Well, there are (at least) two new Waffle Trucks in town: Waffle Love AZ and Waffle Crush. Both have opened within the last month-ish and they both seem to like parking in my back yard (not complaining!) Being lovers of waffles (particularly waffles of the amazingly sweet, sugary leige-sort), we of course needed to give both a whirl.
Waffle Love AZ is an import from Utah. Their truck is brightly decorated with a mural-like painting flowing across the whole thing. Their most common East-Gilbert haunt seems to be a dirt lot at the corner of Germann and Val Vista.
Location: Not a huge fan of the dirt-lot setup for food trucks. The actual experience of dining from food trucks is already unpleasant enough (wait in a long line outdoors, wait for your food, no place to sit, no easy way to eat your knife/fork food, etc) but then add to that the dusty dirtiness of a dirt lot, the haphazard parking and dealing with the drivers trying to find parking, and the fact that because the lot is not an actual place, it means that there isn't a convenient place to turn through traffic to get in, this was just not my favorite. They also had incredibly bright floodlights set up on the ground shining towards the truck. This was fine until you turned from the truck to head toward your car and were completely blinded just prior to heading into a dense crowd of people across uneven rocky, rutted ground.
Process: The line was long and did not move very quickly. The girl who was advancing along the line wasn't taking orders, per se... she was just jotting down your name and order onto the cardboard tray that would later hold your waffle. I didn't like that she came up to us when we were so far back in the line that we could literally not yet clearly see the menu, yet alone determine what we'd like to order, so we were put on the spot a bit. When we got to the front, a friendly Chef took our trays, rang us up, and had us use an iPad to run our credit card. There was an option for tip (15%, 20%, 25%, custom) We then waited another 15+ minutes for the order to be ready - it was a little difficult to hear them calling names and there were so many people that it was tough to get close enough to be sure you'd hear it.
The Menu: There's just one type of actual waffle - Belgian Leige waffles. From there, you can determine your toppings at an additional cost. Toppings include Nutella (classic), Biscoff (an amazingly delicious cookie spread that is the perfect graham cracker/cookie element to any s'more waffle dream you might have), Cream (but not the cheap whipped cream out of a can - thick, almost icecreamy cream) and strawberries, raspberries, bananas.... One thing that did disappoint me about the menu is that there wasn't really a simple, non-knife and fork option for the waffles outside of just getting a completely plain waffle. An option with cinnamon and sugar, or perhaps peanut butter (?) or something else that is more basic would be awesome for littles who may not appreciate the more advance offerings. There are also a small variety of drinks offered - hot apple cider, hot chocolate, milk, water.
The Goods: the waffles are delicious Liege waffles that use special waffle irons that caramelize the sugar on the waffles providing a crispier, sweet exterior that contrasts the soft and fluffy interior perfectly. The toppings are high quality and proportioned well so that you can create a perfect bite each time with a little bit of each element. I got what I think they called "The Classic" - Waffle, Biscoff, Strawberries, and Whipped Creme and it was certainly tasty.
Service: Everyone seemed nice, just a little rushed and there wasn't a whole lot of interaction, all of which is, I'm sure, because they were so very busy.
Overall - I did not like the location or setup a whole lot, the menu was just a little more limited than I'd have liked, but I think their waffle recipe is superior to other liege waffles I've tried elsewhere. The pricing is a little less than the other truck. They do offer a punch card, so if you plan to make visiting a regular occurrence then that can be a good perk! They did not (that I saw) offer "to go" containers as an option, but I may have missed it. read more