India Jones Chow Truck’s Sumant Pardal
Most days, Sumant Pardal can be found sitting at a small, folding wooden table outside the India Jones Chow Truck, hanging out with his customers and watching them enjoy his amazing Indian street food. We ordered up some butter chicken ($7), a gobhi (cauliflower) paratha ($3.50) and some samosa spring rolls ($3), and sat down with the chef and owner of the mobile Indian street-food joint for an enlightening conversation.
Pardal has been in the restaurant business for 33 years: he founded the East India Grill chain of restaurants, which he's since sold. Now, at India Jones, he specializes in Punjabi food, particularly frankies: a roti is wrapped around fillings like lamb, paneer and mushrooms to form what the Zagat Guide's blog calls "the Indian equivalent of a burrito." His butter chicken, a mild curry with rice, is also a staple of the India Jones menu.
Pardal likes to talk with his customers. Topics we touched on included the Miracle Mile food-truck parking situation; the bigger, better new India Jones truck; and the possible expansion of the India Jones brand.
If you've visited a food truck on the Miracle Mile, you've probably heard at least a little bit about the precarious parking situation on Wilshire Boulevard. If not, here are the basics: Brick-and-mortar restaurants feel the trucks are taking their business. They unsuccessfully lobby the city to stop the trucks from parking on the Miracle Mile. Even though parking on the strip is now limited to one hour instead of two, the trucks continue to draw the lunchtime crowd. So, Pardal tells us (and LAist has also reported), Museum Square management and employees have allegedly begun employing a new tactic: they're parking (either their own cars, or, according to another LAist report, junkers) at all the Miracle Mile meters, and letting their business eat the cost of the tickets they're getting. Pardal doesn't think this approach will be viable for long.
Pardal is an active member of the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association, and regularly advocates for food trucks' presence in the city. He and fellow members of the SoCal MFVA recently sat down with Councilmember Tom LaBonge to talk about an alternative parking arrangement for the trucks. It's been proposed that the trucks could use the side streets, and that the city would charge them a flat parking fee. That way, the restaurants would feel less threatened, and the trucks could keep on doing business. As we talk about this, we shake our heads ruefully at the plight of the Shrimp Guys truck, which takes up two parking spaces, and so must be getting twice the tickets that the other trucks are getting.
Pardal recently switched to a bigger truck: his new ride is two feet wider and a foot longer, but - thankfully - still only occupies one parking spot. It has more kitchen space, two extra burners on the stove, and a double-door fridge that can hold around $6000 worth of food. It isn't your standard-issue Road Stoves truck: it's a private lease. Road Stoves, in fact, wouldn't lease to Pardal, he tells us - they told him they already had the Dosa Truck, and they didn't want to have two Indian food trucks out on the road. Pardal turned fellow trucks Kabob n' Roll and Louks on to his private company, and they now also lease their trucks through them.
Pardal will soon launch another truck, which he's planning to call China Jones: it'll feature Chinese street food. What's on the menu? Pardal says it's all in his head; he's made the dishes many times. "Give me a bowl of water, a chicken, and some cornstarch, and I'll make you something great," he says. He's planning to expand his Jones brand even further - Jakarta Jones (Indonesian street food) is just one of the potential variations he mentions.
Even if the trucks don't succeed in winning over LaBonge and the City of LA, India Jones has already converted one of the enemy - the meter maid who's tasked with ticketing the trucks up and down Miracle Mile. After completing her windshield-papering jaunt along Wilshire, she often stops at the India Jones truck to get some grub.
LA Street Food Fest 2: July 24
It's coming up soon - the second installment of the LA Street Food Fest. For round number 2, the Fest has moved from LA Center Studios to the Rose Bowl. This time, the good eats won't be marred by long lines and sold-out noms - there are only a few thousand presale tickets available, you can only purchase them online, and one price gets you all you can eat, rather than your having to wait - and then pay - at the trucks and carts once you get in. The event's also in the evening (from 5:30 to 9 PM), so there's less chance of frying in the hot sun, as queuers and eaters did at the last LA Street Food Fest in February. While you eat, you can watch a concert, vote in the Vendys-style cook-off, and hang out in the beer garden. Ooh, and the entry price includes free parking, a boon at any festival-type event.
