GourMelt

Can’t go wrong with whatever you order and sweet potato fries and aioli are so fantastic.

A while ago, I engaged in a brief series of underwhelming dates (according to all parties, I’m sure) that felt less like courting and more like job interviews for positions I didn’t want or need. On one of them, I was asked what my favorite food dish was. I replied, it was probably the combination of bacon, lettuce, and tomato: The BLT sandwich. I didn’t know the girl well but I knew she was a foodie, and I could tell by the disapproval on her face our culinary conversation was over. «Of all the meals on God’s green earth this uncultured meathead chose the BL-​fucking-​T? What kind of palate-​less Neanderthal is he?» Obviously, there was no reprise.
On another awful outing, I was asked what kind of books I read. Having recently chatted with an elderly lady in my building about our mutual adoration of chef /​author Michael Ruhlman’s work I answered, cooking books. The girl’s eyes bulged as if I’d just pulled down my pants and shit on the floor. «This idiot thinks recipes is reading!» At that point, I was so done with the night I hardly had the fortitude to quantify my answer. Yep; you got me, sweetheart! I also enjoy cuddling up on the couch with a good coloring book!
At the risk of sounding like a pompous twat (I am), I’m well-​versed in most things culinary. I’ve eaten at some of the best restaurants in the US, some of the best street-​corners in Mexico, and I’ve dined at three-​Michelin-​starred restaurants overseas. I know what a consommé is; I know what it means to julienne a vegetable; I know the importance of sustainability; I used to write about the meat industry and I know not to be an asshole to my server. I’m proficient in the kitchen and regularly cook well (although, an ex told me I go heavy on the vinegar… which I do). What I’m trying to say with this grandstanding is I know good food, and if I say the BLT might be my favorite I probably have good reason.
I’d been on a BLT kick. Like, at least one a week for several weeks. All of them were different, all of them were great. On one, the bacon had been jalapeño infused giving it a lovely, subtle heat (SoDo); on another, predictable white or sourdough bread was replaced with fluffy naan (Great Full Gardens). In my own kitchen, I made a BLT with thin-​cut, toasted ciabatta, a thick-​slice of heirloom tomato, butter lettuce, applewood-​smoked bacon, and a fried egg. While each sandwich had been uniquely fulfilling, I never got overly full eating them. It dawned on me: the BLT might be the best, most versatile food ever. You can add pork belly or homemade spicy mayo or even kale, you healthy so-​and-​sos! Unless you’re a sad literalist, bacon, lettuce, tomato aren’t where the sandwich ends, it’s where it begins!
Of course, the BLT is not my favorite food of all time. It’s still awesome and wonderfully malleable but my addiction has subsided since that ill-​fated resume review over cocktails I went on however long ago. What made me recall with such candor what I’ll refer to as «The BLT Phase» was today when I ate a grilled Kimcheese sandwich from GourMelt. If you hadn’t already guessed, a grilled Kimcheese sandwich is a standard grilled cheese sandwich filled with Napa cabbage kimchi. If you know anything about kimchi, you’re right to assume everyone asked me to eat it outside of the office… and to go home to brush my teeth. I googled the Kimcheese sandwich to see if it had been done before and, sure enough, there were several variations dating back to at least 2010. While definitely not the best /​worst thing I’ve tried — and something I’m not sure I need to eat again — it reminded me innovation is appreciated, it’s always fun to play with your food, and online dating is stupid.

It had been a mission for at least a year to go to the now defunct Food Truck Fridays in Reno. One of the trucks that caught my eye was GourMelt because I am a sucker for anything cheesy and gooey (the edible kind of course). The heavens must’ve witnessed my plight when I learned that I could track down the carts that interested me the most on their own websites (many of you are probably saying DUH at this point).
With this newfound knowledge, I engaged the parents who were on a similar mission and set a date for Friday after last. This interception involved driving all the way to Reno from my sister’s house (yes she and my little niece were in tow as well) and arrived to a somewhat shady parking lot with eager business professionals (from the nearby business the truck made a deal with to park there) up front salivating.
Once everyone in my posse convened, we hopped out of our respective vehicles and ponied up to the order window. There were many great things to choose from but there was one clear winner, the UItiMelt! Comprised of cheddar, fontina and cream cheeses on garlic parmesan crusted sourdough bread and parmesan garlic fries on the side!!! You better believe this was the orgasmic or staying true to the 40’s-50’s theme, way cool Daddy-​O!
This is the kind of food you wish your mom made on those days where you needed a little comfort. The ladies of GourMelt get it and are far out!

