Photo via @TacoNuts on Twitter

The last time I visited with chef L.J. Wiley was in March. That's when the prodigal chef was busy hosting a pop-up dinner called "Yelapagain" with his former employees and colleagues from Yelapa, the modern Mexican restaurant Wiley helmed to critical acclaim before departing for New York City in 2011.

But Wiley hadn't returned to Houston to only serve pop-up dinners, nor to resurrect Yelapa -- which closed in October 2011, not long after Wiley left.

He'd come back to Houston to sling tacos. From a truck.

But as many mobile food unit operators will tell you, finding the perfect truck -- one that runs, one that's reliable, one that has enough room, maybe even one that has its medallions already and can go straight into service -- is half the battle.

"I turned down a truck a few days ago," Wiley told me as he served up dishes at the Yelapagain dinner that night at Kitchen Incubator. The dinner's purpose was dual-pronged: to let Houston know that Wiley was back and to test out some of the tacos he was considering for his truck's menu.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

To assume that Refresqueria Rio Verde is simply a refresqueria would be incorrect.

Although the sides of its white-and-red truck are painted with the colors and flavors of the various raspas it sells, you may miss the comparatively less emphatic "tacos" and "tortas" that look like afterthoughts. You'll need to get up close and personal to find that menu: smaller, partially hidden behind the plastic trays full of condiments for truck's elotes and freshly sliced fruit -- both snacks waiting to be sprinkled with rust-colored chile en polvo for a spicy kick.

On that small menu, you'll find that aside from just snacks, Refresqueria Rio Verde also serves a full menu of tacos. I sort of hate that I'm telling anyone this, but they're one of the best-kept secrets in town.

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Today's Houston Press Voice Daily Deal will score you half-off ($20 for $40) early admission VIP and General Admission tickets to the Houston Food Truck Fest at Stereo Live on Sunday, May 18. If you opt for VIP you can stuff yourself silly from noon to 5 p.m.; general admission ticketholders gain admission at 1 p.m.

In addition to an extra hour of food trucking, a VIP ticket is also good for reserved free non-alcoholic beverages, and access to the VIP section with covered patio seating, restrooms, and bars.

Twelve food trucks will be participating, including Bernie's Burger Bus, Fraiche Mobile, Good Dog Hot Dogs, and The Waffle Bus, among others. This is a family-friendly event, and kids 12 and under are free! Music will be provided by The Elroys, while in the VIP area U of H Cool Radio's DJ Ukemi will be providing additional entertainment.

Limited quantities are available, so snap up your tickets now. Ticket price does not include food from trucks.

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Photo by Michael Shum

Mayor Annise Parker talked food trucks and more in yesterday's live chat.

Mayor Annise Parker may be with the times on certain issues -- she's certainly adept at social media, for one -- but the City of Houston's current food truck ordinance isn't one of them.

Parker participated in a live online chat via CultureMap yesterday afternoon frm 1 to 2 p.m., part of her continuing campaign to be more accessible to Houstonians (her last live chat was via the Houston Chronicle back in October).

Predictably, one of the questions posed by an Internet denizen was on the status of the current food truck ordinance, which its opponents claim is too restrictive and biased against mobile food units in favor of brick-and-mortar restaurants. Last fall, City of Houston sustainability director Laura Spanjian proposed changes to that before a City Council that was, shall we say, less than versed on the topic of food trucks.

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Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

Houston's classic food trucks offer more than just tacos, such as the arepas found at Sabor Venezolano.

What differentiates a "classic" food truck from those on last week's list of Houston's Top 10 "Fancy" Food Trucks?

For starters, a classic food truck has been around for at least a few years prior to the gourmet food truck craze -- if not a decade longer. Classic food trucks are usually found at their same spot every single day, decamping only to visit the commissary and then quickly reclaiming their time-worn location in the parking lot of a car wash, a grocery store or an auto repair place.

And, as inveterate taco truck blogger Jay Rascoe of Guns & Tacos put it in a 2011 guide to Houston's best taco trucks: "The true taco truck, the humble servant of the diverse world of mobile cuisine, does not tout self-congratulatory and misleading terms such as 'gourmet' or 'chef-driven.'"

Without further ado, here are our 10 favorite classic trucks -- not just taco trucks -- in Houston:

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Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

Houston hosted Eat St. as it filmed food trucks this past summer.

Although the Cooking Channel was ostensibly created to air the kind of cooking-oriented shows that the Food Network used to air -- remember those shows where chefs actually showed you how to make food? -- it can't help itself from presenting more Food Network-y shows like Eat St., which describes itself as "a lip-smacking celebration of North America's tastiest, messiest and most irresistible street food."

See also:
- Houston's Top 10 "Fancy" Food Trucks
- A (Very Nearly) Comprehensive Guide to Houston's Food Trucks
- Burritos the Size of a Toddler: The 10 Best Food Truck Dishes

I'm not really complaining, of course -- I'll watch footage of shrimp corn dogs and pork belly tacos all day long. Especially if those shrimp corn dogs and pork belly tacos came from Houston.

