikka Tikka Taco trailed by $1 ($4,549). Philly’s Finest Sambonis miraculously came in third with $3,084. The Slide Show returned to Los Angeles after earning just $2,008.
