The Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race made a stop in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley for the fifth episode of the shows ninth season. The episode included teams and host Tyler Florence stopping by a date grove, slingin’ food on Arenas Street in downtown Palm Springs and a Stagecoach pre-party, and concluded with a stop at the iconic windmills.
Now, for those not familiar with The Great Food Truck Race, each season pits a group of competitors grouped into teams of three against each other as they travel across America battling it out with various food-related competitions with the winning team scoring their $50,000.
The episode set in the Coachella Valley begins with a stop into Hadley Date Gardens in Thermal, which we should have known back in April, since Tyler Florence posted that he was there.
Before doing anything else, Florence shows the remaining three teams – Just Wing It, Mobile Moo Shu, and New England Grill – a trick to removing pits from dates using a wood skewer.
Pretty nifty.
The teams then have to pit a bunch of dates before heading off to make some sales of their food truck items. And this is where, as a local resident of the Coachella Valley, the show gets weird.
You see, the trucks are allowed to park in downtown Palm Springs, which is surreal since the city clearly hates food trucks.
But, suspending reality for a bit, we find the three teams all choose to set up on or near Arenas Street, where they all seem to do pretty well until they are whisked away to a Stagecoach pre-party at Shadow Hills RV Resort.
Once again, the teams all seem to do a good job selling their food – though there is a little controversy as one member of the Mobile Moo Shu team seems to sneak off for a few to do a shot.
But hey….
When in Palm Springs … https://t.co/XQFQXMmuag
— Food Network (@FoodNetwork) August 24, 2018
So things slow down in the afternoon (probably because all those people wanted to actually go to Stagecoach) so two teams (Mobile Moo Shu and New England Grill) make their way back to Arenas, while Just Wing it (who got a $600 bonus for winning a challenge) decides to just relax. Meanwhile, host Tyler Florence hasn’t been seen for a bit, but that may be because he was staying at a decent resort:
Once back on Arenas, the New England team has a plan to increase sales and it involves one member going topless.
The teams conclude their sales and then head to the elimination segment which is filmed at the Palm Springs windmills – which are always a good spot to film things and look pretty cool to everyone not named Donald Trump.
Sadly, the Moo Shu team is eliminated as their sales were the lowest and the other teams move on to the finals in Los Angeles – though we won’t be posting about that because this is a Palm Springs blog.
Thanks for stopping by, Food Network.
Related: Here are all the places in the Coachella Valley Guy Fieri ate at for Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives
Related: Here are all the places food shows have filmed in the Coachella Valley
