Gourmet Food Trucks in the City of Angels

There is a phenomenon that’s lacking in my own city—one that seems to be all the rage in other urban areas across the country. Los Angeles is often cited as the Olduvai Gorge for the subsequent food truck diaspora, but that might have something to do with the combination of office and driving cultures. Consider an urban area of 500 square miles with clogged freeways and side streets and a general boredom of the fare offered within walking distances and you have the perfect setting for the food to come to you.

There are so many gourmet trucks in LA that it’s not hard to find one near you. Most have Facebook and Twitter pages for patrons to keep track of upcoming locations—as they don’t have required regular routes. From Santa Monica to Santa Ana and from Long Beach to San Fernando Valley you’ll often have several gourmet food trucks from which to choose.

It’s a shame it just hasn’t caught on in Dallas. There is a thriving gourmet truck industry in Austin—which just confirms once again why one ought to live there instead of here. The one popular food truck in Dallas runs counter to the gourmet taco-truck-mad the Angelenos are used to. It’s called Green House, and offers healthy, hearty fare with an unused on-board deep fryer used for storing supplies. I’m pretty sure there isn’t irony or a connection in the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau motto of “Live Large…” to caloric intake. The local foodies are fairly hip so it seems unusual that the gourmet food truck niche hasn’t been filled.

On a recent trip to LA, I experienced the phenomena first hand. There’s so much going on all over the Southland it’s hard to decide what to do. We were staying downtown near the Staples Center and the annual Chinatown Summer Nights series was conveniently nearby and the promise of a dozen gourmet food trucks on hand from 5 p.m. to midnight was too hard to resist.

It was a beautiful summer night for strolling, cooling off rapidly from an unseasonable heat wave. Perhaps that’s part of the reason the food trucks haven’t caught on in Dallas. If it’s 104° by two o’clock it’s likely to still be north of 100° well into the evening. People here want air conditioning and comfortable seats when at the trough. And to be sure, there are fleets of lumbering lunch trucks making the rounds in Big D, the ones unaffectionately termed “roach coaches,” but they are simply not a part of this new wave of mobile culinary delights. The ones here mainly serve the construction trade and blue collar work places.

I learned that the hot, new “in” food truck in LA changes from time to time. It was, until recently, the Korean barbecue short rib taco truck that was the alpha dog. Now, the truck that everyone wants to eat from is The Grilled Cheese Truck—really.

The Grilled Cheese Truck was late. In spite of that, and in spite of all the other trucks that were already set up and selling their delectable wares, there was a line of more than 100 people waiting at the empty spot where the Cheese Truck would appear. I didn’t wait in line, there were too many
other temptations.

I started with the Ann-Joo Korean snack truck. In fact, Ahn-Joo is Korean for “snack” and is considered pub food in Korea. The menu tends to spicy hot, but in that good painful way, never masking the delicious components. I sampled a couple of the Robata Skewers—Spicy Chicken with Korean Peppers and Kimchee Citrus Pork with Roasted Fuji Apples. They were both truly grill roasted with flakes of charred caramelized bits that added a smokey substance to the searing spiciness. A simple unadorned taco truck was next. Small fresh corn tortillas, doubled up, with mounds of char grilled steak, raw onions and a pile of cilantro with a chipotle avocado sauce were perfect. My only regret was that there wasn’t a beer truck to provide medicinal lip therapy—one had to settle for bottled water or sodas.

The food truck star of the evening was Beth Colla. She and her partner Tim Ferguson are the proprietors of the Lake Street Creamery (don’t miss the video of the dapper top-hatted kitten devouring a miniature chocolate ice cream cone on the Lake Street Creamery home page). It’s an gourmet ice cream food truck and offers the best ice cream I’ve had. The menu is astounding.

The Donut ice cream tastes just like a seconds-old freshly baked donut. The Aztec Sacrifice is fire and ice ambrosia and claims to be made with the blood of a thousand virgins. But I had something that was off the menu at Beth’s suggestion—the “Don Draper.” Beth explained that they developed it before serving the cast and crew on the set of Mad Men. Tahitian vanilla, caramel, bourbon and smoke flavoring was perfectly blended. It was heavenly—really good—as close to a single malt ice cream you can get. (I ate a full portion of the Don Draper, I sampled the other flavors—by the time I got to the LSC food truck, I was already walking a bit slower from all that went before at the other food trucks.)

The Lake Street Creamery truck is as beautiful as the ice cream. The truck caught my eye, then the menu enchanted, the conversation with Beth was an unexpected pleasure and the ice cream made the evening.

I love the serendipitous. It was a friend in LA that suggested I go to the Chinatown Summer Nights, an event that happens each year in August. That they also had a whole fleet of gourmet food trucks was a wonderful bonus.

I usually carry a couple of cameras and a small assortment of lenses in a shoulder bag when I’m out and about. Even if they don’t see the press pass badge I sometimes wear, people see the cameras and they think I’m either a dilettante (sort of true) or a photog on a gig (sort of true). By some definitions I am indeed a professional, but I tend to minimize that in my search for a decent shot. What happens when I’m walking around with my gear is something I really enjoy. Whether people want the attention or publicity, I get to talk to some wonderful people. For me, the conversations are an important part of the photography. My first preference is taking shots on lonely desolate roads of big skies and big geology. But I travel around enough accompanying my bride and partner of 30 years on her business trips that I often find myself in urban landscapes—and the people and their lives and our conversations are immensely interesting. The girl in the photo below heard the camera click and turned around. We had a nice chat in a wonderful setting.

photos copyright © 2011 by barry b. doyle · all rights reserved