Ever since Hanco’s opened their 7th Avenue branch, I’ve been eating their tofu banh mi at least once a week. Then a few weeks ago I was at the Farmer’s Market and spotted a beautiful daikon radish and an idea began to form in my head. Why not make my own banh mi? I grabbed a daikon, some carrots, a few demi-baguettes, a sprig of cilantro, and some eggplants (among other things) and began to plan.

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While planning my food truck crawl in LA I wanted to do more than just eating and than blogging about what I ate. Inspired by what Serious Eats and California Taco Trucks are doing on their site for street food vendors, I set out to come up with my own set of questions to ask each vendor. So much has been talked and blogged about the food from the street vendors I decided to concentrate on more of the social aspects of this new wave of food trucks. And also to find out how the city of Los Angeles has shaped the way of street food vending.

*Photo provided by The Franken-Stand

1) Please state your name, name your food truck, the type of food you serve, and how long have your food truck been in operation?
My name is Raymund and I own/operate Franken’s (aka The Franken-Stand.) It is quite an honor to be included in your food truck mission, Thank you. I can tell right away you may not know much about us. We are a Spooky-Theme Mobile Cuisine! We offer 100% Plant-Based Gourmet Franks. We are not a food truck. Franken’s is the one and only Vegan Hot Dog Stand in Los Angeles. The Franken-Stand has been haunting L.A. for over a year and a half and have seen tons of food trucks within our time, spring on the scene. But, I am confident to say that even though we are not a truck and we only work out of one food facility.. we still stand out amongst the massive gathering of food trucks in our town. I do not know of one food truck here that is entirely vegan, though many have some vegan options. There is not one that is dedicated to the spooky side of life. So, with these things in mind.. we kind of are not in the food truck loop of things. We do not associate with any of them. Franken’s books events all over. We do private parties, festivals, music shows, art shows, independent theatres, museums, etc.. and since we are so compact it makes it a lot easier to be “a part” of the happenings and just be parked around it. That is our goal. We are there because people want us there.
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Recently my 2 of my friends made the move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They had settled into the dreaded “Valley” of Los Angeles. When every Angelinos talk or think about the “Valley”, they have a disgusted tone of voice, “eewww the Valley?” Personally I have never been to the Valley nor do I know where the Valley is. When I googled map my friends’ address, it told me it would take 1.2hours. Greeeeaaat. So the next day, I gave myself enough time for the trek and off I went to this magical Valley place. Well 5.5hours later, I was tired, sleepy and hungry. What I nor my friends realized were that we would be sitting on a patio drinking sangria and having some good Mexican food at Hugo’s in Studio City.
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