Food truck-wise, all your favorites will be there: here's the complete list. Top three trucks I'm most excited about hitting: The Manila Machine, to try their lumpia (Filipino egg rolls); the Fox Pizza Bus, to get some wood-fired pie from a double-decker; and The Mighty Boba Truck, because I'm always up for some milk tea. Top three trucks I already love and will be hitting at the Fest: the Gastrobus, for their awesome daily specials like the plum juice they had recently; Louks, whose pitas I just cannot praise highly enough; and Coolhaus, because even though their free-ice-cream-sandwich days appear to be over for now, I will gladly pay full price for their balsamic fig and mascarpone ice cream.
Visit the LA Street Food Fest website for more information.
Enter the Ninja: Yatta-! Truck
The Yatta-! Truck, which serves sushi with an American twist, has been on the road since June 5. I stopped by this past Friday on Miracle Mile. The menu offers several unique rolls, including the All-American, a deep-fried cheeseburger roll. It also gives you the option of building your own sushi, which you do by using the brightly colored popsicle sticks sitting in cups on the side of the truck. You pick the sticks corresponding to the ingredients you'd like in and on your roll, and then you hand them to the folks at the truck's order window. "You be the Chef!" is the Yatta-! Truck's tag line.
I'm not quite confident in my ability to design my own roll without accidentally picking flavor combos that will turn out to be unexpectedly gross, so instead I chose one of the five pre-designed rolls on the menu: the Cream Cheese Explosion, a deep-fried cream cheese and spicy tuna roll. It was $3.50 for four pieces. The cream cheese and spicy tuna was a great combination - the cream cheese tempered the tuna's spice. My only complaint: deep-frying the roll cooked the tuna a little too much for my liking. I'd have preferred a greater contrast between the crunchy, hot batter on the outside and the cold, tender tuna inside the roll. I don't know if that's asking too much, culinarily speaking, but hey, if Acapulco can make deep-fried ice cream... (Yes, I'm talking about Acapulco, the Michelin 3-star restaurant that has introduced Southern California to such gustatory delights as the Mucho Macho-tizer Platter. Stop looking at me like that.)
This truck comes complete with a ninja. Yes, a masked, sword-wielding ninja who will obligingly strike badass poses if you ask to take a picture of him. Despite his garb, he's not fierce at all; in fact, he's very sweet and friendly. We shot the shit while I waited for my order to come up, and he told me the Yatta-! Truck has two regular spots: where we were currently standing, at 5900 Wilshire Blvd; and 2nd and Santa Monica Blvd, in the city of Santa Monica. It also hits downtown and Venice fairly often. Look for its latest stops here. In addition to tasty sushi, the Yatta-! Truck gave me the opportunity to say a sentence I may never again utter in my lifetime: "Hang on; I gotta say goodbye to the ninja."
Photos by Oliver Seldman
Truck Launch: ESPN Match Truck
ESPN and chef Roy Choi have teamed up to create two World Cup-themed food trucks that'll be hitting the streets of LA and NYC all throughout the global football tournament. Choi, the mastermind behind Kogi BBQ, designed the truck's menu, which features dishes from some of the countries taking part in the World Cup. The truck also boasts a giant flat-screen TV, so football fans can watch the games while they eat.
We hit the LA World Cup truck on Friday during the France-Uruguay game. It was parked outside the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, right in the heart of tourist town, and there was a sizable crowd gathered around the flat-screen. Roy Choi was, alas, not on the truck, but I talked to PR guy Mark, who told me the menu will be the same throughout the truck's run. I thought it'd be nice to have a revolving menu featuring different countries' dishes - perhaps the menu could even change depending on which countries advance in the World Cup - but that'd probably be far too complicated to manage.
ESPN's Match Truck won't be hitting standard LA food-truck destinations like Miracle Mile: it's focusing on places where crowds like to hang out and take in a game, rather than just eat and go back to work. Yesterday it was back on Hollywood Boulevard, and today it visited Macarthur Park. Pershing Square and Olvera Street are also on the schedule. The truck's Twitter feed will let you know where you can eat and watch, as will the Web site.
Interestingly, all four of the dishes we ordered were sprinkled with sesame seeds. The seared rice balls (Italy: $4) were perhaps my least favorite - they didn't taste of very much at all. The salad that went with them, though, was fantastic, full of crunchy green beans and radishes, with a vinegary dressing. The mozzarella tasted a lot like queso fresco.
