People seem to really enjoy New York Street Food Featured Vendor Profiles, the latest of which is our interview with O’Neill Reid of the Jamaican Dutchy.

Along the same lines, Serious Eats had an interview with Alex Chu of the Dim Sum Truck in L.A.  In addition to some delectable photos, you get a good idea of what a day in the life of a food truck vendor is like.

Combo platter

Click through for some interesting reading and more delicious photos.  Just make sure you’ve eaten first!

What’s on the menu? Both traditional and fusion-style dim sum items: Shu Mai, Har Gow, barbecue pork buns (baked and steamed), sweet egg custard tarts (brûléed when ordered), roasted Peking duck tacos—just to name a few selections!

Peking duck tacos

Location and hours? Regular stops include Venice (The Brig), Santa Monica, West Los Angeles (Sawtelle), Beverly Hills (Myspace Building), Downtown (USC and FIDM) and Mid-Wilshire (E! building). The Dim Sum Truck serves lunch and dinner and at special events. But Mondays we take off.

How long has the Dim Sum Truck been on the streets? Since February 2010.

How has Twitter affected business? Twitter helps spread the word and creates an ongoing interaction with fans and consumers. The feedback received via tweets is especially helpful.

Why a mobile business over brick-and-mortar? With (good) dim sum fairly limited to the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles (and during breakfast and lunch hours), I wanted to bring the food to the consumer and serve it at any hour, at any given location.

Who are Dim Sum Truck’s typical customers and regulars? Diverse crowds—from college students to office workers to moms with their kids—show up to sample the dim sum goods. The local food community—such as restaurant owners (Animal’s Jon Shook) and food bloggers (Javier Cabral, the “Teenage Glutster”)—can be counted on as regular supporters. And, of course, the ubiquitous Hollywood celebrity sightings are not uncommon.

lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice with pork, sausage, chicken, shrimp & mushrooms

Describe a typical day: The tedious, long process of making great dim sum requires prep to start early in the morning. The dumplings and buns are made by hand and steamed or baked directly before a lunch shift. Once the truck is loaded, it’s a long day on the streets, serving dim sum to the Los Angeles community.

What were you doing before his Dim Sum truck? While completing my USC undergrad, I took management internships at restaurants in Los Angeles, including Kitchen 24 in Hollywood and BLT Steak LA on Sunset. Upon graduating, I formulated my street food plan and ran with it.

What makes Dim Sum Truck’s food so special? The blend of authenticity with originality. All of the recipes and the prep work are at the same level as a traditional dim sum restaurant. But the special sauces incorporate secret ingredients in combination with the more usual suspects. In addition, I try to invent out-of-the-box fusion items such as the spicy black bean tofu mulita, inspired by the mulitas at La Taquiza I enjoyed while attending USC.

How do you define “street food”? Something that everyone can easily access and taste, that isn’t too pricey and isn’t sacrificing any flavor.

The best street food city and why: Los Angeles, based on the sheer number of trucks serving up a diverse range of ethnic and interesting foods. With even celebrity chefs (such as chef Ludo Lefebvre) jumping on board with their own trucks, I believe street food has changed LA’s whole food scene.

Chu’s comfort food after a long day? Really spicy and delicious Thai from Ruen Pair in Hollywood—particularly the water spinach (my favorite vegetable), stir-fried with garlic, chilies and fried pork.

Advice for an aspiring vendor? Be persistent, work hard, and always love and appreciate your customers! [Serious Eats]

Har Gow

The 1st Annual LA Street Food Festival was held yesterday, Sat, Feb 13th.  Estimates were that as many as 15,000 people showed up, and if that was the case, about 14,000 went home unhappy.  Unless you had a media pass that got you in an hour earlier, chances are you waited at least an hour to get in the only entrance (!) and waited another 1-2 hours for some of the more popular trucks. Even people who paid $60 for VIP tickets were disappointed.

Here’s some of the comments from Eating LA blog:

“It’s really a shame that the events success was it’s biggest failure. Everything we ate was good, some things great (pork belly bun from flying pig—oh my) but I would have gladly traded my day back for the $60 spent on VIP tickets.”

