The Great Food Truck Race cooks up a winner

The Great Food Truck Race rolled into Miami for the final challenge of the season, and both Hodge Podge and The Lime Truck were at the top of their game. Things got off to a fast start as Tyler Florence told them there would be no Truck Stop Challenge … yet … and that they had to start selling food with their $500 seed money.

The selling period could last for hours or days as each team had to make $15,000 and race to the Miami beach to pick up their $100,000 from Tyler. Chef Chris Hodge was at an advantage because he was able to buy food from his first boss’ restaurant. Lime Truck had no time to contact anyone so they had to shop it at a store.

Hodge got a great spot with a food truck meet-up and started making money hand-over-fist. Good contacts at the meet-up gave Hodge a line before they had even parked. Lime, on the other hand, had some trouble even getting a line, but knew they had an advantage with their California beach cuisine. And then …

Speed Bumps! The first one had the trucks towed and each team had to continue to sell food to raise $200 to get the truck out of impound. Both teams did well, regrouped and continued selling until Tyler called again and told them the day was done, get rest and prepare for the next morning’s Truck Stop Challenge. The teams were $176 apart at the end of day one.

Day two saw teams fishing to catch their main ingredient, Lime winning the challenge and a $1500 advantage, more and more money and another Speed Bump that closed down the trucks again for the day, and required them to sell only desserts on day three.

The teams were about $1000 apart going into the third day, with Lime ahead thanks to the monetary advantage. That challenge really killed Hodge Podge and Chris knew he over-seasoned his fish with a sauce, whereas Lime let their fish be the star of the dish. Going into the dessert challenge, both teams sold desserts as breakfast items and while it seemed like Hodge Podge made it to $15,000 first, Lime Truck beat them to South Beach by about five minutes, taking home the $100,000.

And that wraps up another season of The Great Food Truck Race. It was a good season, but it was also different than last season. Season one seemed to have a lot more camaraderie amongst the teams even though they were in competition, while season two had a lot more aggressive personalities which heightened the drama but took away some of the charm. Some of the Speed Bumps were also a little more sadistic than they needed to be, like when the teams had to go vegetarian after they had spent all their money on meat. Making them change up the menu is one thing, but give them less money and tell them to change it before they go shopping … or while they’re on the way to get food so they still have little time to prepare. And Tyler seemed a little more smug this season for some reason, especially as he delivered the Speed Bumps each week. And what of Korilla and the cheating scandal? Well, we’ve got about six months to wait before the guys can tell their side of the story.

It’s still a fun show, though, and I will tune in again should it come back next summer. I just hope they can continue to balance the charm and the challenges and not make it too cutthroat of a game. What did you think of the final outcome? Sound off below.

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Sep 26, 2011 @ 03:15 EST5EDT