Absolutely love gourmelt! Every time I see it at the University I have to stop to have a grilled cheese! I was a self proclaimed grilled cheese hater before I was introduced to this food truck! Last time I got a grilled cheese with balsamic vinegar on it and it looked a little thrown together and fell apart super easily, but it was still absolutely delicious!

A grilled cheese sandwich with pickles and tomatoes is one of my favorite comfort foods and GourMelt does not disappoint. Super friendly service and even with an extensive menu of grilled cheese creations, they’re happy to «customize» your sandwich. Be sure to try the tomato soup… and split an order of their yummy garlic fries with a friend! The menu is creative and the prices are fair. Visit the website to view the calendar on where to find them each week.

Love GourMelt! food was delicious! a bit pricey but really yummy especially their sweet potatoes and dip.

There’s just something about grilled cheese that’s just mouth watering and delicious every time! I recently tried Gourmelt for the first time and let me tell you the cheese gods were smiling down on me! I had the Ultimelt with garlic fries and I’ve never had a more satisfying meal from a food truck! These talented girls have just earned a new follower. And I can’t wait to see what they do with their new adventure; two chicks!

Super delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. The bread is amazing and the wait is worth it for around $ 6…beats any grilled cheese in town!!!

I’m a self proclaimed food and service critic. These ladies at GourMelt are truly the
both. They make me the very best grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread, with cheddar and cream cheese, double bacon, grilled onions and PEANUT BUTTER! Don’t snicker til you try it :) You can order from their well designed menu or try something delicious that they will create for you.
As for cost, not pricey at all. Dammit Man, this is a small business that not only has to support itself to remain viable but also support the owners, their employess, and their families!
Anybody on Unilocal speaking that they are «Pricey», go home and make your own gourmet grilled cheese and see what it costs you plus your time.
Five Star review abound for GourMelt!

Tasty grilled cheese however its a bit pricey! The sandwich is so good that I considered cheating on single cheat meal and purchasing two however due to the cost I could only reasonable purchase one.
Pros: Delicious, just like my mom makes.
Melts in your mouth
Cons: Long wait
Costly

I’ve waited in lines for 10 minutes and get their sandwiches. I’ve waited 20 minutes. I even waited 50 minutes for their sandwiches. It’s always worth it.
Whether its their Bumble Brie, or their Cherry popper, or their Ultimelt. I’m never disappointed. Actually I was disappointed in the panchetta and kale, but that’s what I get for going European.

I ordered the meatloaf special with the garlic fries, omg so yummy :) 4 hours later and I’m STILL full. They put cheese on both sides of the meat for extra ooey gooey goodness! The ketchup they use for this particular sandwich has a tiny bite to it. Perfect! My friend let me what she ordered. Can’t remember the name but it had green apples and ham on it. Also very good!

A friend of mine popped my food truck cherry with GourMelt! I got the Italian sandwich with a side of garlic fries and ZOMG I was blown away at how delicious both were! Needless to say, I will be on the look out for Gourmelt from now on.

August 29, 2012 Thursday — lunch 1:30 PM
1 adult (office lunch time, thus the lonely one)
Atmosphere — 5 stars
Food — 5 stars
Service — 5 stars
Background — Sitting in my office smelling the garlic coming into the building from the parking lot was torture. It was
Atmosphere — It aint hard find that truck when the office manager gives you the exact location. But in case you do not get those instruction that color truck aint hard to find. It is very modern truck and very appealing.
Food
Appetizer — It is lunch typically I do not do them.
Main Course — I went with the Bumble Brie — sliced green apples, ham, honey and melted brie on cinnamon apple bread. I stole that description from their website, hard to change up that description. I think I could have eaten a loaf of that toasted bread, so yummy. This time I a gooey mess, that cheese was so good. I got a side of sweet potato fries, which I love, and their dipping sauce was zesty which went well with that sweet sandwich.
Dessert — It is lunch typically I do not do them, wait I just said that, but it applies again.
Service — It was fine. Took my order and I heard them call my name.
Future — Yeah if it is where I am at. This is one of my favorite Reno food trucks.