“I got there around 11:30, good thing for the media pass!, and it was packed already. It was nice to see this turn out but that was it’s biggest failure. That had to be the suckiest VIP lounge ever.”

“biggest waste of time i’ve ever taken part in, stood in line for 3 hours and ate nothing, what a joke of planning this was.”

“judging by the amount of completely pissed off people wandering all over downtown emptying every restaurant in a 10 block radius of the event i’d say there area lot of people that didn’t think too positively of this event. we tried to eat at 5 different places in downtown and there are hour waits everywhere from people that couldn’t get into the festival. was this thing a total epic failure or what?”

“HORRIBLY planned! As with many others – there was no way we were going to wait in the longest line I have ever seen in my life only to predictably wait in line for each truck. Great idea for a festival.. But one entrance?? It was a terrible disappointment.. Hopefully someone with one day of event planning experience will pick up this event and do it right next time.”

“Can I have the two hours of my life that were spent waiting for the pork belly bun at Flying Pig? We waited in line for an hour and a half and then there was an additional 30 minute wait to get our food. I think I’m going to study Korean cooking…”

There were many more comments like this, but you get the idea.  While it was a good thing that so many people wanted to try these great food trucks, festivals are like computers; wait for at least version 1.2 before trying it out.  The organizers of the L.A Street Food Festival still have a lot to learn about running festivals.

One thing’s for sure – the gourmet food truck phenomena has moved from the fringes squarely into the mainstream.

Mobile food court in downtown L.A.

With the complaints  food trucks have been getting from local business owners in L.A. about parking, littering and the siphoning-off of business, mobile food courts are starting to emerge.  Portable food courts are the latest trend in the food truck scene, eliminating the need for the typical cat-and-mouse chases around town.  Thursday’s event in front of the loading docks off Traction Avenue and South Alameda Street was a test run that vendors hope will address concerns about the vehicles, such as parking, littering and confrontations with restaurant owners.

“We don’t want to make waves,” said Matt Geller, vice president of the SoCal Mobile Food Vendor’s Assn.  Geller, who organized the downtown event and is planning future mobile food courts, said he hopes to find property that’s not too close to restaurants.

In August, food truck vendors were told to leave the Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard. In January, vendors set up shop on a former used-car lot in Santa Monica, but the operation was shut down after one day because of zoning issues.

Alex Rocha, general manager of Spitz in Little Tokyo — not far from Thursday’s mobile food court — wasn’t concerned by the experiment.  The vehicles might take some of his business, but they don’t offer the ambience of a restaurant, Rocha said.  “You can go to a restaurant, sit down, get out of your head for a second and go back to work,” he said.

The concept, though, appears to be catching on.

Another lot is planned near the Beverly Center, and truck vendors are expected to assemble during the monthly Downtown Art Walk, Geller said.

Dave Reiss, owner of The Brig, a bar in Venice’s Abbott Kinney district, started letting multiple food trucks use his parking lot in the fall of 2008. To Reiss, having trucks in the lot is almost like a built-in restaurant.  “It almost is a modern food court,” he said.

Molly Taylor, who sells everything from cookies to cupcakes from various L.A. bakers out of her Sweets Truck, said the lots are an added element in the success of the industry — which, for her, is all about people.  “It’s definitely an opportunity for community,” said Taylor, known on skid row as the “sweet lady.”

Back at the downtown mobile food court, four men in teal and blue scrubs munched on barbecue from a truck.  “It’s better for us,” said David Stempel, a radiologist. “Competition breeds better business.” [LA Times]  We couldn’t agree more.

There must be places in New York that can accomodate a mobile food court.  I’m sure some enterprising foodie will read this and bring the concept to New York.  Can’t wait.

