While playing outside, you’d hear the faint lilt of the iconic song approaching and your heart would immediately leap to your throat.

An ice cream truck was near.

“Mom!” you’d shout while desperately foraging through your pockets for change. “Mom! Mom I need some money for ice cream quick, pleeease!”

Hopefully you would get the cash in time, and then you’d sprint down the street to order a Spiderman-shaped popsicle — even though it usually tasted bad and looked more like Spiderblob.

But none of that mattered because you just ordered something out of a truck, and somehow that made it indescribably magical.

It may have been a while since any of us have ran after an ice cream truck, but the appeal of food being served out of something with wheels is still ingrained within us.

Thankfully, the food truck trend has increased over the past decade, popping up in cities like our own Fort Collins, and it seems that more tasty trucks are rolling in every month.

The wide variety of cuisine being cooked up will satisfy whatever you feel like eating this weekend, so keep a lookout for these mobile eateries roaming around town.

The Waffle Lab

The cure for cancer probably won’t be cooked up in this “lab” any time soon — unless, that cure happens to be incredibly delicious and unique waffles.

“I came out to Fort Collins and decided I wanted to introduce people here to the deliciousness of gourmet Liège waffles and waffle combinations, which I had experienced in the Northwest,” said owner Bill Almquist.

Liège waffles, for those who don’t happen to be fluent in waffle language, are a type of Belgium waffle that are sweeter, denser and chewier than the average waffle. One bite of a freshly made Liège from the Waffle Lab, and you’ll never want to look at an Eggo again.

Bite Insight: The “Mild High” Grilled Cheese is cheddar and swiss cheese melted between two crispy waffle halves. Waffles and cheese? Yes please.

Common-Link

With a slogan like “Enjoy every sausage … one savory link at a time,” can you really go wrong?

Colorado State University alumna Jesse Doerffel and her husband Derrick Smith first fell in love with food trucks during their travels in Los Angeles, so they decided to channel that love into their own four-month-old Common-Link.

Dourffel and Smith serve only nitrate-free, locally sourced ingredients on their menu, which includes a mac and cheese stuffed hot dog.

Bite Insight: The side dish “poutine,” which for you non-Canadians is fresh-cut Belgium fries topped with cheese curds and homemade gravy. It’s one of those things you just have to try to appreciate.

Umami Mobile Eatery

The Japanese word “umami” refers to the fifth taste in the taste spectrum, and it translates to “savory” or “delicious” flavor. It’s fun to say, so certainly “umami” food must be fun to eat.

Umami Mobile Eatery’s owner Martin opened his truck in June of last year, and he’s been using his culinary school-trained skills to serve up fresh Asian cuisine to hungry Fort Collins residents ever since.

Martin says his favorite parts of the job are, “Working with my sexy girlfriend, being my own boss, creating something from scratch and drinking awesome beer.” Now that’s a happy man.

Bite Insight: In addition to their “Num Num Dumplings” and “Thai Nachos,” a popular item at Umami is the “Dan Bahn Mi” Vietnamese sandwich, which is sauteed lemon grass chicken on a French Baguette, filled with pickled daikon radish and carrots, topped with sriracha mayo and cilantro.

Dam Good Tacos

Sometimes, the name says it all.

Owner Mike Falco opened Dam Good Tacos in Fort Collins about two months ago after receiving a wave of positive feedback for his gourmet taco truck in Basalt, Colo.

“My favorite part of this work is being able to see a person’s face after they have had an authentic American taco experience,” Falco said. “I am truly a people person and this is the ultimate people person business: selling street food.”

Bite Insight: Falco’s favorite is the menu’s “Mystery Taco,” which is a combination of whatever fresh ingredients he happens to have on-hand. A recent taco combination had slow roasted chicken and pork with a five-pepper salsa, a double-onion jalapeno garlic pico de gallo, topped with tomatillo, avocado puree and chipotle honey puree. It’s no “mystery” that it sounds delicious.

Collegian Writer Colleen McSweeney can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com.