It is good form to make eye contact while toasting.

» Get Toasted Food Truck (Facebook)

Some of us are really excited for the Eat Real event, so excited we might even brave the 405 closure debacle & cross from East to West side. Heck, some of us who think free labor is like running in public — the horror — might even volunteer.

Here’s the official blurb, interspaced with photos from the “Preview Event”, followed by further thoughts on the festivities inspired by the Eat Real Fest Oakland:

The Eat Real Festival, the urban food extravaganza that showcases food in all its tasty forms, has just announced highlights of the lineup for the jam-packed Los Angeles event taking place at the Helms Bakery District in Culver City, CA on July 16th and 17th, 2011. Offering an extraordinary opportunity for people to celebrate not only the very best of their regional foods, but also the people who grow it and make it. Attendees will get up close and personal with their food through two days of non-stop food skills and hands on DIY demos including a “flying knives” butchery contest, an eclectic array of local food producers in the marketplace and a curated selection of delicious street eats incorporating local and sustainable ingredients all priced at $5 or less. “Eat Real takes the idea of and old-time state fair and turns it on its head,” said Anya Fernald, founder of Eat Real Festival. “For two full days, attendees can dine and sip on delicious items that highlight local, healthy and sustainable ingredients. But eating and drinking is only part of the fun. We’ll also put people in touch with their food by showing how it’s made – from making jam, sauerkraut or bread, raising backyard chickens and bees, to seeing the artistry involved in butchering a steer or pig. We celebrate the very best southern California has to offer and will activate thousands of people to demand good food, all the time.”

There is no cost for entry into the Eat Real Festival. In fact, there is no cost for any of the festival activities that includes music, workshops, demonstrations and events like the canning and butchery contests. The only cost when attending the Eat Real Festival will come from shopping in the marketplace or purchasing food from the food vendors on site. By agreeing to take part in Eat Real, vendors commit to using 1-2 local or sustainable ingredients in their food, hormone free meat and ensure that all prepared food for sale on site will be priced $5 or less. There is also space devoted to local food craft folks (cheese, charcuterie, pickles, jams, and more) and urban homesteading where attendees can learn what it takes to get in touch with your inner backyard farmer.

»continue reading Eat Real Fest LA: For The Anti-Cool July 16 – 17

The full name of this joint is Ricos Marisco El Rey del Maz. No kidding. How’s a gringo s’pose to remember that?

The crowning of Mexicali Tacos as LATacos.com 2011 champ begs the question: what if you do not like carne asada? What if your parents always took you on vacations in La Paz and all you want is a single fried fish taco, without trekking up to Hollywood-adjacent? What if you’re a fashion blogger in… God forbid… Alhambra? With a hankering for fish tacos?

The answer is clear: Ricos Tacos, in East Los Angeles.

Chances are, it’ll be open. In fact, it’s almost always open. There are no trick hours. This truck doesn’t have a twitter account, it doesn’t have blogger groupies. What it does have, is the underbellies of East LA passing through, collecting your Sangria bottle, your hecho en Mexico Coca Cola, just as you finish.

Is the fish as delicate as those at Best Fish Tacos Enseneda? Probably not. Is it as expertly fried as Ricky’s? Probably not. What you get are 2 fish filets, gently fried to the shade of Fish-O-Filet, for $3. Wrapped in the rather large corn tortilla, the fried filets, topped with rather thin crema and cabbage, present a hand-to-mouth challenge; hence Team Ricos provides forks. And if you’re lucky, you can find the napkin box to complete the eating process. Most locals ask for “con chile”, but the chile hot sauce is (again) rather thin, and presents minimal burn, so don’t go “sin” on it. Other popular choices are the cocteles, and the gigantuan paper plateful of various marisco on tostada.

There’s hardly a place to properly eat these floppy plates of seafood, even if you’re not Mimi Sheraton. Thankfully, the El Super supermarket’s parking lot is merely steps away, as is the equally fabulous Cemitas Tepeaca.

Ricos Tacos (Marisco El Rel del Maz)
(by El Super)
430 N Indiana St
Los Angeles, CA 9006

– SinoSoul.com

ABOVE: While writing up THE PLACE‘s truck and informing the driver he needs to move his vehicle, one of ten vying for westside lunchtime dollars on Pennsylvania Avenue, a motorcycled member of the Santa Monica Police Department is photographed today both by the woman with the DSLR camera and the telephone of the author, who looks on with a curiously sweet-and-sour emotional mix of glee and dismay while scarfing food from a competing and possibly soon-to-be-written-up-as-well truck.

