i remember that article. its more about the guy making the taco trucks and he totally sounded like a crybaby. its like he totally thought he was building some sort of artisan market when the truth of the matter is he coopted an already existing market in the hopes that he would be at the forefront of some elitist foodie culture. vulture getting pissy cuz the real vultures destroyed his business model.
in NYC the police are starting to force trucks out of midtown after a judge recently reaffirmed a court decision that no vehicle shall use a parking space (paid or otherwise) to sell anything. Michael Bloomberg, continuing the long task of ruining this city one bike lane or street cleaning ordinance at a time.
Anyway most of these guys are halal trucks and shit and are not on twitter and have been building their customer base for two decades and now are forced to relocate to parks or outside of the borough entirely.
A truck I used to frequent (and hopefully will again one day) down on 4th & Broadway (Sammy's, to be specific) had to move for construction and I have no idea where they moved to. Weak!
I used to eat from that pizza truck that people raved about, and it was decent but not really stepping to actual pizza in a pizzeria type situation.
The best thing to happen in the East Village in a minute is the Morelos truck on 2nd St/Ave A and that shit is just a straight up taco truck. It's killing all the shit up 2nd Avenue, greek pastry bbq whatever.
White people have driven this trend in this town. In fact, I could probably get even more specific and say white people who have moved here from California within the past 8 years have driven this trend in this town. And not only is it easy to identify them, it is even easier to hate them.
yeah, i dont see how one could live in LA and not see how it is a white thing. especially since about 5 years ago, before the uppity truck craze, there were laws being passed to outright ban taco trucks in the city. now it seems like those laws no longer exist.
I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, where, for the most part, popular culture in the 80's and 90 was basically latino culture. White dudes, black dudes etc hit the lunch trucks at the work site. I certainly didn't see it as segregated I really don't see lunch trucks as a racial thing, when I hit the lunch trucks daily here the customers come from the local workplaces, I feel that wold most likely be the case in any neighborhood.
one thing i have noticed is there arent as many fruit carts in town anymore. i kinda liked that shit.
You still on Pico for work? theres a fruit dude on corner by the gas station (Across from Lucy's). I hit 'em up on Saturday
I wish we had food trucks. While we have a few, due to city council rules (So called health bullshit regulation issues) it's stuck on a small selection of foods (Hots dog and Chinese food trucks) over the past 20+ years.
IMO, my city probably is in the top 10 for amazing food from such a wide diverse bunch of cultures. It's a shame we can't tap into such great food this way.
The city tried to start a program to try and tap into it over the past 3 years, but it was an utter failure because there were so many rules and bullshit hoops to jump through.
I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, where, for the most part, popular culture in the 80's and 90 was basically latino culture. White dudes, black dudes etc hit the lunch trucks at the worksite. I certainly didn't see it as segregated I really don't see lunh trucks as a racial thing, when I hit the lunch truks daily here the customers ome from the local workplaces, I feel that wold most likely be the case in any neighborhood.
i dont mean racist in the old timey outright segregation sense. i mean more in the sense that before the whole kogi fad, food trucks were seen as a blight on a neighborhood and that they attracted drunks and made a filthy mess wherever they parked. now they are perceived as helping raise foot traffic for surrounding businesses. so, nobody's calling anyone the n-word or whatevers, instead there is an implied racism and the perception of these new taco trucks is that they are clean and safe. even though im sure the same amount of trash is collected and an equal amount of drunkards are present.
a more obvious thing is which types of "taco trucks" are in a given area. when you see those "food truck meets" or whatevers, theyre like 99% some gourmet korean bbq pizza taco smash up and like .001% actual chunti taco truck. sunset or wilshire theres like a buttload of those gourmet trucks parked in front of the skyscrapers but all the taco trucks are up on like 3rd street and not the nice part of 3rd. its not legislated segregation, but its pretty obvious if you look.
the clientele of these spots is what it is, but the trucks that are allowed access, or feel like they are allowed access are completely different.
its reflective of the attitude of much of LA. its not racist in so much as there are no longer restrictive covenant laws dictating where you can live or own businesses, yet things are still very much segregated.