As I've previously mentioned, I am a spice wuss; the huevos rancheros (Mexico: $5) were slightly too hot for me, though the flavors were very good. I think it was the chorizo that set my mouth on fire. The egg whites were perfectly textured - tender near the yolks, and crispy on the edges.
PR guy Mark showed us a stain on his shirt where the yaki mandoo dumplings (South Korea: 3 for $4, 6 for $7) had attacked him earlier in the day, and I dodged a similar salvo of juice as I bit into one. They were soggy, but otherwise awesome. I wished I'd ordered six instead of three.
The lamb gyro (Greece: $6) came with what the menu called "gutter-style" tzatziki sauce. I'm not sure what that means, but I do know that the sauce was seasoned with a metric ton of dill. I liked it. The pickled onions were a great touch - they gave me a stomachache later, but it was well worth it.
Los Angeles Magazine's recent cover story noted that LA's food truck street culture helps us feel more connected to one another in this car-centric city. Add a football game to the equation, and that connection strengthens severalfold - at least for me. I truly enjoyed standing on Hollywood Boulevard in the sunshine, in the middle of a crowd, eating squirty dumplings, staring up at the Match Truck's screen and chuckling at the French teenagers screaming "Allez les Bleus!" behind me. I'll be back to repeat that experience at the Match Truck very soon.
Photos by Oliver Seldman
Knockout Tacos
We bumped into Knockout Tacos by Pan Pacific Park, on the truck's first full day out. Chef-owner Chris Goossen used to work at Bottega Louie downtown. His family is in the boxing business, hence the truck's concept. His cousin in Temecula did his truck's distinctive blue wrap with its red boxing-gloves logo.
We got three tacos: BBQ pork burnt ends with baked beans and Southern-style coleslaw ($3.50), carne asada ($2.50), and pollo asada ($2.50). The pork delivered a, uh, one-two punch of deliciousness, although it could perhaps benefit from being shredded instead of sliced - the size of the pieces made it a tad dry. Maybe that's the "burnt ends" part - perhaps it's supposed to be a bit chewy. The sweet, tender beans knocked me for six. (Oh, sorry, wrong sport; that's a cricket metaphor.) I now want to add baked beans to all the BBQ tacos I eat. The pollo asada was wonderfully tomatoey and vinegary. I loved the cotija cheese on both asada tacos.
I know I end a lot of my reviews with "Next time I'll eat..." Hey, I've only got so much room in my stomach. Whenever I visit a food truck, I pick three or four menu items, decide which two to have this time, and leave the other two dishes for my second trip. My next-time choices at KO Tacos are: the tacos de papa with Yukon Gold potatoes, and the habanero albacore taco - even though I'm a spice lightweight (Another boxing reference! Yay!) and may have to remove some of the salsa before chowing down.
We have a unanimous decision! The winner, and still the heavyweight champion of the taco world, is... Wow, I can't believe I just stooped to that metaphorical level. KO Tacos are great: no figures of speech necessary.
Photos by Oliver Seldman
Silverlake Jubilee: Crepe’n Around
The Silverlake Jubilee took place on the weekend of May 22 and 23. Myra Street was closed down from Sunset Boulevard to Hoover Street, and vendors and people filled the road from 10AM to 10PM on Saturday and Sunday. There was juice you could drink straight from the coconut; serving bowls made out of old vinyl records; more hipsters than you could shake a stick at (I shook one at as many of them as I could manage); and a whole crapload of food trucks. I counted: Derbs (whose truck is tiny!), the Fatburger Fatmobile, Mrs. Beasley's, Nana Queen's, Barbie's Q, Fishlips Sushi, Uncle Lau's BBQ, Del's, Flying Pig, Louks, Dosa Truck, India Jones, Lomo Arigato, Vesuvio, TastyMeat, Slice Truck, Komodo, Buttermilk Truck, Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffee and Smoothies, Dim Sum Truck, Frysmith, and Crepe'n Around. Phamish was there, despite having endured a nasty-sounding situation the previous week in which their truck had been taken hostage: they were using a temporary truck with a banner but no wrap.
