Off the beaten path: Chris Midyette creates balanced dishes with Ocean Desert food truck

May 30—Chris Midyette often travels the streets of Albuquerque with his food truck.

Since June 2022, Midyette has been the mastermind behind Ocean Desert LLC.

"I'm just about to hit two years now," he says. "Around last May, I left the job I had been working to do the truck full-time. I was working for a logistics warehouse. It wasn't really my passion. I've always been an avid cook. I've worked at various restaurants — fast food was where I started."

The opportunity for a food truck came when Johnny Rockets closed in Cottonwood Mall and Midyette was working there.

"I helped the owner, Kevin Thompson, close down Johnny Rockets," he recalls. "I asked him if he could hook me up with some restaurant equipment to get the ball rolling for the truck. I was already saving money for years to get the truck going. Now we're here and running it."

The food truck is 26 feet and 90 inches wide.

"She's a big girl," he says with a laugh. "It's a fully mobile kitchen. We have a five-foot flat top and there are two, 35-pound deep fryers and I have a four-burner range and oven, and I have a reach-in fridge that we prep our sandwiches on, a steam table and a back storage area. I was lucky to find this truck, honestly, I was very lucky."

Ocean Desert focuses on gourmet New Mexican food.

Midyette says there are a lot of surf and turf items, as well as some fusion stuff going on.

"We have Octopus Tacos which have a spicy garlic sauce on it, kimchi, cilantro, green onions and queso fresco," he says. "Baja Fish Tacos is what basically got the ball rolling with everything. I used to make Baja Tacos for my friends and family at home all the time."

The Baja Fish Tacos are two tempura-fried tilapia that are cooked on the truck and is topped off with coleslaw, pico de gallo and queso fresco on a flour tortilla.

"We do our Green Chile Chicken Alfredo, which is actually one of our most popular dishes," he says. "Everything on the truck is made to order."

Ocean Desert also serves burgers, which originally weren't on the menu.

"We had a client request them and we ended up keeping them on the menu," Midyette says. "We have two different burgers. One of them is the Cracking Burger and it has the cracking sauce that we make on the truck. It's a rendition of Thousand Island dressing, basically. We put onions, tomatoes, lettuce, green chile and American cheese. We actually won an award at the Food Truck Festival last year in Albuquerque at Cliff's."

Midyette is always looking to reimagine his dishes.

He says the chicken tacos used to just have pico de gallo and queso fresco on them.

"I've been doing them Baja style and putting coleslaw," he says. "It's one of the changes that I'm going to be making here pretty soon to the menu."

Ocean Desert typically operates Wednesday through Sunday and their social media accounts will let people know their location.

Midyette says the locations are updated every Monday or Tuesday on Facebook and Instagram.