Food Trailer Friday: La Boîte

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Okay, so technically La Boîte isn’t a food trailer. Instead, it is a café in a recycled shipping container, but quibbling over little details is irrelevant when you’re talking about great food served up from a small, portable space. Their description of themselves on their website is true and on target (my taste buds can testify to this):

“Focused on a small menu with the highest quality, La Boîte strives to deliver local, organic, divine, baked goods and traditional French-style baguette sandwiches.”

Located on South Lamar right behind the Texas Cuban trailer on a grassy knoll, this neat little box serves not only great food but a fun experience as well. I stopped by for the first time today after hearing good things from several of my food blogger friends. Unlike other food trailers in town, you go inside to order, and small handful of people fit neatly inside. They have converted the space outside into a neatly covered patio with chairs and tables for sitting, sipping, and nibbling.

I spoke with Victoria Davies, one of the café’s co-owners, and learned these interesting facts about it:

• They source fresh and local ingredients whenever possible. The sandwich I tried featured mozzarella from Full Quiver Farm out in Kemp, Texas, and their breakfast sausage is from Dai Due. They are continuing to look for opportunities to show off our local artisan producers and that’s a good thing. This also means their menu changes regularly to reflect what they can acquire, so you’ll always be in for a new treat when you visit.
• Their bread is made fresh daily by the same baker who supplies Olivia and Farmhouse Delivery. Barrie Cullinan, formerly the pastry chef at Enoteca and Vespaio, provides all of the baked goods for the café, including the bread for their sandwiches. Her handiwork is quite amazing. The bread for my sandwich was fresh, light, and flavorful. Her cookie creations are seemingly straight forward – chocolate chip and double-chocolate for example – but there’s a note of complexity in each one hinting that there’s more to them than meets the eye.
• They have worked with Owl Tree Coffee to create a custom coffee blend. Their focus on sustainability and recycling extends to their coffee as well. Their blend balances focus on the environment with focus on flavor to balance the two nicely.

Beyond the fact that ordering food in a recycled shipping container is just plain fun, I really admire the efforts to which Victoria and her partner Dan have gone to represent local providers and keep their business’ impact on the environment as small as possible. And their food is just really good – which sometimes gets lost in the local and environmentally-friendly fray. I truly believe that its businesses like theirs that will change what we eat and how we eat it.

Word on the Street

Because La Boîte has only been open a short while, reviews and write-ups are still few and far between. As word spreads about them though, I expect there will be more good things to be read about them. For now, I’ve been able to track down these links:

• Rebecca of the Rebeccamendations is the first local blogger who brought La Boîte to my attention. Her description of how she found them via Twitter is a great read, as is her informative post.
• Foodie is the New Forty did a lovely write up of her experience including some fantastic photos of the many lovely baked goods you’ll find in the box.
• The folks over at Yelp seem to like La Boîte thus far as well.

You can also follow La Boîte on twitter @laboite_atx and become a fan on Facebook. If you’re interested in how they turned their shipping container into a café, Jetson Green has a great story with plenty of in-progress photos.

Know Before You Go

• While La Boîte does have an indoor (in container?) counter, it’s still small like every other food trailer out there. You’ll need to plan to eat outside if the weather is inside or take your food to go if the weather isn’t cooperating.
• They can heat their sandwiches for you but it does take a bit – probably 5 minutes total. It’s worth the wait though.
• Their posted hours of operation are “7:30 am-4:30 pm(ish) weekdays, 9am-5pm(ish) weekends”. Verify their opening and closing times on their website, Twitter, or Facebook.