By Jill Rosen, The Baltimore Sun
7:53 p.m. EDT, July 8, 2011

Sure, it was raining sideways, but that didn't stop people from lining up Friday evening in Harbor East for a taste of Baltimore's fledgling food truck scene.

It was the city's inaugural food truck rally, a chance to celebrate and encourage the city's latest culinary curiosity — restaurant fare like lobster macaroni and cheese and Key lime tarts sold from the side of service vehicles.

"This is exactly the sort of way I'd like to spend a Friday night," said Doron Kutnick, who, as soon as he saw chocolate-covered bacon on the Gypsy Queen truck menu, prophesied, "That's in my future."

"It's a splash of culture and hopefully something that will held build Baltimore's reputation as a food town," he said.

The crowds weren't the thousands that organizers, the new Baltimore Food Truck Association, had been hoping for, but dozens braved the weather, huddling under awnings and stepping carefully through deep puddles to check out the trucks parked together on a Central Avenue gravel lot.

Annmarie Langton, one of the owners of the Gypsy Queen, said the coming together of the city's mobile eateries — about 10 of them — should show Baltimore that the truck scene is here to stay.

"It means we've arrived," she said. "To see us all here together is a foodie's dream."

Buzz about the rally, called The Gathering, had raged on social media for the past week or so — with hundreds of people chatting it up on Facebook and Twitter.