Back in May 2012, Eat St. filmed food trucks in the Bayou City for a week straight. It was a hot, sweaty, humid affair for the Canadian production crew, but managed to hit a bevy of trucks during their stay.

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Photos by Groovehouse

The first annual Haute Wheels food truck festival.

Talk about an agonizing list to write. Houston food trucks have never been more clever, more inventive or more consistently enjoyable than they are right now. (The most recent sold-out Haute Wheels food truck festival can surely attest to that.) A few years of winnowing out dilettantes since the first "fancy" food trucks started hitting the streets in 2010 has distilled the selection into the best and brightest mobile food units we've ever had to offer.

Some of the "old-timers" are still around, albeit in different iterations: Oh My! Pocket Pies, for example, concentrates more on catering and direct sales to spots like Inversion Coffee House these days. Zilla Street Eats is defunct, but you can find very similar dishes at chef Jason Kerr's new restaurant, Hollister Grill. The Modular has been transformed into Goro & Gun, a downtown ramen shop drawing lots of local attention. And The Eatsie Boys have gone full brick-and-mortar, opening a full-service restaurant of the same name in Montrose.

See also:
- A (Very Nearly) Comprehensive Guide to Houston's Food Trucks
- Burritos the Size of a Toddler: The 10 Best Food Truck Dishes
- Terrorist Attacks, Drugs and Danger: Why City Council Doesn't Want Food Trucks Downtown

But the big guns like H-Town StrEATs, Phamily Bites and Bernie's Burger Bus have never left the road, and are still trucking today. Bernie's has done so well for itself, in fact, that owner Justin Turner now has a fleet of bright yellow school buses roaming the city.

Meanwhile, promising new faces are cropping up every day: Look for trucks such as Craft Infusion, Miso Yummy and Fraiche to dominate this list next year, if their food stays as fun and fresh as it is right now. And while we have far, far, far more than 10 terrific food trucks in this city, here are the 10 best (give or take a few) on the streets today.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

L.J. Wiley plans to bring his own taco truck to Houston's streets.

It's a rare occasion when you get to enjoy a favorite dish from a long-closed restaurant, prepared once again by the chef himself. But that's exactly what took place this past Tuesday and Wednesday as chef L.J. Wiley and his old kitchen crew from Yelapa Playa Mexicana hosted four pop-up services at Kitchen Incubator, Wiley himself sporting his old chef's blacks from the restaurant.

Over lunch and dinner, fans of the restaurant -- which closed in October 2011 after an all-too-brief two-year run -- flooded in to sample old favorites, like Wiley's so-called "real guacamole," and to reacquaint themselves with the type of modern Mexican cuisine that made Wiley and Yelapa such a cult classic. I saw a few people thumb thoughtfully through an old menu that Wiley had brought with him as they waited, reminiscing about meals past.

The "Yelapagain" pop-up lunches and dinners may have been only a two-day affair, but Wiley has more up his sleeve now that the Kinkaid graduate is back in home Houston after a "tour" in New York City, spent working in restaurants such as Aurora and Emporio. And although Wiley learned a lot about Italian food during his nearly two-year stay in New York, it's tacos that brought him back to Houston.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Kimchi ramen with katsu chicken at Miso Yummy.

While half the city was gorging themselves on ramen at Goro & Gun this weekend, I lucked upon a less crowded spot to slurp noodles: the front patio of Inversion Coffee House, where brand-new food truck Miso Yummy was parked only a few feet away. (Full disclosure: I ended up eating ramen at Goro & Gun later that night, too.)

See also:
- Goro & Gun, Houston's First Ramen Shop, Opening Soon Downtown
- Slurp Heaven: Cafe Kubo's Knows Ramen
- Soma Sushi's Handmade Ramen: Behind the Noodles

The new food truck is capitalizing on more than just the ramen craze that's hit Houston like a tsunami (still too soon?): It's also the third place in a week where I've eaten a dish based around Cheetos. To be fair, the first spot -- Poppa Burger -- has been serving its signature Bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos Topped with Stadium Cheese for a few years now. But between the Cheeto-christened macaroni and cheese I had at Hollister Grill and the Flamin' Hot Cheeto-filled Seoul Hot roll at Miso Yummy this weekend, I'm calling it a trend.

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Photos by Groovehouse

The 3rd annual Haute Wheels food truck festival is hitting the streets this weekend. The two-day event will cover the entire parking lot at HCC Southwest's campus, with more than 30 different trucks to cater to every possible craving you could have.

You know all of those fantastic food trucks we write about in our Keep On Truckin' category each week? They're all going to be there. Like, all of them. (Okay, almost all of them.)

Hot dogs at Good Dog. Crawfish rolls at Fraiche. PB&Js at Monster PB&J. Cake pops at Zeapod Cakery. Fried avocado tacos at H-Town StrEATs. The 420 slice at Pi Pizza. Snails at L'es-Car-Go. All the things you've been meaning to try -- all in once place.

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