Haven’t had a chance to lunch with GourMelt in a while, so when I noticed they’d be in my neighborhood today I figured it’s time. If you read my first review, you’ll note some positive and negative aspects that led me to wish for a 3.5 star rating. After today’s lunch, I’m wishing I could give a 4.5 … but I’ll settle with bumping them to four stars for now. Here’s why:
I ordered the special, which happened to be a Beer Cheddar Melt, and it was damn good! Including cheddar cheese, bratwurst, grilled mushrooms & onions, a beer-​cheese sauce on onion-​potato bread, I have to say it was worth every Weight Watchers point I had to deduct from today’s diet total.
The mushrooms & onions were actually noticeable instead of being lost in the mix, and there was just enough bratwurst to make the sandwich interesting without becoming a cheesy hot dog that happens to be on bread. The cheese + cheese sauce thing could have turned out a mess, but the ratio was just about perfect. I still had to peel the thing off the paper container, and the bread still doesn’t hold any real toasty crunch (wilting under its own heat), however, the flavor of the bread in combination with the ingredients was excellent. Terrific flavor can compensate quite a bit for textural issues, and that certainly worked in this instance.
I decided to revisit the tomato soup which I haven’t been super-​impressed with in the past (as a regular conjurer of homemade soups I tend to have strong opinions on the subject), both because I felt it deserved a fair shake, and because it helped me avoid the wonderful/​terrible parmesan garlic fries! I can’t afford to eat a big mess of cheesy goodness PLUS those amazing fries unless I just write off eating anything but fruit & veggies the day after. :)
I don’t know if the GourMelt ladies have made any changes to the recipe, but I did enjoy their soup better this time around. Here its strengths are opposite that of the sandwich: the flavor is very «tomato-​y» but lacks much in the way of seasoning. I didn’t add any because I wanted to taste it as intended, and I’ve decided that this is literally a matter of taste. I think, perhaps, I just happen to like a little more zing in a fresh tomato soup than some other folks. However, it’s the TEXTURE that saves the day, with almost a rough purée mouth feel instead of being completely smoothed out like that stuff Andy Warhol focused on. When you eat the GourMelt variety, you know you’re eating something that was made fresh, was never canned, and I have to give props for that.
One other thing: the wait time was much better than in some past visits, easily on par with any of their competitors. There were people ahead and behind me in line, but I don’t think I waited more than 5 – 7 minutes. Perhaps it was quicker because I skipped the fries, or perhaps its just that the proprietors have improved their workflow. Either way, they’re doing a great job.
Thanks for a great lunch, ladies! Worth every penny (and point!).

Be warned: you will not need to eat for at least 12 hours after consuming one of the sandwiches and amazing garlic fries. I had it for lunch yesterday, and I think I am still full this morning.
My mother and I got the turkey sandwich and fries and the chicken sandwich with fries, and we traded halves — they were both great with very unique flavors! Did I mention how good the garlic fries are? They were perfectly cooked, and had just the right amount of garlic.
Gourmelt is doing the food truck thing well!

I agree with other reviewers that A) I wish I could give them 3.5 stars and B) what makes this truck so great is the girls. Their enthusiasm and marketing drive is highly impressive. However, I also agree with others who say while their product is okay, and it’s fun to visit this truck a few times, it’s not something to seek out repeatedly. I’ve patroned hundreds of food trucks /​carts from LA to Portland, and I’ve got a very strong base of comparison, so as a consummate food truck hunter /​follower, I feel this one ranks pretty low as far as wanting to continually follow it to consistently enjoy something unusual. But be sure to try it at least once!
It’s not that the food is bad (it’s certainly 3 star worthy) it’s just that since they’ve opened, I’ve ordered quite a few different sammies, and to a meal all the sandwiches, while basically flavorful, haven’t been very unique, but have been overtly greasy, very soggy, and have been very skimpy on fillings. I also think they could step up the types of bread they use — kick it up a notch, girls. Thin slices of white, wheat & sourdough aren’t great for everything. Generally most of their sandwiches don’t give you a lot of bang for your buck. If the sandwiches were a few dollars cheaper, maybe it’d be a good value, but as it stands now, I feel I’m paying quite a lot for rather smallish portions of not very inventive food truck items.
I also did not care for their tomato soup — I was so excited to try and and found it bland and very disappointing. And quite frankly, while I understand it takes awhile to get food from a food truck, the wait at this truck is always consistently TOO LONG. Always. If they haven’t gotten a quick delivery system down by now, they never will, so they really should have a third hand available during peak line times.
To second a comment by reviewer Steve T, just be prepared for that fact that when all is said and done, you’re just getting a grilled cheese sandwich. I think for most people they’ll be fine with that, and they’ll enjoy their visit, but for a foodie like myself who loves truly artisan and/​or unique fare, this truck does not offer anything I couldn’t easily make at home for far less money.
I do think they offer a step above their average fare for dinner events, probably because far more time, thought and effort go into the menu for an event than for their everyday sandwiches. I went to a dinner they put on with the now defunct Buckbean Brewery and finally felt like I was tasting some originality. It was fun to try sandwiches they had specifically made to go with the local beer. They used the beer in their sandwich ingredients and obviously gave careful thought as to how their ingredients would pair with each beer. They even made a fun little dessert sandwich. I wish all their offerings could be as inventive and fun as they were that evening.
So while l may not be exceptionally enamored of the product, again I must stress that I deeply admire the ladies that own this truck. They are trying to use at least some local ingredients, and they’re very community oriented, which I applaud. A lot of people love and support them, and they have reason to — they’re incredibly sweet and hard working and deserving of all the praise they can get. They obviously love and care about what they do, so I certainly do wish them all the best of luck.