I think Guzzo and Harvey/SHig are both correct to a degree.
First of all, we have to separate the traditional trucks - the ones that date back to the 1970s when (supposedly) the King Taco dude converted an old ice truck to be able to sell tacos outside a bar. In Los Angeles at least, the history of mobile food rolls deep and rolls old. Any chef in L.A. who knows anything about this city knows this. And frankly, so did a shit load of white people. Taco trucks in L.A. have long been set up in neighborhoods where they could appeal to both working class Latino customers AND hipsters looking to grab a quick bite. I mean, who the hell are all those bacon-wrapped hotdog ladies serving?
Now, since 2009, you've had the rise of what you could call the nuevo-trucks, serving haute street food, sold at higher prices than any "normal" taco truck would charge, changing locations, updating via twitter. Kogi deserves full credit/blame here and I won't front - those dudes were genius on many different levels and I roll for their food 110% (except for their kimichi quesadillas, which I don't think work). But their short rib tacos? They are really really good. Shig - you should try one, I'd be surprised if you didn't think they were solid and, in a sense, worth the trouble. Just my .02 on that tip.
The problem is that Kogi was so successful, they birthed a wave of copycat businesses who all think "fusion street food" + "mobile truck" = gold. It's classic bandwagoning and not surprisingly, a high % of these trucks are going to fail miserably because 1) their food sucks, 2) they didn't have a solid business plan beyond "copy Kogi." And these trucks - Kogi included - tend to cater, disproportionately to younger, white, middle class crowds. All you have to do is drive through the city and note which neighborhoods you see them in and which you don't. There's not a complete segregation - parts of midcity and Hollywood have both traditional and nuevo trucks lurking - but you're pretty unlikely, IMO, to find one of those nuevo-trucks in Huntington Park or Boyle Heights. For a research project, I used Kogi's twitter feed archive (which goes way way back) and was able to literally map every location and keep track of frequency for where their five trucks go (and don't go) and there's a mega-clear pattern of neighborhood preferences that, not surprisingly, skew along class and race lines. So in this regard, I think Shig and Harvey are completely on the money in saying that there's a racial dimension here. Of course there will be; anything that involves geography and mobility in Los Angeles is going to have a racial dimension. Unfuckingavoidable.
BUT, it'd be pushing it to suggest that white people in LA didn't know taco trucks existed before Kogi came along. Even if you lived in Brentwood, I know of at least two traditional trucks within a 5 minute drive, including a Oaxacan truck that serves clayudas (which I think is an ill thing to be able to serve out of a truck; alas they're not really that good there).
I would disagree that nuevo-trucks are being welcomed with open arms in a way that the older trucks were not. Kogi was getting harassed, especially down in Orange County, when it first tried to make inroads there and there are plenty of brick and mortar restaurants fucking pissed off at all the haute trucks competing for business with them with their lower overhead and more flexibile locations.
I think the main difference, along the lines of what you're talking about, is that it's now trendy to have food truck fairs/events but only invite nuevo-trucks and not, say, the La Estrella dudes. So there is a class segregation being enacted along those lines but from my read of how the nuevo trucks have been received in L.A., there's a lot of businesses who don't like them for the same reason they didn't like the traditional trucks: fear of competition.
your perception is on point and having worked at the municipal level i see it all the time
it applies to ''urban culture'' as well (they can't stand it, but need a sterilized version of it to stay relevant with the youth and attract crowds)
here in mtl the fear of ''dirty'' trucks keeps them off the streets but in a twist of irony, a ''illegal'' truck that was just hustling got a prime spot in the city's biggest festival because of how ''hip'' foodtrucks have become, this in a festival that overcharges and uses its monopoly for vending profits
i have pipedreams of opening up a restaurant with my dad one day and the thought of less overhead, meeting the customers head on, being able to balst my music and riding away in the sunset sounds appealing. Plus you can take your truck on the road and make gas money on vacation.
