The food truck thread

On Yahoo today:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/10-of-the-remarkable-food-trucks-taking-over-the-u-s-2392644/#photoViewer=1

I know it is by now kind of required to say you love/hate food trucks and/or declare your allegiance to your own obscure truck, but despite the now-fading aura of hipness, these things are brilliant IMO. Food regardless, they are practical and democratic and fun to look at. They create little events and they bring people out onto the streets. The Kogi truck is in my neighborhood every Tuesday and I love just going and hanging out. Maybe LA needs these more than any other place, but I guess they are everywhere now.

Talk about them.

i wish we had them :(

And before anyone says it - yes, the best truck in my neighborhood is still one of the zillion taco trucks that has probably been there for years but now the new food trucks are stuffwhitepeoplelike.

Start one! Poutine trucks

My only problem with them is that I haven't been to one that's actually better than the original taco trucks. And some of the ideas are frankly uninspired and weak ("look it's curry, but in a corn tortilla!") But generally I am all for cheap street food.

Kogi is pretty good, IMO. I have yet to try Coolhaus. Also there is a Canter's truck - thank you, g-d

i wish we had them :(

― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Monday, September 27, 2010 8:03 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

I agree w/u Alex, but in LA, any food that DRIVES to YOU must be welcomed with open arms.

There is a truck in Portland, Potato Champion, that does poutine.

I can attest that the Tabor cart is great. Oh man, schnitzelwich.

However in Portland we are reaching/have reached critical mass on the number of carts/trucks in town. The rain will determine which ones will make it to next Spring/Summer.

i love the food cart lots up in PDX too, kinda wish they'd do that in l.a. with some of those trucks on the regular. best place for food trucks right now is verdugo bar in glassell park w/their saturday afternoon dj sets and epic beers and board games. that's where i first had a burger from the grill 'em all truck.

I love Portland

you're always shilling for verdugo bar!

it's true~ but it's pretty epic.

It's nice

YOU'RE nice

Is Grill'em All decent? I saw them on that Food Network show and was wondering if they were any good until I saw them buy pre-ground chubs of beef and I was all "Uh, no."

In Chicago there's a groundswell of interest in food trucks, but the existing city regulations make it very difficult to open one. As this article notes, "You can't do any cooking, cutting, or food preparation of any kind on board: everything must be precooked and packaged in a licensed kitchen. You can't stop anywhere for more than two hours, and you can't sell anything after 10 PM."

So basically, there's not much of a culture here yet. But there is one truck called the Gaztro-Wagon that is operating within the restrictions (the food is prepared in a storefront and then driven around various city locations during mealtimes), and it was pretty good the one time I had it.

And I think there's enough of an interest that some of that red tape will eventually get torn down.

the grill em all truck is good but i'm sure it's horrible for you...i had a burger w/maple sausage gravy and bacon iirc. there's a grassfed (maybe organic too?) beef truck called the paddy wagon that's always parked outside of trader joe's in silver lake.

*beef = burger

Interesting article and comments about Portland food carts here:

http://www.portlandfoodanddrink.com/2010/09/01/are-food-carts-getting-out-of-control/

ya montreal has ridic regs 2

there's this long-gestating showdown on wilshire blvd in l.a. between food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants, w/employees of local businesses parking their cars all day long in metered spots (and racking up tickets) to prevent food trucks from stopping there. it's ratcheted up a little lately to include attempted physical attacks.

Sacramento has a stupid "Can't stay in one spot for more than 30 minutes" rule for food trucks ;_;

why b/c attracts 'unsavory' characters and trash problems. Which sounds to me like a few whiney richy-riches whispered in the ear of the city council and basically killed lunch dead for workers all over Sacramento. Because we all know that 'unsavory characters' = 'ppl who work for a living'.

sorry, bitter much? lol

I was gonna start a speakeasy food truck specializing in crazy cocktails or something but I'm too lazy

also w/ all the risk booze wouldn't pay very well, there's already a weed food truck tho

coke truck?

lots of repeat business, huge profit...but throngs of people standing around having annoying loud narcissistic conversations

haha

my favorite in seattle is the skillet truck, http://www.skilletstreetfood.com/ they make fancy gut-bombs basically
we've got some dumb red tape here too, but they're supposedly working on it. even though, mexican trucks and cuban trucks can be found around town. nothing like portland, but it's a start

I wish there was 3pm latte truck swinging by my office...and a chocolate truck...

