Andiamo debuted its first food truck at the Firebird Tavern parking lot on the corner of Brush and Monroe this Friday to a crowd about 75 people deep when the decked out purple food truck arrived. The first 50 people received free pasta bowls. A steady stream of diners followed after the initial rush.
The food truck will return to Detroit again this Saturday for the Riverside Groove Festival at Sinbad’s Restaurant and Marina. They will appear next week Monday or Tuesday either in the Firebird parking or Campus Martius. They will be in the suburbs of Macomb and Oakland county for various parties. The Walled Lake School District called them to do rounds at their schools. They want to serve lunch at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren in the future.
“The food truck is our way of appealing to a younger clientele,” said Dominic Vicari, Andiamo’s Director of Operations. “This food truck is the tester. We will see how it goes in the summer. If it goes well, we will see about getting more food trucks.”
Dining at an Andiamo’s restaurant is not cheap. It is the restaurant you choose to impress a date. The food truck, however, serves the same food in smaller portions and at a cheaper price. The one dish you have to order is the $9 calamari. The quality cannot be beat. It is the most tender calamari in Detroit. Their secret? They buy it dirty.
“Nobody else [buys it dirty],” Vicari said. “Our purveyors told us. Most companies buy it pre-cleaned where they use bleach to remove the ink. We get it in freshest, with the most flavor. We only use water to clean it off. It takes four hours to make 20 orders of calamari. We’ve been serving it for 25 years. It’s one of our most popular appetizers.”
Looking for ways to follow Andiamo’s food truck shenanigans? Check out their Facebook and Twitter.