One last thing: Kogi (which is obviously the nuevo-truck I know best) attracts an impressively multi-racial crowd in all the neighborhoods I've seen them in (except for Gardena. That shit was AZN out the wazoo). But it's young, hip multi-racial, not like the multi-racial you see if you're at Tacos Leo on a weekend, waiting in line for get some al pastor sliced straight off the spit.
Last - LAST point (yeah, right): What does annoy me - and this is along the line of Shig/Harvey's gripes - in the *media* the pioneering role that traditional taco trucks have played has tended to be minimized, almost - at times - to being completely erased from the story. That pisses me off royally: give the credit where it's due.
And in any case, most traditional trucks are going to have better grub, at cheaper prices, than probably 2/3rds of these nuevo-trucks who think a gimmick is all they need to sell food.
One last thing: Kogi (which is obviously the nuevo-truck I know best) attracts an impressively multi-racial crowd in all the neighborhoods I've seen them in (except for Gardena. That shit was AZN out the wazoo). But it's young, hip multi-racial, not like the multi-racial you see if you're at Tacos Leo on a weekend, waiting in line for get some al pastor sliced straight off the spit.
this "multi-racial" thing may be true, but the point of a $8 taco is to exclude a certain kind of person. and that tends to go hand in hand with race.
Here in portland the food cart scene has blown up in a big way, which is mostly a good thing in my opinion. The carts tend to be stationary and grouped in "pods" around the city which form informal food courts. Kind of like the mall food court but funkier and out doors. The carts are a strange mix of traditional ethnic foods and nouveau cuisine-ish hipster fare.
Although I tend to prefer the more traditional carts (Tacos, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) I have to admit some of those bright-eyed hipsters make some good food.
The best tend to be the ones that focus on one dish and make it really well. For example one guy makes roast beef sandwiches and hand fried potato chips - thats all he makes, but its really good!
The worst ones tend to have a cute concept (and usually name) - but an attitude of "food is fun!" doesn't seem to lead to good commercial cooking skills. For example, a cart called "Dog House PDX" serves tater tots and/or hot-dogs in a dog dish (I'm not kidding) with an assortment of toppings.
One downside of these newer carts is "price-creep" - all of the carts have been getting more expensive, often no cheaper than brick and mortar restaurants.
I'm glad the proliferation of the carts gives people a chance to get their start serving food to the public without the start-up costs of a traditional restaurant. I'm sure there are folks whose cooking skills deserve to be shared with the world and who wouldn't have had the financial means to get started other than a food cart. And I also know that there are people who really shouldn't be running a business - much less a restaurant - and at least when their food cart folds they won't be in debt to a bank for 20 years.
One last thing: Kogi (which is obviously the nuevo-truck I know best) attracts an impressively multi-racial crowd in all the neighborhoods I've seen them in (except for Gardena. That shit was AZN out the wazoo). But it's young, hip multi-racial, not like the multi-racial you see if you're at Tacos Leo on a weekend, waiting in line for get some al pastor sliced straight off the spit.
this "multi-racial" thing may be true, but the point of a $8 taco is to exclude a certain kind of person. and that tends to go hand in hand with race.
Who serves a $8 taco? The most $ tacos I've seen have been with the Border Grill truck; I think theirs are $2.50 each. For the benefit of non-Angelinos, most traditional trucks charge closer to $1-1.25 so 2x markup is no small thing. Kogi charges $2 for tacos - not crazy but still higher than any traditional truck though their entrees, including burritos, are $5 which is more in line with trad. trucks that charge $4 for stuff like burritos, tortas, cemitas, etc. All said though, it's still, on average, about 30-50% more expensive for an average meal.