Skillet truck sounds amazing!

i'm in favor of the yuppie food trucks -- in part because they (can) give more political legitimacy to the old-school taco trucks.

the thing with the truck-hating restaurants on wilshire is funny -- that part of wilshire is fucking DIRE for lunch options. the restaurants are afraid of competition because apparently it's too much work for them to make good food and attract customers.

most of the skill put into this stuff is depressingly amateur hour and the price/value is less than a sit-down restaurant in a lot of cases!

straight up tacos, crepes, hotdogs, halal carts i am cool with fwiw.

the best food trucks in l.a. remain the taco trucks on the eastside, mainly the ones that don't roll around town but stay in one regular spot.

my dream is to have a pupusa truck parked outside my house at all times.

The Sinaloa taco truck in Oakland is my religion.

Does anyone know anyone who runs one? I'm kind of curious about the ins and outs of the business - I sometimes dream of opening an espresso truck.

this one's pretty high-quality:

http://www.mandolinegrill.com/menu/

this one too (pls ignore the pic of guy fieri):

http://www.donchowtacos.com/menu/

coolhaus is EXCELLENT. wish i could get some of that today.

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kucg4duasR1qavr4to1_250.jpg

I will rep for the Grease Trucks of Rutgers University. They've been there for decades, and will be there once the food truck bubble pops.

RU Hungry, The Hungry Eye, Jimmy's. . . Nothing like a gyro/falafel combo at 3 a.m. on a drunk Tuesday morning. With a Snapple.

Those coolhaus ice cream sandwiches look amazing.

There used to be this one grease truck that was better than the other ones -- it was the Hungry Eye but under these other owners who were Greek and used to be English teachers. They had amazing soup in the winter and they had all these literary quotes all over their truck.

CoolHaus and Kogi are terrific. If Kogi is in Glendale, I almost always put my existing lunch or dinner plans on hold.

Louks (Greek) is a good one, but they rarely get outside of OC http://www.loukstogo.com/

the best food trucks in l.a. remain the taco trucks on the eastside, mainly the ones that don't roll around town but stay in one regular spot.

I've been to the secret depot in Downey where ALL of them fill up with gas!!

probably happens like, once a year, like a migration of beautiful, metal thick-smelling birds.

miss taco zone so much :(

One of my favorite taco trucks, even if you have to stand in line with the WORST PEOPLE in the world

most of the skill put into this stuff is depressingly amateur hour and the price/value is less than a sit-down restaurant in a lot of cases!

Not Kogi. Pretty competitive prices for a "specialist" truck and you can spend $20 there, bring home a bag and feed 4-5 people (or eat Kogi alone for the next few days, I guess...). I'm sorry you can't experience this for yourself, Fartbritz.

Haha:

"All we do is take the flavors of Korean barbeque and mix it up with the flavor of our Esses, and there you have our Korean taco. "

Someone here in Chicago was just telling me (with a bit of jealousy of the fact that this city is "behind" in this trend) that a taco truck in SF, El Tonayense, had made it into Zagat -- article here. Don't know what this "means" in the big picture though, as "noteworthy" as it is.

kogi was a little disappointing but i would give it another try
<3 taco zone as part of eastside ritual but there are much better ones tbh

there's a (1) taco truck in baltimore that's good. if any bmore posters know others please speak up...

are we including hot dog vendors? there's a family around where i work with a few different street spots, some of which also make sandwiches i eat a lot (chz steak, reuben, gyro, etc). there's also a guy who always flubs the order in some funny way, like a BLT w/ T wedges, or a chz steak on a pita, or a rebecca with pickle relish

taco zone was such a huge disappointment that my friend who took me their continues to apologize for it to this day. thank god they had hella limes.

Must have been a bad night.

Don't tell me...you ordered in spanish, right?

i count hot dog carts. on capitol hill in seattle the specialty is a hot dog slathered in cream cheese. it tastes like a heart attack on a bun, in the best way

yes i ordered a "taco" instead of "beef wrapped in corn flatbread".

