L Cemi Boriquas Cuisine Food Truck

L Cemi Boriquas Cuisine Food Truck

I don't know where they're typically located, but they were outside of Double Down Live (the old Common Grounds) on a Friday night.

4 thumbs up

I don't know where this truck came from or where it's going to end up, but I was certainly intrigued to find it parked outside of the Double Down Live last night. The truck looked super pro and wasn't merely a converted van or old ambulance. It was a commercially viable food truck. Despite it looking uber pro, they only had about 5 things for sale. Regardless, I decided to give it a go. The most expensive thing on the menu was a 6 dollar, 3 meat, foot-long sandwich. It still looked like quite the deal. Everything else was from 1-3 dollars. They specialize in traditional Puerto Rican items, which I am somehow completely unfamiliar with. I've never even seen a Puerto Rican restaurant, let alone eaten Puerto Rican food.

I ordered the "potato balls" and the corn meal sticks. Each had a Spanish name, which I negligently don't remember. The potato balls were 1 dollar. The corn meal sticks were 2. I don't know how you could complain about spending 3 bucks on fresh cooked food.

Let's start with the corn sticks. They weren't very good. I was hoping for so much more. They looked deliciously crispy and flavorful, but in actuality were a bit chewy and lacked flavor. I immediately forgave them for the corn sticks upon biting into the potato balls. Sweet lord-a-mighty, what tantalizing confection have you sent us from your merciful bounty? I was immediately blown away by these. I've never seen anything like them before. It was literally deep fried balls of mashed potatoes with savory seasoned ground beef inside (I honestly wouldn't have bought them had I known there was ground beef inside, but once I bit in, it was too late). They should probably consider advertising that there is meat in this item, as there are certainly many vegetarians in town who might be accidentally duped.

On rare occasion, deep frying can be a light and fluffy yet crispy and savory way to prepare food. Most of the time, however, it just makes the food laden with excess fat and super heavy when it hits your stomach. The corn sticks were the latter while the potato balls were miraculously the former. The frying process created a gossamer thin crisp layer around what was the lightest, fluffiest, and softest textured mashed potatoes inside. In the dead center was the ground beef. These things were so damn good. I got my order to go and ate them at home. While biting into the first potato ball, my cat jumped up on the table and was aggressively trying to eat it out of my hand. I couldn't get him away; it was as if he was possessed by them. They served them with some sort of pinkish-orange sauce that I think was just ketchup and mayo combined.

All in all, it looks like this truck will be serving up the perfect late night, post-drinking munchies. I'm really pleased to see the food truck becoming a part of Gainesville's food scene and hope it will continue.