If You’re Looking for a Real Taste of Alaska, Try a Food Truck

Last summer time, on an overcast July day, the coastal city of Sitka, as soon as the capital of Russian Alaska and lengthy a well-liked cease on Inside Passage cruises in Southeast Alaska, was thronged with passengers disembarking from three cruise ships. To accommodate the crowds, town had closed the primary road to vehicles. In their place, meals vans, carts and stands had popped up, making a pageant ambiance the place ambulatory diners spooned seafood chowder and devoured tacos.

“In summer, street food seems like the way to go in a place like this,” mentioned Gretchen Stelzenmuller, who cooked professionally in San Francisco earlier than shifting again house to Sitka in the course of the pandemic and opening her cell meals enterprise, Enoki Eatery, which serves Japanese-inspired consolation meals. “It’s healthy and uniquely celebrates Alaska ingredients, but you can also roll in and grab a bite and still do your tour.”

In the wake of the pandemic, as cruising returns to full energy in Alaska, meals vans and different distributors have proliferated in ports from Ketchikan to Seward.

“With a food truck, you can get into the restaurant business without the full brick-and-mortar entrepreneurial costs,” mentioned Jon Bittner, the state director of the Alaska Small Business Development Center. “That’s pretty attractive in smaller communities that service cruise ships.”

For passengers with just a few hours in port and much to see — together with ferry riders taking the Alaska Marine Highway — meals vans supply native flare at comparatively affordable costs and in much less time than full-service eating places.

“Food trucks are a natural extension of what draws people to Alaska, being outside,” mentioned Aaron Saunders, the senior editor at Cruise Critic.

Expect to pay slightly greater than within the Lower 48, given the excessive value of residing. Last summer time, I purchased a rooster and rice dish for $16 from a stand in Seward, a couple of {dollars} extra and a free can of Pepsi lower than the equal truck fare in New York City.

For the 2023 cruise season, which typically runs April to October, Alaska cruise authorities anticipate 1.65 million cruise passengers, up from the file of 1.3 million in 2019. Most will sail the Inside Passage, a roughly 500-mile route in Southeast Alaska that weaves by islands defending it from the churn of the Pacific Ocean.

While ship-bound guests could make their method by Anchorage — which has its personal thriving meals truck scene — the next in style cruise stops type a domestically grown coastal culinary path.

Ketchikan: Shrimp and grits and fried rooster sandwiches

Often the primary name in Alaska for northbound Inside Passage cruises, Ketchikan — a standard Tlingit fishing camp that as we speak thrives on tourism, business fishing and forestry — booms with the arrival of cruise ships. Passengers disembarking for day journeys within the Tongass National Forest or to see the totem poles at Saxman Native Village will discover a couple of meals stalls among the many vendor cubicles on the cruise dock — together with D’s Fish and Chip Shack — whereas extra sturdy food-truck choices might be discovered inside strolling distance.

“If you want to see someone make out with a chicken sandwich, come by our truck sometime,” wrote Thane Peterson, the proprietor of the meals truck Chicke Chicke Bang Bang, which focuses on rooster sandwiches ($12), in an e-mail. He described diners with “eyes closed, groaning, mumbling ‘Oh my god.’”

The truck, which launched final yr, can typically be discovered parked close to the cruise docks, and passengers, Mr. Peterson mentioned, account for two-thirds of annual gross sales.

A couple of blocks from the cruise berths, Amber Adams goals to open the city’s first meals truck lot, Dock Street Yard, in August with room for 3 distributors.

After shifting to Ketchikan from New Orleans 4 years in the past, Ms. Adams discovered herself cooking Creole dishes with Alaskan elements as each a reminder of house and a necessity in a small city with few eating choices. Currently the one tenant on the lot, her enterprise, the Food Truck, will serve shrimp and grits ($15) and rib-eye banh mi po’ boys ($18).

“Starting a restaurant is scary,” Ms. Adams mentioned on a break from prepping her truck. “But it’s a different beast here because of the huge influx of people for six months that basically doubles the population in town.”

Sitka: Smoked salmon musubi and seafood chowder

In the excessive season, disembarking passengers can match Sitka’s inhabitants of about 8,500. Again this yr, town is proscribing the primary thoroughfare, Lincoln Street, to foot visitors on days when cruise ship capability in port exceeds 5,000, inviting cell companies to arrange.

“I think it’s a really great way to showcase all the talent in this town,” mentioned Ms. Stelzenmuller, who launched Enoki Eatery final yr as a Lincoln Street pop-up serving variations of Hawaiian-style musubi, a wedge of rice topped with Spam or fish and certain by a seaweed wrap. “Street food should be a reason to come here.”

This yr, she bought a meals truck and parked it downtown. The automobile has allowed her to develop the menu, which can embrace steamed buns filled with pork or salmon and cream cheese ($9) and smoked salmon musubi ($8.50).

Just off Lincoln Street, behind Ernie’s Old Time Saloon, Barbara Palacios serves poke, chowder and ceviche from her cart, the Fresh Fish.

“We’re having a food-truck boom here in Sitka,” mentioned Ms. Palacios, who plans to improve her automobile later this yr to a full-size meals truck and proceed providing poke (tuna or salmon, $18), halibut ceviche ($14) and seafood chowder ($9 a cup, $14 a bowl).

