Funky Monkey Munchies

Stopped in for the curry for lunch and it was spot on perfect! Just spicy enough and, since I got the large, I have enough for another meal. This was my first visit to this truck and I will be back for more.

This was absolutely the best food truck food I’ve ever had… I’m was so impressed! I would highly recommend it to anybody and I cannot wait to have it again. We got the $ 10 combo and it was big enough to feed two people

Hawaiian cuisine has a lot more going for it than pineapple, which is why it was disappointing that Funky Monkey Munchies chose the fruit as the centerpoint for the entirety of their menu during their second tenure at the monthly Food Trucks at the Fountain get-​together. Chain pizzerias popularized the ham-​pineapple combo in the 50’s because the ingredients were easy enough to obtain yet exotic enough to entice the Midwesterners who had never journeyed to the Aloha state. Serving as the base of a themed menu, the flaws of both become apparent. Between the ham, pineapple cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and sweet chili sauce in the Hawaiian tacos, the pineapple steamrolls every other ingredient in the dish, not that the modest serving of ham was well-​suited to playing a starring role in the first place. Too much cream cheese, too much sauce, and not enough Hawaii — an error that was essentially repeated in the Hawaiian mac salad. Between the elbow macaroni, mayo, ham, carrots, pineapple, and onion, it was still unbalanced towards the sweetness and acidity of the pineapple, though in a modest side dish it’s less off-​putting.
I can assume what makes the sweet in the «sweet and savory» ground beef used in the Island Joe’s, but the pineapple juice here doesn’t overwhelm the sloppy Joe sandwich. What does overwhelm the sloppy Joe is the use of the very nice Delano Bakery bun and the Yoder Swiss cheese that encompasses the meat. Sloppy Joes are among the most cheap and pedestrian sandwiches that can be made, and placing the emphasis on the supporting players rather than creating something compelling from the meat results in the forest getting lost through the trees.
The Italian menu did not fare any better. An Italian «jambalaya» was a thin soup that in no way resembled the classic New Orleans dish. The Italian nachos went in a different direction than the ones popularized at Albero Café earlier in 2014, opting for pita chips instead of wonton skins. The carefully-​deployed menagerie of marinara and mozzarella made it easy to eat without getting messy, but between the pita chips, green onions, and a questionable squirt sour cream, claiming it to be Italian was a stretch. The spaghetti and meatball slider was a starch overload and another gussied-​up sloppy Joe variation that sneaks onto most of FMM’s menus, but was otherwise decent, if only because the Delano bread and Yoder cheese made a return appearance.
The most recent Asian menu showed some improvement. A «bahn mi bowl» failed to communicated the pleasures of the Vietnamese sandwich; the only ingredients shared between the two were the accouterments of carrot, daikon, cilantro, and cucumber. The sweet chili chicken made the entire thing way too sweet, though it was otherwise a very nicely-​presented offering, and was enjoyable to eat if you got past the sweetness. The sweet and tangy pork used on the nachos was also way too sweet. An excellent grilled cheese was offered with bacon and kimchi, offering enough complexity to break up the otherwise heavy and one-​note sandwich. The crab rangoon taco was not an elegant dish, but replicated the taste of the popular take-​out item exceptionally well.
There’s an inkling towards local ingredients that I appreciate, and combined with a creative approach to their menu, there’s plenty of potential for good food to come out of Funky Monkey Munchies, but it can sometimes be difficult to find amid the desire to offer something different, or fitting into a heavy-​handed theme. Food trucks embody creativity and exploration, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the final product.