I'd argue that the greater act of exclusion is simply access, based on where the nuevo trucks don't go. The price point is certainly a deterrent but if you live in East L.A. or south of Bell, you don't even get to decide if you want to pay for a $2 taco if they never roll through your 'hood to begin with.
i dont know who sells $8 tacos. maybe some goofball in new york? the point i was trying to make is that prices are set to exclude. and since youre being all nerdy about it, its not 50% more, its double the price. if u got 1 taco its no big deal. but spending $10 for what youd normally get for $5 is something else.
i actually had the border cantina tacos at some fancy art gala thing. they were pretty good but they had some sort of rehearsed speech thing describing all the bits and pieces in each taco and i was like ugghhh.
i dont know who sells $8 tacos. maybe some goofball in new york? the point i was trying to make is that prices are set to exclude. and since youre being all nerdy about it, its not 50% more, its double the price. if u got 1 taco its no big deal. but spending $10 for what youd normally get for $5 is something else.
i actually had the border cantina tacos at some fancy art gala thing. they were pretty good but they had some sort of rehearsed speech thing describing all the bits and pieces in each taco and i was like ugghhh.
Right - I was thinking 30-50% based on the difference in entree prices but if you're strictly buying tacos, then the markup is closer to 100%+.
By "prices set to exclude" are you suggesting that these trucks could charge a cheaper price but are deliberately overpricing in order to deter people?
"Hiller is not alone in feeling that what was once an exciting, underground food scene driven by a punk rock aesthetic and an exploratory mentality is swiftly becoming a mainstream, bottom-line-obsessed maze of infighting and politics.
When Kogi started, there were only a few new-wave food trucks on the scene; now that number is hovering near 200, says Hiller. And where experimental entrepreneurs once dominated, corporate players such as Jack in the Box and Sizzler are entering the fray."
By "prices set to exclude" are you suggesting that these trucks could charge a cheaper price but are deliberately overpricing in order to deter people?
in all honesty, im making an unsubstantiiated assumption. but yes, i am basically saying that prices are set to exclude, especially when you take into consideration that a lot of these places are making the "gourmet" distinction and as you stated, they will only go to certain neighborhoods. with that information i dont think its much of a stretch to assume theyre pricing certain folks out.
Eight dollar taco is actually on some social engineering? I have so much to learn--I was thinking it was just people trying to make as much money as possible.
The only food truck I hit with any regularity is the taco bus by my work. It's a converted school bus that you actually climb into. Solid.
Food trucks were a way of life when I went to Temple. Temple is in North Philly and there were few food option that were not on wheels when I was there. Most were owned by folks who just came to the country, they would work their ass off for 5 to 10 years save money and sell the truck to someone just coming over, often for a cut of future profits. There was enough competition that their food had to be decent for them to survive. It became clear really quickly which trucks sucked. There were great Korean, Chinese and even a mom and pop middle eastern/mexican place. Anna the wife was middle eastern and her husband was mexican. They had an extremely loyal following. I miss those trucks now.
The current phenomenon is an interesting one, and it's hard to say if it's economic, a new foodie twist, or simply the realization that people have eaten street food for decades, if not centuries. As for it being "white people driven" or promoted/marketed, is that true? I've been traveling to Portland a lot in the last year, and I always go out of my way to go to a food cart and have something. Someone already offered a link to Food Carts Portland: http://www.foodcartsportland.com/
Like any place that has a lot of food carts in one place, you're going to have some that are incredible. You'll have some that taste okay. Of course, some that are just "eh" or worse. I love places like Big Ass Sandwiches, Van Schnitzels, Happy Grillmore, and Cackalack's because they make some good food.
Locally, there's one primary food truck and those are taco wagons, so I don't have the kind of variety I'd like to try when I'm in Portland, but a few weeks ago I had burrito and two tacos for $6. Other places, it'll be 1 dollar or 1.50 tacos. It's great stuff, and I have no issues with them (the trucks).
