At first you might think it’s hard to justify spending $40 on two baked potatoes, but not when you consider what goes on them and the sheer hungerbusting power of the offerings at the OMG Potatoes food truck on South Post Oak. Consider my recent order — one shrimp and lobster tail potato, and one oxtail and gravy potato.
My order weighed about five pounds and fed both my son and me not once but twice, each. And if you are looking for the ultimate expression of the surf and turf concept, you might want to duplicate my order: beef and gravy and shrimp and lobster atop potatoes is a helluva mix indeed. And in the end the price comes out about the same as a fast food combo meal, only in this case, you are eating steak, lobster, and shrimp instead of a burger or chicken tenders and fries.
“We know there are a lot of picky eaters and so we know that we only have one chance to get it right,” says Joseph James, co-owner of OMG Potatoes with wife Ayesha James. “A lot of people come to us and view us as their go-to place when they want some really really good cooked food, as opposed to places where you get commercial food that’s just bland and, well, commercial. I didn’t want to go that route. A long time ago my mother told me, ‘If you are going to do something do it right.”
And at OMG Potatoes they do. One thing I noticed was the just-plucked-from-the-Gulf flavor and texture of the shrimp. “We buy all our food fresh every morning,” says James. “Because we are a food truck, all our food, and especially our seafood, has to be fresh. So I am up every morning at 7 AM and I hit the HEB, where they have the freshest food. And as soon as that shrimp comes off the ice, I’m peeling it and it’s on the grill.”
OMG Potatoes was born of an office meal gone viral. A little over five years ago, James was working at an auto parts warehouse and brownbagging his lunches. “One day I was messing around with some barbecue, chicken and ribs and baked a couple of potatoes,” he says. “And I took that to work and one of my supervisors said ‘Oh my God, that smells so good’ when I heated it up. So I gave her half and she kept saying ‘Oh my God, Oh My God,’ so that’s where we got the name. She asked me if I could make her one for her own, and she loved it and the following week she had told all the supervisors. And they all loved it too, and it got to the point where I was told I could either stop selling potatoes or put in my resignation. So I put in my resignation.”
The Jameses do plan to go brick and mortar at some point but are biding their time, both from the standpoint of thriftiness and with an eye toward the pandemic. Why go brick and mortar now, when you’d only mostly be selling delivery and/or to-go orders? Especially when business is as brisk as it is for your food truck?
I shall return to OMG Potatoes and when I do, I might just go whole-hog and order their ultimate in spud decadence. That would be the Lord Have Mercy potato, topped with chicken and beef fajitas. And crawfish tails. And smoked beef sausage. And three colossal shrimp. Make that three colossal shrimp wrapped in bacon.
At this food truck, words like “Oh my God” and “Lord Have Mercy” are not thrown around carelessly.
OMG Potatoes
13815 S. Post Oak
832.819.4664
