Moms Grilled Cheese Truck: Not Your Ordinary Grilled Cheese

Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck

800 West Georgia Street, Vancouver

Grilled cheese is close to my heart. I always look for it on restaurant menus, I constantly crave it and of course I make it at home as much as possible.

There’s a scene from Lost that I’ve always remembered, when Jack was captured by the Others and locked up for days. Juliet brings him a grilled cheese sandwich to get him to talk. He refused the sandwich, I’m not sure how, it looked so deliciously tempting, with the melted cheese oozing out the sides and the grilled bread cut diagonally (I loved diagonally-cut sandwiches!). Every time I watch that episode, I crave grilled cheese and I watch that episode a lot.

Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck has been opened for months but I finally made my way down today, beside the Art Gallery on West Georgia Street. I got there before 12 noon, and a small line had already formed. I’ve always thought the marketing for this truck was slick with a strong social media and web presence. How do you think I already knew what I wanted to order before I even got up to the truck?

I went with the Jackson 3, named after the owner, Cindy’s nephew (who I imagine loves grilled cheese), this is a triple decker sandwich, three pieces of sourdough sandwiching gooey melted triple cream brie, Boursin and Gruyere. If that’s not a scrumptious heart attack in a sandwich, I don’t know what is.

Even though Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck has only been in the downtown core for a few months, there already seem to be regular repeat customers. They also cater, and from the chitchat going back and forth between owner, Cindy and her customers, it seems like Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck caters on a lot of movie sets. I was dying to ask which movie sets but there’s no way to blurt that out without blowing my cover as a starstruck fan of all things Hollywood.

I love the retro iron weights they use to squish down the grilling sandwiches. It’s so simple but effective, definitely adds to the charm of this food truck.

The Jackson 3 sandwich was served to me piping hot and sliced diagonally (I firmly believe that sandwiches taste better when sliced diagonally, plus they’re easier to bite into), stuffed into a checkered paper cone. It was a creative way to serve a sandwich but since it was freezing outside, I scrambled to find a place to sit and eat my sandwich before it got cold. Also, I was wondering how I was going to eat this without making a mess. I began to wish that I had asked for a take-out container.

Luckily, the sandwich was still hot upon my first heavenly bite. This sandwich was huge! I don’t even open my mouth this wide for the dentist! It’s amazing how well these three cheeses go together. The thick and gooey, creamy melted brie, the shredded but melted and stretchy gruyere, and the cream cheese, boursin acting as a delectable glue in the middle layer.

The three layers were interesting. The sourdough bread added the perfect tang to this sandwich against the mild tasting creamy cheeses. The two outside pieces of bread were grilled beautifully, crispy and crunchy with lots of butter making the bread moist and rich. The middle layer of bread was still soft and pillowy though, which was wonderful.

Now, onto the layers. Layer one was the shredded gruyere, melted and stretched out into long, gooey strings with every bite that I took, I loved this layer. The gruyere was slightly nutty in flavour, a deep tasting cheese, with some rustic and earthy tones in flavour.

Smeared onto the middle layer was the super salty and creamy boursin cheese. I can easily devour a whole box of boursin cream cheese by myself so I’m glad this delicious cheese played a part in this sandwich. I also loved the contrast in texture between the stretchy melted gruyere and the smooth boursin.

Lastly, one of my most favourite cheeses, triple cream brie. The melted brie was practically exploding from the sandwich, spilling right out of the sides, dripping long, slow drops of thick creaminess as I got to the end of the sandwich. To me, brie is the perfect comfort food cheese, thick, creamy, mild and when it’s warm and melted, it just coats your tongue and throat as you’re swallowing, like it’s giving your mouth a big cheesy hug.

When I got to the second half of my sandwich, I realized that there were chips stuffed in the bottom of the checkered cone. Bonus! I didn’t notice these before. The best part was since I was holding the cone upright while looking for a seat, some of the melted brie had oozed out and coated some of the chips. Delicious! It’s a good thing I didn’t get a take-out container!

The chips were salty and crispy. They were slightly warm from nesting underneath the grilled cheese sandwich. I used the chips to scrape off as much of the melted cheese from the sides of the cone as I could. Couldn’t let any of that valuable brie go to waste!

I will definitely go back to Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck. I’m already craving some cheese.