Did you like Huarache Azteca?

i count hot dog carts. on capitol hill in seattle the specialty is a hot dog slathered in cream cheese. it tastes like a heart attack on a bun, in the best way

― party central (con suelo), Monday, September 27, 2010 9:12 PM Bookmark

oh god, i ate one of these when drunk (when else) really, and still haven't recovered. D-:

anyway, i walk past tabor czeck all the time, but haven't tried it. i mostly stick to mexican and bahn mi, but i will say that koi fusion (portland's og kogi ripoff) is like mana from the gods

I can't stop thinking about ditching my safe boring life and starting a food truck.

Downsides:
- no culinary training except in my own kitchen
- so out of shape I can barely mow my lawn without passing out
- not at all sure NE Miss has the population to support a food truck

Upsides:
- my own kitchen has been a pretty good training ground
- physical conditioning can be improved
- Tupelo has new restaurants opening every week; money is flowing in via the new Toyota assembly plant
- I would be first through the door; there are a couple of barbecue trucks in a 100-mile radius, but really the "Food Truck Revolution" hasn't gotten here yet

dither dither fret fret

does your city require a license?

Haven't looked into licensing requirements yet. If I cover a wider area, I'm not sure if I'd have to have a license for each city I wanted to set up in.

I mean I think that's how big cities control the number of food trucks...

otoh I have seen food trucks with relatively 'new-ish' fads like kim chi burritos

(here in philly)

is there a college campus nearby?

while this thread is bumped:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/fojol-bros-deny-racism-charges_n_1515281.html#s=973504

Ole Miss and a community college based nearby do have extension campuses in Tupelo.

I really liked the bánh mì at this place

http://www.eatphamish.com/

Looks like she's had some health issues, though.

I tried Senor Sisig, the filipino fusion truck, this weekend. Really loved it. Haven't had filipino food in ages.

what a name

I'm buying a whole fuckin tray of sisig this wknd I think

anyway WmC I say go for it I have yr back

wmc i have often had this fantasy

btw dr. strongo's neuvo food truck is a registered trademark

strongo I hope you'll consider licensing the name, I feel like that's the hook that this venture needs

sr. strongo's neuvo subway

"get me the mexican non-union dr. strongo"

WmC the most important thing right now is a) business name and b) what are you going to feed me from yr food truck

even if you don't do this, in my mind you are SO doing this :D

WmC's truck = official caterer for ILX World FAP Day

q: what does a zombie call an ambulance?

a brain-ambulance?

WmC your foodtruck should have a magnetic board outside for Oblique Strategy for the Day!!! maybe. unless you get sued for that if it's someone else's thing but still. that'd be super awesome.

there's a pretty good food truck rally near me once a month now. at Grand Army Plaza near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. love it. last time it was there got some Mexicue, Kimchi Taco, and a Coolhaus dessert. (this was for two people to split, those ice cream sandwiches are insanely big)

In my fantasies about this, the best part is traveling to Portland and Austin and maybe a couple other places to do research.

I think I understand what Mexicue is but it makes me want to punch something

my friend has a food truck for sale, just the truck itself, no recipes or name or whatever. i think he wants $10g for it. it's all outfitted and licensed for portland.

(not trying to sell a truck on ilx, just interesting to think about startup costs)

ilx should buy a food truck

let's buy a zoo, and then when the animals die we can serve them in the food truck

xxpost- they sell tacos and sliders, I don't think it's really that inflammatory

I didn't really get the whole food truck thing until I got much more into Twitter the last couple years

$10K for a truck ready to start cooking sounds like a steal!

I've looked at a couple of messageboards where people talk about pimping their rides, taking a year and $20K to outfit a truck, and barely mention the food at all.

You're near Oxford, right? You could call it "As I Lay Dining"

I'm not kidding, you need to talk about the food

poly I like the way you're thinking

lol @ As I Lay Dining

If this were going to be strictly Tupelo-centric I could pander with an Elvisy name, Delicious Minds or Hound Dogs or I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Stuff My Face (Over You). Just sell chicken and call it Love Me Tenders. (ugh)

viva las smorgas

clambake

no, wait

50,000,000 Indians Can't Be Wrong Curry Truck

The Thankyaverymunch truck.

Hunka Burnin Lunch

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Snackin'

Looking forward to your artisanal pb and banana panino, WmC

Think you should make smell baked potatoes, and then punch a hole in them with a dowel lengthwise, but not all the way through, and shove crap into the hole (eg shrimp with garlic and asparagus). Then people can walk around eating them like a potato burrito. Sometimes I will walk around town and wish these existed. You can call it "People Who Eat Potato Skins Are Sexy."