I'd been excited about visiting LA's two crepe trucks, so I was psyched to see Crepe'n Around at the Jubilee. After I set up camp (husband + toddler + stroller + bag + friends who also had all of the above) on the sidewalk next to the truck, I went to place my order. I chose a teriyaki hanger steak crepe ($6). It came in a red-and-white checked paper scoop tray, with the crepe folded over in a cone shape, like a sushi hand roll. Inside: seared hanger steak, pepper jack cheese, mixed greens, pickled onions, wonton crisps, and teriyaki sauce.
The meat was juicy, but a little fatty and tough in places. It was coated very evenly with just the right amount of sauce - I was expecting the occasional teriyaki-heavy bite of meat, but none came. The greens and the wontons added a nice crunch. I have to say I didn't even notice the cheese's presence. Perhaps its flavor complemented the other ingredients so perfectly that it simply vanished into the crepe, or maybe the chef forgot to put it on. The crepe itself was the tiniest bit overdone, but I liked it; the very slight crispiness of the browned parts added a bit of nutty flavor. My beef (get it? get it?) with the overall package: a crepe seemed like too delicate a vehicle for such a hearty sandwich. The pieces of steak weren't what I'd call thinly cut, which made the whole package kind of chunky and unwieldy. Also, the teriyaki sauce soon soaked through the crepe. I got three quarters of the way through my meal, and then, as Chinua Achebe might say, things fell apart. Maybe if I'd been eating this dish on a plate with a knife and fork, my experience would have been different, but as hand-held street food, this didn't hold up very well. I think next time I'll try a more traditional savory crepe, like ham and brie.
I couldn't resist getting a dessert crepe. While Nutella looked tempting, I asked the Crepe'n Around crew if they had any lemon juice on board: I just wanted plain old sugar and lemon ($4). They graciously obliged me. This crepe was perfectly done. It could have used a couple fewer squeezes of lemon juice, but it still absolutely hit the spot.
I appreciated the Jubilee's zero-waste effort. There was no water being sold in bottles - instead, there were a couple of water filling stations where you could bring your own bottle to replenish your H2O supply. At several points along the block-party route, there were bins in banks of three: one for trash, one for recycling, and one for composting. As ever, though, the occasional dumbass threw the wrong stuff into the wrong bin. I didn't see any event staff sorting the trash into its correct receptacles; I hope they did at some point.
I enjoyed the Jubilee. It was like a mini-Sunset Junction. Its acoustics astounded me: unless I stood right by the stage where the bands were playing (which, sadly, I'll have to wait to do until my kid is older and has hardier ears), I could barely hear the music at all. That meant I didn't need to shout myself hoarse or lip-read my friends to have a conversation. Excellent. The only time I was silent was when I was shoving crepes in my face, or inhaling nutella louks from - where else - Louks.
Photos by Oliver Seldman
Chef Brian’s Comfort Truck
Too bad you can't copyright sliders. The mini-burger trend that's been sweeping the nation must annoy the White Castle people no end, since they're the ones that popularized the greasy little things to begin with, and they're not seeing any extra bank from the recent proliferation of petite meat patties. Tiny burgers have become a staple on gourmet food truck menus: they're quick to make, convenient to eat, and not half as messy as a regular-size burger. It's also easy to put all kinds of gourmet spins on them. Chef Brian's Comfort Truck does just that, offering seven varieties of slider - six chicken and one beef.
I got the jerk beef sliders (two for $4). They came on sweet, doughy buns reminiscent of the ones from King's Hawaiian, and each was topped with a slice of pineapple. The meat had an authentic jerk flavor, and it was spicy, without being so hot that it blew my head off. The beef was medium-well done - just how I like it. That's one of the reasons I've become a slider convert: it's hard to undercook a miniature patty, whereas people often tend to undercook regular-size burgers, because they like rare meat. I'm a fan of more well-done meat (do I hear snickers from the peanut gallery?).
My husband got the BBQ chicken sliders (also two for $4). They weren't quite what either of us expected - the menu's description of the sliders didn't mention that they were battered. Looking back, the words "deep-fried" on the menu should have tipped us off: most deep-fried chicken has a layer of breading on it, helping keep the meat inside juicy. Our initial confusion didn't change the fact that the sliders were very tasty; the barbecue sauce had a good balance of acid and smoke flavors.
Next: Chef Brian's Golden Fried "Crack" Tortilla Chips ($2). Holy crap, these were good. I found myself hoping my 2-year-old son wouldn't eat too many of them, so I could have more. (No such luck - he loved them as much as I did.) They're flour tortilla chips that taste like they came from heaven. They're buttery and flaky and there are far too few of them in each serving.