All of this came from literally being raised on food carts back in Honolulu. I had "summer fun" up at Booth Park in Pauoa and for lunch outside there was either a hamburger truck (with incredibly greasy fries but so damn good) or a chili truck. There were times when my dad would want a bowl of chili & rice, and we'd head to the park, buy a few bowls, and sit at the park. But my mecca of food carts is and will always be the Tsukenjo Lunch Wagon.
They pulled the truck from the streets a few years ago, and now simply run the small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is naturally crowded. Then again, I haven't been back home in 11 years so I can look at the menu or a plate lunch from Tsukenjo and just drool. I've been a fan of food carts long before it was trendy, for me it was just lunch or dinner on a regular basis.
tacos at korilla, the "expensive" ny taco truck, are 8 or 9 bucks... for 3.
i ate at the calexico cart once a week for like 4 years, and its the jam, but they must've lost their permit near me or something, because they haven't been on wooster in months. i cry.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Torchy's Tacos here in Austin is "all the rage". They started as a trailer spot and eventually expanded to multiple restaurant locations. Among other mash-ups, they make a fried chicken taco. People tend to love it, but I think it's garbage. I've only gone to Torchy's twice (recently) and I've tried 4 different kinds of their tacos and I pretty much thought they were all garbage. Their tacos are bigger than the usual, but they are priced at $3.50 and up per taco. Maybe I'm just far too cynical but it pains me to see people doing backflips over Torchy's Tacos, seeing their pseudo-urban, squarely-suburban trainwrecks being lauded in the press and such. There are so many better places for tacos in this town, on every level. I guess I shouldn't be mad that tourists and newcomers are being funneled to places like Torchy's, leaving the better food at hood spots next to empty...but still.
tacos at korilla, the "expensive" ny taco truck, are 8 or 9 bucks... for 3.
i ate at the calexico cart once a week for like 4 years, and its the jam, but they must've lost their permit near me or something, because they haven't been on wooster in months. i cry.
well, unless they shrank them just for Memphis...the Korilla tacos are teeny tiny...not even a standard taco sized tortilla. Sucked too.
I don't really give a shit about the food trucks and the "gourmet" flea markets that have popped up like crazy in the last year, but I'm pretty fucking sick of all their media coverage. And honestly I was a fan for a bit but the ratio of price to portion is way off, and now it seems the prices get higher and the portions get smaller. Street food is supposed to be cheap, but motherfuckers are trying to charge bistro prices.
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i remember that article. its more about the guy making the taco trucks and he totally sounded like a crybaby. its like he totally thought he was building some sort of artisan market when the truth of the matter is he coopted an already existing market in the hopes that he would be at the forefront of some elitist foodie culture. vulture getting pissy cuz the real vultures destroyed his business model.
Anyway most of these guys are halal trucks and shit and are not on twitter and have been building their customer base for two decades and now are forced to relocate to parks or outside of the borough entirely.
A truck I used to frequent (and hopefully will again one day) down on 4th & Broadway (Sammy's, to be specific) had to move for construction and I have no idea where they moved to. Weak!
I used to eat from that pizza truck that people raved about, and it was decent but not really stepping to actual pizza in a pizzeria type situation.
The best thing to happen in the East Village in a minute is the Morelos truck on 2nd St/Ave A and that shit is just a straight up taco truck. It's killing all the shit up 2nd Avenue, greek pastry bbq whatever.
I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, where, for the most part, popular culture in the 80's and 90 was basically latino culture. White dudes, black dudes etc hit the lunch trucks at the work site. I certainly didn't see it as segregated I really don't see lunch trucks as a racial thing, when I hit the lunch trucks daily here the customers come from the local workplaces, I feel that wold most likely be the case in any neighborhood.