The ingredients are all good. But in the end, it’s still a cheese sandwich. I can’t get excited about that.
My cheese sandwich consisted of smoked Gouda cheese, sausage and sourdough bread. The cheese was too strong and overwhelmed everything else, so I wouldn’t recommend it again, even though I like Gouda.
For a side, I got tomato soup. This is a classic match for a cheese sandwich. I didn’t like it. I didn’t get much tomato flavor.
They have a nice selection of drinks.

I love local businesses. Love, love, love them. They bolster the local economy, which is what we should all be bolstering. The one thing we CAN change? Local. Can’t change federal, so better stick with what you got.
That being said, I was determined to try GourMelt because a) grilled cheese sandwiches = awesome, and b) they were a food truck, which I love and reminds me of home (SF). We ordered three different sandwiches, but this was several months ago and I only remember one sandwich, which is why I’m giving them three stars until I go back:
The Elvis — peanut butter and banana. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. Ladies, peanut butter is NOT expensive… it’s like you stuck a knife in it, then lifted it straight out without getting anymore PB than what sticks on the knife itself, then put it on the sandwich and boom! It’s done. Hand to customer.
See, Elvis loved peanut butter. Elvis would not have allowed a peanut butter sandwich to have that little peanut butter on it. I could barely taste it! What kind of peanut butter sandwich doesn’t have that super-​PB taste?! I was so sad.
The service was great, and they were really sweet. It IS a little expensive but I say go try them out. I should try another sandwich sometime, and see if their PB got any better. Three stars means future business, because a local business always deserves second chances (and maybe try their tomato soup… which I will definitely be going back for when the weather cools down).

So, I’d heard rumblings of this grilled cheese truck a while ago, and was thinking it was semi-​brilliant. Everyone loves grilled cheese, the ingredients are pretty fixed, and who wouldn’t want greasy, cheesy goodness?
I heard about their soft open on Friday, at a bar that I can walk to, but I missed the event. I even drove past their on the way home, saw the people, and almost considered modifying my Friday evening plans to check them out.
Instead, I waited till Tuesday, when they wandered on over to the office that my girlfriend works at, which is a 5 – 10 minute drive from where I work. I left the office at about 11:45. I got back to my office maybe 90 minutes later, which is my main issue with the business, though they still get 4 stars.
First off, it’s hard to screw up a grilled cheese. Use decent ingredients, don’t be too health conscious, and you’ve got a winner. They’ve got the decent ingredients covered by using lots of locally sourced food.
I had the Very Veggie (they’ve got their menu online), described as: Cheddar cheese, cream cheese and pepper jack with roasted peppers, mushrooms, tomato, grilled onions, melted on wheat bread. Total was 8.50, a dollar more for substituting the sweet potato fries. The grilled cheese was great, a perfect mass of grilled, crusty bread and the contrasting gooey cheeses with the vegetables rounding out the sandwich nicely. The sweet potato fries were okay, but didn’t wow me. The GF had the buffalo chicken with tomato soup. I didn’t taste her sandwich, but the soup was impressive. I didn’t try, but I bet I could have gotten the plastic spoon they provided to stand up in it, as it was full of meaty tomato pieces — more of a thick purée than a liquid.
Their business model is obviously catering to the lunch time office crowd (as evidenced by their schedule that’s on their website), which is interesting. (Well, at least to me — I think if I were going to start a food truck, I’d aim at the late night bar crowd.)
So the reason they don’t get five stars? Mainly because the wait. I ended up staying late at work to make up the time for my long lunch today. Part of that was because there was a bit of a line to order (maybe 10 minutes?), but the wait after ordering was closer to 20 minutes. That wouldn’t be bad if I had planned for it, but for a truck that’s trying to cater to a busy, professional lunch time crowd, 30 minutes to order and get food is a no go.
Rad food, but if they’re serious about targetting the office lunch crowd, the order times have got to be turned around.