So the LA Street Food Fest on Saturday wasn’t a total epic failure. I did get to eat a few things, from The Gastrobus and Dim Sum Truck, and let me just say, there were pretty damn good. The only plus side of the VIP lounge was the free booze, trying out different teas from T Salon (which I found out is from NY), and catching the debut from the Dim Sum Truck.

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How do you want to f–k with people? How do you make people regret paying $30 for a VIP ticket? How do you make people feel like they wasted their day standing in 1 line for 3 hours just to eat few bites? I guess it was pretty easy at the first LA Street Food Fest that was held today in downtown LA.

I admit that it was a great idea and mad props for the people to pull this whole event off. BUT I did not see any sort of planning on their part. On their site it said “Get ready to eat your heart out” well I didn’t really eat my heart out. I only had the patient to stand in line for 1 truck. I know I know I can’t blame them for my inpatient but it’s really no fair to the attendees and to the truck vendors when they don’t try to have a manageable number of attendees. People were sad to be turned away and frustrated to be in line for 2.5hrs for food. And when the trucks run out of food, who will the people blame? The food trucks of course. It was said that 15,000 people passed through the gate today. If you’re a truck vendor how do you prepare for that? You want to keep the line moving but you can only move so fast. I am still reading a lot of angry tweet about today.

So VIP. General admission was $5 and VIP was $30. Good thing I got a media pass and did not have to pay that stupid $30. For $30 you get a private bar, a lady chatting with you about her fake grass, a patio with a stupid view, a gift bag, and restrooms. I felt bad for the $5 people, where will they pee? Probably the best part with as a vip was to try dim sum from the Dim Sum truck. I’ll write about what I ate in a later post. Just those few things, how does that considered as VIP? VIP means F U I’m gonna go cut that long line! Nope, no cutting. You still had to stand in those long lines.

Also this was not a celebration of street food in LA. Where were the taco trucks?

This was quite sad. Also it took me 30mins just to find a stupid parking and I had to pay $7 for it. Argh LA!!!!!

There were many things on my to-eat list this time around. Compare to my last trip home, which was just an extended weekend, I had to pack a lot of food trucking into 1 day. This time around I had a total of 11 days……11 days of 70 degree LA weather perfect for outdoor dining.

I was looking through buttermilk Truck’s schedule for the week that I was in LA. Seemed like I had to drive a long distance no matter what so I decided to go on Monday because out of the whole week they were parked the closes to me, in downtown LA near Little Tokyo. It was still a good 50min drive without traffic. But on Sunday night I wasn’t sure if I reeeeaally wanted to wake up early for the drive.

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1) Please state your name, name your food truck, the type of food you will be serving and where in LA will the truck make it stops?
Matt: Name: Matthew Chernus. Food Truck Name: Grill ‘ Em All. Type of Food: Awesome burgers, awesome sides of stuff like truffle fries and hand rolled tator tots. Location: Your stomach! HAHAHAHA! Great answer!
Ryan: I am the one they call The Great Tyrant of Gastronome, but you can call me Ryan. We stop only to do the bidding of the hungry masses…which is frequent and all over Los Angeles.

2) When and how did you come up with the idea of serving food in a truck and how did you decide on your menu? Besides the heavy metal theme, what makes your truck unique?
Matt: Truck? We don’t serve food from a truck, that would be too pedestrian. We serve food from our lovely chariot. The food can only be as good as the chamber it comes from and ours is the queen of the ball. The ball of destruction. You ask questions of uniqueness and I answer that all is unique when it comes from the belly of this beast we call hunger.
Ryan: Well, I have been a professional cook for over ten years now and I’ve taken my knowledge of gourmet cuisine and brought it to the most amazing canvas in my mind, burgers. The menu was easy; it’s the twist I have been bringing to backyard barbeques for years now. It’s the warm blanket you throw over yourself on a cold Winter’s night after one to many goblets of grog.

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This is more for me to keep track of all the trucks and carts in NY, Maryland, LA, Bay Area, Portland and Seattle. Hopefully it’ll be useful to somebody too. I have a lot of work to do in LA. Please let me know if I left out any and any trucks I should know about from other cities. So here goes…

New York
El Diablo Tacos Eat to Blog review, Twitter
La Cense Beef Burger Truck Twitter
The Treats Truck Eat to Blog review, Twitter
The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck My reviews here & here, Season End Party, Vendy, Twitter
Street Sweets Eat to Blog review, Twitter
Schnitzel & Things My review, Vendy, Twitter
Cupcake Stop Eat to Blog review, Vendy, Twitter
NYC Cravings Vendy, Twitter
Calexico Twitter
Le Gamin Truck Twitter
Bistro Truck My review, Twitter
Papa Perrone Twitter
Frites’n'Meats Twitter
Hearts Challenger Ice Cream Truck (NYC & LA) Twitter
King of Falafel Vendy
Biryani Cart Vendy
Jamaican Dutchy Vendy
Wafels & Dinges Eat to Blog review, My review, Howard review, Twitter
Red Hook Ball Field Our reviews here, here, here, here, here, and here

Click to see food trucks/carts from Los Angeles, Portland & Seattle

Well sorta back. They’re back in answer form. Last time I saw these guys was at their season end party. If you’re following them on Twitter, I’m sure you know what they have been up to. But I was curious as to what they thought about their first time on the road and maybe get some spoilers for 2010! Argh I can’t wait till Spring comes. Thanks Doug and Bryan for answering my questions!

So now that the season is over, what did you think of the whole experience? Was it everything you wished for?
We had no expectations. We hoped to get through the summer and maybe have a few laughs or stories along the way.

Did you ever think this would become so popular? So popular that you ended up at the Vendy Awards.
Not in the least! Full disclosure – we’d never heard of the Vendy Awards until July!
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