You still on Pico for work? theres a fruit dude on corner by the gas station (Across from Lucy's). I hit 'em up on Saturday
b/w
We also had trucks that had amusement park rides on them and for $0.10 you would get a near death experience and an ice pop.
Something about a Sizzler food truck strikes me as very funny. "It's a Sizzler, but it's in a roach coach!"
The newest craze at Mexican restaurants here are "Street Tacos".
IMO, my city probably is in the top 10 for amazing food from such a wide diverse bunch of cultures. It's a shame we can't tap into such great food this way.
The city tried to start a program to try and tap into it over the past 3 years, but it was an utter failure because there were so many rules and bullshit hoops to jump through.
Why must I cry...
i dont mean racist in the old timey outright segregation sense. i mean more in the sense that before the whole kogi fad, food trucks were seen as a blight on a neighborhood and that they attracted drunks and made a filthy mess wherever they parked. now they are perceived as helping raise foot traffic for surrounding businesses. so, nobody's calling anyone the n-word or whatevers, instead there is an implied racism and the perception of these new taco trucks is that they are clean and safe. even though im sure the same amount of trash is collected and an equal amount of drunkards are present.
a more obvious thing is which types of "taco trucks" are in a given area. when you see those "food truck meets" or whatevers, theyre like 99% some gourmet korean bbq pizza taco smash up and like .001% actual chunti taco truck. sunset or wilshire theres like a buttload of those gourmet trucks parked in front of the skyscrapers but all the taco trucks are up on like 3rd street and not the nice part of 3rd. its not legislated segregation, but its pretty obvious if you look.
the clientele of these spots is what it is, but the trucks that are allowed access, or feel like they are allowed access are completely different.
its reflective of the attitude of much of LA. its not racist in so much as there are no longer restrictive covenant laws dictating where you can live or own businesses, yet things are still very much segregated.
First of all, we have to separate the traditional trucks - the ones that date back to the 1970s when (supposedly) the King Taco dude converted an old ice truck to be able to sell tacos outside a bar. In Los Angeles at least, the history of mobile food rolls deep and rolls old. Any chef in L.A. who knows anything about this city knows this. And frankly, so did a shit load of white people. Taco trucks in L.A. have long been set up in neighborhoods where they could appeal to both working class Latino customers AND hipsters looking to grab a quick bite. I mean, who the hell are all those bacon-wrapped hotdog ladies serving?
Now, since 2009, you've had the rise of what you could call the nuevo-trucks, serving haute street food, sold at higher prices than any "normal" taco truck would charge, changing locations, updating via twitter. Kogi deserves full credit/blame here and I won't front - those dudes were genius on many different levels and I roll for their food 110% (except for their kimichi quesadillas, which I don't think work). But their short rib tacos? They are really really good. Shig - you should try one, I'd be surprised if you didn't think they were solid and, in a sense, worth the trouble. Just my .02 on that tip.
The problem is that Kogi was so successful, they birthed a wave of copycat businesses who all think "fusion street food" + "mobile truck" = gold. It's classic bandwagoning and not surprisingly, a high % of these trucks are going to fail miserably because 1) their food sucks, 2) they didn't have a solid business plan beyond "copy Kogi." And these trucks - Kogi included - tend to cater, disproportionately to younger, white, middle class crowds. All you have to do is drive through the city and note which neighborhoods you see them in and which you don't. There's not a complete segregation - parts of midcity and Hollywood have both traditional and nuevo trucks lurking - but you're pretty unlikely, IMO, to find one of those nuevo-trucks in Huntington Park or Boyle Heights. For a research project, I used Kogi's twitter feed archive (which goes way way back) and was able to literally map every location and keep track of frequency for where their five trucks go (and don't go) and there's a mega-clear pattern of neighborhood preferences that, not surprisingly, skew along class and race lines. So in this regard, I think Shig and Harvey are completely on the money in saying that there's a racial dimension here. Of course there will be; anything that involves geography and mobility in Los Angeles is going to have a racial dimension. Unfuckingavoidable.
