Tamale Trolley

This place catered my company’s lunch today. It was pretty good. I was able to sample quite a bit of their menu; beef tamales, pork tamales, black bean tamales, enchiladas, and the chicken asada taco. All were excellent. All items tasted great and were served hot. Though the descriptions said particular items were spicy, I did not find them to be overly so. Basically it’s a nice, basic Mexican food.
I can’t be sure the price as it was paid for by my company. I can’t imagine it being too expensive.
I think the only thing I’d change is for a little bit more cumin in the seasoning and perhaps a little hot sauce. Other than that, it was pretty good!
I will definitely be on the lookout for the truck and will eat there again in the future.

This review is for the fish taco only. I will try the tamales next time.
So I know … who goes to the «tamale» trolley and skips the tamales? Someone wanting to find a good fish taco in Memphis, that’s who. Despite my efforts, I have never found that to die for fish taco in Memphis, and that’s been disappointing for me. I’m sure it’s out there, and I’ll keep trying. But in the tamale trolley, I found a great addition to the spontaneous food scene in Memphis.
The taco was a nice combination of flavors. Hot (as in out of the frying oil) tilapia filets. Cool and crisp cabbage and onion. Tangy lime wedges. Spicy chili sauce. Double tortillas. Mix these together, and it was a tasty treat.
But why was it tasty? Really, the fact the fish was hot and the cabbage was cold and the sauce was spicy and the lime added the acidic touch … that’s why. Too many times I order a fish taco and the fish is cold (or lukewarm) or the cabbage is warm or there is some thick sauce that destroys the ability to enjoy the flavors of anything else.
At $ 5.00 a taco, the price was right (this was a big taco — see the photo I uploaded), and it’s always refreshing to support a completely LOCAL food vendor.
I now follow the tamale trolley on twitter, @tamaletrolley … I hope they will park downtown for lunch to allow me to eat two fish tacos mid day. I also keep a lookout for their brightly colored food truck as I drive around town. I recommend you do so as well. Four stars for the fish taco.

On a recent Friday night, after leaving the Flying Saucer, I passed the Tamale Trolley during my walk to the South Main Arts District. Not intending to eat anything, I stopped by the food truck to see what it had. Obviously, tamales were on the menu along with fish tacos and nothing else aside from a few side items.
To satisfy my curiosity, I ordered a fish taco to see what it was like. The Ensenada-​style taco wasn’t unlike others that I’ve had in the past. It consisted of a fried fish filet (I believe it was tilapia), cabbage, onions and lime-​cilantro sour cream dressing. In addition, Tamale Trolley’s red chile sauce topped the taco, which along with the onions added a spicy dimension to it. For whatever reason, two tortilla sheets wrapped the taco, which was one more than needed. After throwing out the extra tortilla wrap, I quickly consumed the fish taco. Along with being spicy, the taco had plenty of flavor due to the chile sauce and sour cream dressing. Although I liked the taco, I would opt for grilled fish over fried if I had a choice. Nothing against Tamale Trolley or other places that cook fish that way, but I believe that the breading from the fish adds too much starch to the taco. Of course this just my opinion that apparently most don’t agree with, given the number of places that serve fried fish tacos. For what it is, Tamale Trolley’s taco is good and better than most of its competitors.
After eating the fish taco, I decided to try Tamale Trolley’s mainstay item. The tamales came as a set of three wrapped in corn husks (the traditional way of presenting them) and cost five dollars. The tamales had a good portion of ground pork within an appropriate amount of masa, as opposed to cornmeal popularized by African-​Americans. The reason for pointing this out is that most places serve tamales with too much cornmeal/​masa with little stuffing inside. That wasn’t the case with Tamale Trolley, for the masa nicely complemented the seasoned pork without overwhelming it. By themselves, the tamales were really good but were great with the chile sauce. The sauce is about as hot as Tabasco, which made the tamales spicy yet enjoyable. In fact, as someone who isn’t a fan of tamales in general, the food truck’s tamales were some of the best that I’ve ever had. Notwithstanding places like Dino’s Grill and Ugly Juanita’s that use gimmicks, Tamale Trolley is the real deal that I will recommend to anyone looking for authentic tamales.
I am glad that I stumbled across Tamale Trolley. In a bit of irony, I considered getting to South Main by way of a trolley. I was fortunate that I wasn’t in a hurry, for I would have missed out on some great Mexican street food. If the Tamale Trolley comes to your neighborhood or workplace, give the food truck a try. I’m confident that you will like what it has to offer.
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Recently had the chance to check out some of Memphis’ new food trucks. A food truck rodeo was held in the Broad Ave Arts district. Although many trucks were expected to attend, only a few actually showed up. Thus, lines were long, and the trucks present quickly ran out of food. I had the chance to try out the Tamale Trolley, by the time I was able to place my order they had run out of tamales. So I went with their next specialty on the menu, the fish taco (and steak taco).
Now I can understand the rush, and not being prepared for such a large crowd. I must say I was disappointed with what I ended up with. I started with the steak taco, it had plenty of meat, but it just did not seem to be seasoned at all. The cilantro lime sour cream dressing, needed more cilantro and lime flavor. I ended up eating the taco with only one of the two tortillas provided, the meat to tortilla ratio with just one was plenty enough. I probably would have enjoyed it more if they had not used store bought tortillas, or so it seemed and tasted. I was happy that the fish taco that I had a little more love to it in its preparation. A nice piece of fish, fresh out of the fryer and hot. That made up for the mediocre steak taco, but again, ate it with one tortilla.
Some suggestions that would make it better, some lime wedges to be served with the tacos, and a house made sauce to add a little heat. Drinks more exciting than water and coke. Only three stars mainly because of the fish taco. I’ll try them out again to try their tamales, but not sure how excited I should be if they’re served after being reheated in their microwave.