Since we originally heard from The Green Truck more than one year ago regarding the shakedown and anti-truck sentiments occurring at that time near Museum Square, Wilshire Blvd, we’ve had various legislature handed down, we’ve had health grades approved, we’ve heard more than once that trucks are soon to be the way of the dodo, and we’ve heard more than twice that trucks are here to stay. The trucks do appear “here to stay”, of course, and with them comes the ever-present threat of a ticket by The Man, both a cost of doing business and a dependable source of municipal revenue for the cities in which both inhabit.

» LA Mobile Vendors Set To Carry Letter Grades (Eater LA)
» LAPD Officially Tasked With Throwing Fines At Your Favorite Truck (Los Angeleaouise)
» Food Truck Lot Closed Down by City of Santa Monica (Los Angelatinous)
» India Jones: Open For Business, Impounded By Po-Po, Back On Streets (Losanjealous)

Does anyone else wish we could go back to the food truck gold rush of a mere year ago? When guys would dart out of bars–giving up the chance of drunken hook-ups–in hopes of grabbing one of the last Kogi short-rib tacos. When gourmet food truck culture was not just new to Los Angeles, but it was actually gourmet.

Well, I am happy to report the new World Fare food truck, in Clark Kent-fashion, has swept in and saved the day. World Fare joins the likes of the Border Grill truck in the exclusive pantheon of trucks that aren’t just good “for a food truck” but rather simply good for being damn good.

And, to be honest, it isn’t even fair to call World Fare a food truck. I wouldn’t call it a “bustaurant” either (though its owners do) because, well, that’s lame. But it certainly is an experience. Combining the wonders of South African street food, fine blackboard cuisine specials, Albert Hammond Jr. tunes and the touristic voyeurism of a double-decker bus, it really takes the Los Angeles food culture to another level. Literally.

»continue reading World Fare: Putting the Fuck Back in Food Truck

Mayhap you saw the tweet by Victor already, live at the scene. If not, let it be known that the Santa Monica Food Truck Lot is, at present, closed, the issue being that the lot’s zoning language does not explicity state “food truck use”. New language will need to be added and approved before the trucks may begin doling out those cute, tasty, cute-and-tasty and occasionally neither-cute-nor-tasty sub-$10 meals to aficionados of the westside gourmet lonchera scene.

Certainly not the first time The Man has clashed with a conglomeration (coalition?) of food trucks in our fair city. Anybody remember 5750 Wilshire Blvd a few months back? Stick around for full details as they trickle in. Meantime, solidarity tweets may be directed here: @SMFoodTruckLot

This past Halloween, thousands of Angelenos gathered at the beautiful Legendary Park Plaza near MacArthur Park for KCRW’s Masquerade: A Halloween Costume Ball & Dance Party.  With one look at the massive two-story venue (several large wings and two outdoor areas for lounging and dining at some of LA’s premier food trucks), the set list (DJ Shadow, Sea Wolf, Little Dragon, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, various KCRW DJs) and the full costume participation of the guests, we knew this was going to be a stellar night. 

»continue reading KCRW’s Masquerade: A Halloween Costume Ball & Dance Party, October 31, 2009

We can’t actually tell if Mike (a) is tired of shelling out $3.50 for his Coolhaus ice cream sandos, (b) has a crush on the owners, (c) is jealous of the truck’s tar-architecture- asphalt-and- cream-laden business model, or (d) is completely and wholly spot-on, in the right, in his op-ed below regarding the Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwich Truck duo’s failure to openly confess to a presumed Diddy Riese/UCLA collegiate inspiration at some level, having in the last few months shoved their version of the venerable Westwood institution’s non-architecturally-themed-yet-peculiarly-overly-familiar $1.50 sandos into a trendy li’l chrome truck, slapped punny architectural names onto them and tweeted them away all o’er town for $3.50 a throw, an astonishing markup in our frugal books. Who’s to say? That’s why they call it op-ed! Feel free to share your own opinions following the below tirade. The more vocal of you, g’head, send us a fully-fleshed submission for op-ed consideration on these pages (yes, Coolhaus, we’re looking directly at you for rebuttal). -ed

Above close-up of one member of Coolhaus’ $3.50 summer product line replete with edible “500 Days of Summer” wrapper courtesy intellichick (some rights reserved)

Coolhaus not so cool
By Mike

I live in Los Angeles and I eat a lot. I drink a little, too. With this highly dignified and prestigious culinary resume I’ve accumulated some opinions over the years. From time to time I will share them here. Bottoms up.

Dear Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwich Truck Ladies,

Look, I like you ladies. Natasha and Freya – those sound like hot names. Your truck, it’s silver – that’s fucking adorable. It’s even got rims. Totally bad ass. Your sandwiches are named after one of the most overlooked professions of the modern day … architects.

That’s all well and good.

It truly is. But, I think your shenanigans have gone on long enough. It’s time we discuss the frozen white elephant in the truck.

»continue reading “Truck Talk” Op-Ed: Coolhaus Not So Cool