Saturday's Food Truck Rally at the First Unity Church campus in the Northeast area of St. Pete showed off the growing variety of good eats sold by those funky, stylish (or a little bit of both) restaurants on wheels in the area.

After walking around checking out the menus of the nearly 20 vendors filling up the Unity parking lot, we settled on a lunch of some Italian food from the adorably kiss-marked Tasty Stacy truck, a Vegetarian Philly Steak from Lettuce Eat Healthy (actually a food cart, not a truck), some kettle corn made on site, a hot bowl of mac and cheese from a truck that came all the way from Port Charlotte and some delicious vegan banana ice cream.

There's a lot of buzz about the evolution of food truck cuisine and the fun atmosphere at food truck rallies. On Saturday, with lines forming as the day went on, it certainly seemed like a great way to get the community out supporting local chefs, local business (although "local" is used broadly, since some of the trucks were from as far away as Orlando) and local foods (alligator tail was on at least one menu board).

The only downside to having all those trucks in one area is the noise level from the generators each truck needs to operate all of their cooking equipment. It was quite loud, and that's not exactly the noise you hope will predominate when there's live music competing for your ears while your belly's singing with the delicious notes of a hot, fresh eggplant parmesan sandwich.

Now that St. Petersburg has finally allowed food trucks to gather in rallies like this, we at Locally Grown News hope that it will help raise awareness that these small businesses have some affordable, delicious, fast meals to offer. If you see one near your office or near where you happen to be driving this week, stop by and support local chefs.