A week or so later, I hit up the Comfort Truck for the second time. They were on Melrose and Spaulding, and they'd tweeted that they were giving out free jerk beef sliders and Comfy Jerk Beef Wraps (usually $3) to their first 30 customers. I came by and grabbed my freebies, plus an extra order of crack chips and a soda. The sliders were just as good as I remembered them, and Brian and Nikki were lots of fun to chat with.
Several brick-and-mortar burger joints have deployed mobile divisions: I even saw a Fatburger truck at Silverlake Jubilee today. Maybe White Castle will start its own food truck. With the huge amount of competition out there now, the original kings of the slider might want to show these upstart burger-slingers where it all began. Still, there's plenty of room in this world (and in my stomach) for both a classic White Castle burger and a jerk-spiced, pineapple-topped beef patty. Vive la différence.
Photos by Oliver Seldman
TastyMeat!
With a name like that, how can a girl resist? I'd been waiting for TastyMeat to hit the 5700 block of Wilshire Blvd. When it did, I was there.
Photo by Oliver Seldman
TastyMeat serves Greek-style wraps. The truck's specialty is the Bamwich, beef/lamb (a.k.a. "bam") shawarma served on a pita, with romaine lettuce, roma tomato, red onion, tzatziki, red feta sauce and tahini. I got the footlong version ($8) to share with my husband. It was, uh, tasty. (See what I did there?) Seriously, though, the meat was shaved to the perfect thickness, and deliciously garlicky and tangy. I could taste the yogurt and vinegar in its marinade. The beef: lamb ratio balanced the flavors well - that distinctive, slightly lanolin-y lamb taste was there, but the richness of the beef tempered it. By the time I was three-quarters of the way through the Bamwich, though, the pita had soaked up the sauce - it turned into a soggy mess, and the sandwich fell apart in my hands. I think the eight-inch version ($6) would hold up better: it'd get eaten too quickly for the bread to disintegrate.
Photo by Oliver Seldman
The red feta sauce, which comes in both mild and spicy incarnations, gets its color from paprika. It's also drizzled over the feta fries. Its creamy tanginess complements the crisp, golden fries well. They were really tasty (I did it again, see?) and the portion was so generously sized that my husband and I barely got to the bottom of it. Were there to be a food-truck feta-fries battle, however, I'd put my money on Louks' honey feta fries: the addition of a sweet element makes the dish multidimensional.
TastyMeat's wrap - that's a truck's painted design, menu and other graphic elements - was looking a bit patchy when we visited. Maxson, TastyMeat's owner and chef, explained that the wrap company had gotten it halfway done, and then it'd rained every weekend since, preventing them from finishing the job. He praised the company - Gorilla Print and Wrap - as the best wrap place around, and said their prices can't be beat.
Vegetarian-friendly?: Yes, there are several options: a falafel wrap ($5 for 8-inch, $7 for 12-inch); a grilled cheese pita ($3); pita with hummus ($4) and the aforementioned feta fries.
Vegan-friendly?: Go with the pita and hummus, or leave the tzatziki and feta off the falafel wrap.
The Vendy Awards this Saturday 5/15
Photo by Oliver Seldman
This Saturday, May 15, the Vendy Awards will be held in MacArthur Park. Six finalists will battle for the title of Best Street Food Vendor in LA. The finalists are: India Jones Chow Truck, Hot Dog Kings, Bigmista's BBQ, Nina's Foods, Grilled Cheese Truck, and Tacos el Galuzo.
Tickets are $50, which at first might seem a bit steep, but once you pay, you eat and drink for free. You're also helping raise money to protect vendors' rights - and your ticket's tax deductible. LA Street Food Fest is also offering a $5 discount if you buy your tickets today (5/11) or tomorrow (5/12): buy these discounted tickets using the code "tacotruck" online here for $45. This discount code is only valid from Tuesday 5/11 to Wednesday 5/12 at midnight PST.
Find out more about the Vendys at the official site.
RIP Fressers
Fresser's pastrami truck is closing its doors. Owners Jessica Ary and Scott Halberg posted the sad news on Fresser's Web site today. The truck's last day will be Saturday, May 8, at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu. Flying Pig Truck will be joining Fresser's there.
Photo by krynsky via Flickr