An Asian-fusion food truck banned for 'offensive' name

The CockAsian food truck, which serves Asian-fusion dishes and is known for it's Korean Fried Chicken, was banned from Port San Antonio but will be in Boerne on Sunday. The CockAsian food truck, which serves Asian-fusion dishes and is known for it's Korean Fried Chicken, was banned from Port San Antonio but will be in Boerne on Sunday. Photo: Courtesy Photo Photo: Courtesy Photo Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close An Asian-fusion food truck banned for 'offensive' name 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — Candie Yoder's plans to debut her Asian cuisine at Port San Antonio Thursday didn't turn out the way she imagined.

Officials this week blocked the owner of the CockAsian food truck from setting up shop at the 1,900-acre site because of the restaurant's name.

Yoder, 40, said the title is a spin on the truck's popular Korean Fried Chicken dish but port officials didn't see it that way.

Yoder purchased the food truck in November and was planning to debut the truck Thursday. She said in a Facebook post that the name has “boundless meanings, none of which are sexual or a racial slur. ... I would be more than happy to discuss the basis for our name with them.”

Port San Antonio officials objected to the name after an online search, said Keith Hill, president of the San Antonio Food Truck Association, which coordinates food truck scheduling with large employers such as the port.

“We ask SAFTA to find an optional truck because perhaps the patrons would find the name objectionable,” said Paco Felici, a spokesman for Port San Antonio. He added that pornographic images showed up in an image search for the term.

“They apparently Googled it to find out (the restaurant's) menu and website, and their truck page is not what came up,” Hill said, who admitted he knew the name would be controversial when Yoder opened the restaurant.

A Google search Wednesday showed the food truck's website as well as UrbanDictionary.com, which is known for having over-the-top and vulgar definitions for words and phrases, as the top hits on the term, followed by articles about the port's ban.

Needless to say, the UrbanDictionary.com definition is not Korean fried chicken.

The port, with more than 12,000 employees in the aerospace, military, logistics and manufacturing fields, launched a partnership with the food truck association last year in which several food trucks come on site a number of times a week to provide lunch options for workers.

Yoder, who is not Asian, said the food truck was not only a spin on its Asian-fusion menu, but also pokes fun at her.

“When I was discussing my plans of opening an Asian food truck, I got some people asking why, or joking, because of my ethnicity,” Yoder said. She's white.

“So it's not only a play on the Korean fried chicken that we serve, but also my ethnicity,” she explained.

Yoder instead will introduce her cuisine on Sunday at the Point Park and Eats on Boerne Stage Road, she said, and offered this thought in another Facebook post: “It makes me sad that the spoken and written word are the most censored forms of art.”

kparker@express-news.net

Twitter: @KoltenParker