TastyMeat! vs. Councilmember Paul Koretz
A local news article has reignited the debate as to whether food trucks are stealing business from brick-and-mortar restaurants - and now an LA City Councilmember has entered the fray. This article, in the Park La Brea News/Beverly Press, covered the ongoing restaurants-vs.-trucks battle on Miracle Mile. Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, 5th District, was interviewed for the piece. He called the trucks "a nuisance," and said they posed "unfair competition" to Mid-Wilshire restaurants in "stationary, permitted locations." He went on to suggest that food trucks should stick to serving construction sites where workers don't have easy access to other food, and "that should be their only place in the city."
Now Maxson Smith, the owner and proprietor of the TastyMeat! truck, is firing back at Koretz in an open letter on the Santa Monica Food Truck Lot site. "Do you feel the notion of free and unrestricted trade [should] apply only to business owners in stationary locations?" he asks Koretz. "I am governed by the same Health Department rules and regulations as any other restaurant in Los Angeles county, and am fully permitted and allowed by state and local law to operate in the manner you feel has “no place” in my city."
Santa Monica Food Truck Lot (on Twitter here) and the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association (on Twitter here) have tweeted the link to Smith's letter, and are asking that their Twitter followers retweet it. They also suggest that food truck supporters email Koretz at paul.koretz@lacity.org.
Review: Louks To Go
One lunchtime when I was knee-deep in work, my husband decided to hit the food trucks on Miracle Mile and bring home some good stuff. He came back with a beef gyro ($5) from Louks To Go. I was blown away, and since then I've been waiting for another opportunity to visit this Greek street food truck.
This go-round, I decided to get the chicken gyro ($5). Like the beef, it comes with tzatziki, tomato, onion, and - the magic ingredient - FRIES, wrapped up inside the pita. You'd think fries and pita together might equal too much starch in one dish. That may be true in terms of nutritional balance, but not when it comes to flavor and texture: the oil in the fries and the grilled pita, plus the softness of both pita and potato, went perfectly together. Louks' pita bread is the best I have ever eaten.
My food truck adventures have made me a big fan of the well-applied onion, and this gyro did not disappoint. The onions were a great crunchy counterpart to the tender meat. The chicken was sliced very thin, and it was extra juicy and lean. My husband got the beef gyro again. I took as many bites of it as I could get away with.
My esteemed dining companion got the veggie gyro, which comes with cucumber, tomato, lettuce, tzatziki, feta, fries and onion. They'd run out of regular feta, and though she asked for spicy feta on her gyro, it was sadly nowhere to be found. They'd also run out of lettuce. She wished her gyro had had the creamy and crunchy textures of the feta and lettuce, but she liked it pretty well as it was. It did have a touch too much onion, she thought.
What you see above are loukomades, from which Louks takes its name. They're Greek donuts, dusted with powdered sugar, with a big dollop of strawberry jam on top. You can also get them with Nutella or honey. They're slightly crispy on the outside and syrupy on the inside; their melt-in-your-mouth texture reminds me of jalebi, deep-fried Indian sweets made from batter and syrup.
Never again shall I visit Greek fast-food joints like Daphne's now that I have discovered Louks! To be fair, Daphne's is pretty good, but Louks' pita haunts my dreams. For that reason alone, I am willing to forgo the convenience of a brick-and-mortar location at the West Hollywood Gateway, and choose to chase a truck around instead. Next time I'm going to try the honey feta fries ($3).
Vegetarian-friendly? Yes, but not a lot: there's the aforementioned veggie gyro, as well as a Greek salad and feta fries.
Vegan-friendly? Not so much: there's feta and/or tzatziki on everything except the loukomades.
Review: Baby’s Badass Burgers
In the midst of the Great LA Storm of January 2010, I decided to brave the rain and head out to Miracle Mile in search of lunch on wheels. I'd noticed (via our trusty Twitter feed aggregator) that not many trucks were out that day: I'm not sure whether that was because food trucks don't hold up well in the rain, or because they didn't think they'd do much business in the middle of a downpour.
I'd been wanting to try Baby's Badass Burgers for a while: I've been looking for a good restaurant-style burger ever since my parents and I stopped our regular dinners at Brentwood's Hamburger Hamlet. Laugh if you will, but the Hamlet does a really good mushroom-and-swiss burger.