Buttermilk Truck

The organizers of the upcoming 1st Annual LA Street Food Fest on Sat, Feb. 13th have announced additional details.  So far, 36 street food vendors have been named, and there will be over 30 local designers and artists in the UNIQUE LA Marketplace.  There will be Taco Trucks, Cupcake Trucks, Ice Cream Trucks, Korean BBQ Trucks, Vegan Trucks, Fruit Carts, Hot Dog Carts and loads more. [LA Street Food Fest]

LAist lists the street food and design vendors as follows:

25 of LA’s food trucks raised over $7,000 on Saturday (23rd) for The Red Cross’ Haiti Relief operations.  Organized by the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association, the trucks and patrons lined the streets from 11 a.m to 4 p.m.   The turnout was great, with conservative estimates of at least 5,000 people showing up to buy some street food for a good cause. The organizers are still counting the cash, but so far, it is over $7,000.

Participating in the event were: India Jones [LAist Story], The Grilled Cheese Truck [LAist story], Nom Nom [LAist Story], Don Chow Tacos [LAist Story], Buttermilk Truck [LAist story], Asian Soul Kitchen, Slice Truck, Fishlips Sushi, Get Shaved [LAist Story], Dosa Truck [LAist Story], Barbie’s Q, South Philly Experience, Vesuvio, LA FuXion [LAist Story], Calbi BBQ, King Kone, The Sweets Truck, Del’s Frozen Lemonade, Dainty Cakes LA, Flying Pig, Louks To Go [LAist Story], Bool BBQ, Kabob Express, Yum Yum Bowls, and Willoughby Road. [LAist]

Flying Pig pork and duck tacos

]]> http://newyorkstreetfood.com/1620/la-food-trucks-raise-over-7000-for-haiti/feed/ 1 http://newyorkstreetfood.com/1313/calendar-l-a-street-food-festival-set-for-feb-13th/ http://newyorkstreetfood.com/1313/calendar-l-a-street-food-festival-set-for-feb-13th/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:40:44 +0000 admin http://newyorkstreetfood.com/?p=1313

Veggie dog from Lets Be Frank truck

Although details have not been released yet, UniqueLA recently announced the first LA ♥’s Street Food Festival on February 13th.  One of the organizers described it as follows:

“The goal is to get as much L.A. street food (from taco trucks to chic trucks) in one spot with entertainment, live art, music and, quite possibly, a pop-up UniqueLA mini-market,” explained Shawna Dawson, former Yelp Community Manager and currently with her own company, SauceLA . Dawson has teamed up with Sonja Rasula of UniqueLA to make this event happen.

“Ideally, aside from having it all in one place, all the vendors will do special small plates so people can easily sample,” Dawson continued, knowing that such an event can draw long exasperating lines.

And what about bacon wrapped hot dogs? “If I get my way” teased Dawson, who said more details will come out as the event approaches. To stay in touch with festival news, sign up for the UniqueLA newsletter. [LAist]

UPDATE: The LA Street Food Fest is now on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LAFoodFest.  I just heard from the people at the LA Street Food Fest, and Let’s Be Frank (pictured) will not be at the festival, but a complete list of vendors will be posted later this week at http://lastreetfoodfest.com/.

Featured in the video are a mix of the “old guard” and newbies in the mobile food world: Barbie’s Q, Lomo Arigato, The Flying Pig Truck, Coolhaus, Little Spoon Desserts, and KogiBBQ. [LAist]

LA Food Truck Tour from Terry Wunder on Vimeo.

L.A.  is well-known for its car culture, so it’s not surprising they are out front in the number of food trucks and the variety of food being sold.  The latest is the  Grilled Cheese Truck.  I like grilled cheese as much as the next person, but wouldn’t wait on line more than about 5 minutes for it.  Other people obviously feel differently.  NOTCOT paid them a visit and has the skinny. [NOTCOT]

What do you think about a grilled cheese truck?  Silly or great idea?  Leave a comment below

Border Grill Truck

We recently told you about some great street food in SF.  Here’s some Left Coast street food love courtesy of NBC’s LA affiliate, who highlight:

@Marked5 (“Japanese Style Burgers”)

@BorderGrill (“Gourmet tacos” and more)

@COOLHAUS (gourmet ice cream sammies)

@kogibbq (Korean BBQ Taco Truck)

@Letsbefrank (“Grass Fed Beef Hot Dogs”)

Next time you’re in the City of Angels, make sure to check out these great food trucks. [NBC LA]