Yuma taco trucks: Mouthwatering specialties, from carne asada to seafood
by Roger Naylor
The idea sounded a little crazy when I explained it to my wife. I spent a weekend doing a taco-truck crawl through the streets of Yuma, and it proved to be a movable, memorable feast.
Though Yuma has plenty of excellent traditional restaurants, a whole other dining scene has emerged on the roadside. A fleet of food trucks serves delicious, authentic foods at bargain prices. Most of the trucks, like mobile homes, are only technically vehicles. Many have rested in the same spots for years, some morphing into skeletons of restaurants with makeshift walls and roofs. Others are set up in parking lots and on vacant corners near sprawling farm fields to cater to the thousands of seasonal workers.
While “taco truck” is convenient shorthand for these restaurants on wheels, the menus often are much more far-ranging, running the gamut from ceviche to stingray soup to juicy burgers to bacon-wrapped hot dogs.
“There’s an authenticity to this food. For the farmworkers, this is a little taste of home,” says Ed from Yuma, who works at Arizona Western College. “And for the rest of us, these trucks are like crossing the border without actually crossing the border.”
Several borders, in fact. Not only are various regions of Mexico represented, but some trucks specialize in dishes from Guatemala and El Salvador as well. Before my visit to Yuma, I had never heard of a pupusa. Now I want to eat one every day for the rest of my life.