Thanks to the rain, there was no line at 1:55 PM when I showed up. I got an awesome parking spot right behind the pink Baby's truck, so once I'd ordered (and was given a burger ETA of 15 minutes) I hopped back in my car to hang out and stay dry. I chose the Original Beauty ($5 for a pair of mini sliders, $7 for a "Maneater" 1/2-pound burger) and my husband got the Mamacita ($6/$8). We shared an order of Pig Tails curly fries ($2). We both opted for sliders rather than full-size burgers: easier to share.
The Original Beauty came with mushrooms, swiss cheese, onions and Baby's Special Sauce, which, owing to my husband's distaste for burger sauces, I chose not to get. The burger itself was very slightly overcooked, but the mushrooms were done to perfection. It was a fun-size version of my beloved Hamburger Hamlet burger. Next time - and there will be many next times for me and this burger - I'll get it in the Maneater size.
The Mamacita featured guacamole, jalapenos, tomato, grilled onion, and pepper jack cheese. It had a healthy amount of jalapenos, which gave it a nice kick. The avocado was creamy, but the tomato was a bit past its prime. Again, the burger was a little overcooked. I'm not sure I'd go for this one again. Both the Beauty and the Mamacita came on mini King's Hawaiian buns, and their slight sweetness worked well with the other flavors.
My husband and I agreed that two sliders and half a side of fries wasn't quite enough food for one person. We could have done with one more set of sliders - one for each of us. I wished the portion of fries had been larger; they were on the tender side rather than the crispy side, just like I like 'em, and they were seasoned with celery salt.
Baby's burgers-and-boobs marketing scheme brought it some bad press when it first rolled out last August 10. When I decided to check out Baby's, I braced myself for what one Yelp reviewer described as "the Hooters factor," only to find... none at all. Apparently, sexy ladies don't like to serve burgers in the rain - not even from inside the truck. Go to Baby's on a sunny day if you want to see bosoms while you're munching on meat.
Vegetarian-friendly? There's a veggie burger on the menu. I have resolved to try it next time I go, and once I have, I'll report back.
Vegan-friendly? Nope. According to the King's Hawaiian Web site, their buns contain milk and eggs.
Owen-ometer: He was into the Pig Tail fries, especially one absurdly long ringlet of potato, which he bounced like a yo-yo and then stuffed into his gob. The burgers? Not so much. To be fair, it wasn't that he didn't like them - he flat-out refused even to try them. In no way is that a reflection on the quality of Baby's burgers, though: it's simply an indication of Owen's overparticular gustatory personality.
Phamish still offering $1-off coupons!
At the Haiti fundraiser, Phamish were handing out coupons for $1 off their Vietnamese home cooking - and they've still got plenty left. Hit up the truck at 5900 Wilshire Blvd, on Miracle Mile, today (January 25) from 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM, and Wednesday (January 27) at the same time.
Miracle Mile truck spots in jeopardy?
According to food-truck gossip, Los Angeles city authorities may be about to tighten up on truck parking in certain areas. The 5700 block of Wilshire Blvd., on Miracle Mile, is a popular weekday lunch spot for trucks. Since last August, owners and managers of local restaurants like Toshi's, Baja Fresh, Koo Koo Roo and Johnnie's New York Pizzeria have been complaining to the city that the trucks are stealing their business. (In the case of Toshi's, they may have been right: the Asian takeout joint recently closed.) In December, mysterious Tow Zone street signs even appeared on the block: the LA Department of Transportation confirmed it didn't issue the signs, and sent people out to take them down. Los Angeles Business Journal covered the battle between brick-and-mortar restaurants and food trucks on January 18. Now, rumor has it that a city ordinance could soon be passed to bar food trucks from parking on that stretch of Wilshire.
Trucks could perhaps combat this potential ban by convincing a local store to invite them to park outside. Farther north, on Melrose Avenue, vintage store SLOW invited Don Chow Tacos to park in its lot on January 16, and has hosted other food trucks before: maybe some non-restaurant-related businesses on the Miracle Mile will follow suit.