“It’s a labor of passion and love,” mentioned Ms. Palacios, who typically works 12 hours a day in season.

A couple of blocks east, previous the Russian Orthodox St. Michael’s Cathedral, Ashley McNamee runs Ashmo’s, serving domestically caught fish in smoked salmon macaroni and cheese ($9), black cod on coconut rice ($10) and lingcod sandwiches ($12).

Like many meals truck operators right here, Ms. McNamee, whose résumé consists of 14 years cooking at an Alaskan fishing lodge, selected the meals truck over “the restaurant grind.” Still, she added, “With the influx of people off cruise ships, it’s almost all I can do to keep up.”

From the middle of city, it’s slightly over a mile to Harbor Mountain Brewing Co., the place Cambria Goodwin and Luke Bruckert base their brick-and-mortar Campfire Kitchen, a wood-oven pizza specialist. This yr, they’ve added a cell kitchen on the website to arrange fried rooster sandwiches ($15) and fried cheese curds ($9) to maintain up with the crush of enterprise.

In a separate endeavor, Ms. Goodwin just lately opened Sitka Salmon Wagon, serving salmon bisque ($10 a cup, $16 a bowl) from a trailer parked downtown “to feed the masses,” she mentioned.

The climate generally is a problem to outside eating in Southeast Alaska’s temperate rainforest. After one yr operating Blumen Dogs scorching canine cart, Shawn Blumenshine is including a meals truck and can function in a number of areas, serving Nathan’s Famous franks ($7) and artistic variations ($11), together with the Banh Mi Dog with carrots, cabbage, jalapeños, French dressing and candy chili sauce. To date, patrons are largely native. “I’ve got hardcore banh mi fans,” mentioned Mr. Blumenshine.

Juneau: Fish tacos and potato pizza

The state capital, Juneau, isn’t any stranger to meals carts and vans. Trailblazers on the town embrace Bernadette’s, a Filipino barbecue cart began in 1996 that pulls strains of visiting cruise ship crew members, a lot of whom are Filipino, and Pucker Wilson’s, opened 9 years in the past, and dishing two-fisted burgers just like the Huskey Dawson topped with bacon, onion rings and cheese ($16).

Visitors in search of Alaskan seafood on the go will discover it a couple of blocks from the cruise pier at Deckhand Dave’s, a fish taco purveyor that anchors a food-truck yard. The truck and yard are run by Dave McCasland, a self-taught chef who labored for 2 years as a cook dinner on a business fishing boat to repay his school loans earlier than launching his truck in 2016 with gadgets like blackened rockfish tacos ($13.50 for 3).

In 2019, he developed the meals truck lot with room for the unique enterprise, a by-product oyster and champagne bar and different cell tenants, as we speak together with the Alaskan Crepe Escape and a cotton sweet maker.

“People travel for a taste of place, and when they come to Alaska they really want to eat seafood and eat local,” mentioned Midgi Moore, who runs Juneau Food Tours, guiding guests to locations like Deckhand Dave’s.

Five miles from downtown, within the route of the Mendenhall Glacier, the Alaskan Brewing Company tasting room hosts meals vans, together with Forno Rosso, serving wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas ($13 to $17 for 10-inch pies). Before shifting to Juneau, the truck’s house owners, Alexander and Kym Kotlarov, lived in Rome the place they developed a ardour for pizza that led to the cell enterprise named for his or her red-tiled oven.

If guests discover out-of-the-way Forno Rosso, they are usually impartial vacationers or craft beer followers, in accordance with Ms. Kotlarov, who makes use of specialty flour, San Marzano tomatoes from California and domestically grown Genovese basil.

“I feel like we’re swimming upstream with our agenda of caring about quality and staying true to the Italian thing,” Ms. Kotlarov mentioned, noting that she continues to supply Italian potato pizza as a particular periodically.

Seward: Reindeer scorching canines and birria plates

A port on the Kenai Peninsula, roughly 130 miles south of Anchorage, Seward tends to get cruise ships in the beginning or finish of their itineraries. On the highway system, it additionally attracts vacationers by land.

“They disembark and embark in Seward,” mentioned Kameron Weathers, the proprietor of Wild Spoon meals truck and catering firm. “We’re not a stop.”

Still, ship crew and road-trippers patronize her stand for souped-up reindeer or buffalo canines topped with beet kimchi and ginger aioli ($10), and venison specials.

In summer time 2020, regardless of the collapse of tourism in the course of the pandemic, Faith Alderman and Fiona Crosby launched their breakfast-and-lunch enterprise, the Porthole, to seize the early morning visitors at Seward Harbor with breakfast burritos ($12) and English muffin sandwiches ($8). Open at 4:30 a.m., the enterprise attracts captains, deckhands and guests taking boat journeys to the close by Kenai Fjords National Park.

Seward vacationers certain for Alaska SeaLife Center, an aquarium and marine analysis heart on Resurrection Bay, can’t miss Los Chanchitos, a busy Mexican meals truck that anchors a close-by lot shared by Early Bird espresso truck and an ax-throwing enterprise. It focuses on birria or beef brisket tacos ($17), amongst different fare.

Peter Cavaretta, who spent greater than a decade within the southern Baja Peninsula, opened the truck final April after visiting his sister in Seward and seeing “lines out the door for semi-average food at high prices,” he mentioned. “I wanted to do super-good food at moderate prices.”