BUT, it'd be pushing it to suggest that white people in LA didn't know taco trucks existed before Kogi came along. Even if you lived in Brentwood, I know of at least two traditional trucks within a 5 minute drive, including a Oaxacan truck that serves clayudas (which I think is an ill thing to be able to serve out of a truck; alas they're not really that good there).
I would disagree that nuevo-trucks are being welcomed with open arms in a way that the older trucks were not. Kogi was getting harassed, especially down in Orange County, when it first tried to make inroads there and there are plenty of brick and mortar restaurants fucking pissed off at all the haute trucks competing for business with them with their lower overhead and more flexibile locations.
I think the main difference, along the lines of what you're talking about, is that it's now trendy to have food truck fairs/events but only invite nuevo-trucks and not, say, the La Estrella dudes. So there is a class segregation being enacted along those lines but from my read of how the nuevo trucks have been received in L.A., there's a lot of businesses who don't like them for the same reason they didn't like the traditional trucks: fear of competition.
it applies to ''urban culture'' as well (they can't stand it, but need a sterilized version of it to stay relevant with the youth and attract crowds)
here in mtl the fear of ''dirty'' trucks keeps them off the streets but in a twist of irony, a ''illegal'' truck that was just hustling got a prime spot in the city's biggest festival because of how ''hip'' foodtrucks have become, this in a festival that overcharges and uses its monopoly for vending profits
i have pipedreams of opening up a restaurant with my dad one day and the thought of less overhead, meeting the customers head on, being able to balst my music and riding away in the sunset sounds appealing. Plus you can take your truck on the road and make gas money on vacation.
And in any case, most traditional trucks are going to have better grub, at cheaper prices, than probably 2/3rds of these nuevo-trucks who think a gimmick is all they need to sell food.
Takoyaki are basically ebelskivers filled with Octopus.
These come hot off the grill and dressed with aioli and green onions!!
True street food! and So good!!!!
this "multi-racial" thing may be true, but the point of a $8 taco is to exclude a certain kind of person. and that tends to go hand in hand with race.
Here in portland the food cart scene has blown up in a big way, which is mostly a good thing in my opinion. The carts tend to be stationary and grouped in "pods" around the city which form informal food courts. Kind of like the mall food court but funkier and out doors. The carts are a strange mix of traditional ethnic foods and nouveau cuisine-ish hipster fare.
Although I tend to prefer the more traditional carts (Tacos, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) I have to admit some of those bright-eyed hipsters make some good food.
The best tend to be the ones that focus on one dish and make it really well. For example one guy makes roast beef sandwiches and hand fried potato chips - thats all he makes, but its really good!
The worst ones tend to have a cute concept (and usually name) - but an attitude of "food is fun!" doesn't seem to lead to good commercial cooking skills. For example, a cart called "Dog House PDX" serves tater tots and/or hot-dogs in a dog dish (I'm not kidding) with an assortment of toppings.
One downside of these newer carts is "price-creep" - all of the carts have been getting more expensive, often no cheaper than brick and mortar restaurants.
I'm glad the proliferation of the carts gives people a chance to get their start serving food to the public without the start-up costs of a traditional restaurant. I'm sure there are folks whose cooking skills deserve to be shared with the world and who wouldn't have had the financial means to get started other than a food cart. And I also know that there are people who really shouldn't be running a business - much less a restaurant - and at least when their food cart folds they won't be in debt to a bank for 20 years.
Who serves a $8 taco? The most $ tacos I've seen have been with the Border Grill truck; I think theirs are $2.50 each. For the benefit of non-Angelinos, most traditional trucks charge closer to $1-1.25 so 2x markup is no small thing. Kogi charges $2 for tacos - not crazy but still higher than any traditional truck though their entrees, including burritos, are $5 which is more in line with trad. trucks that charge $4 for stuff like burritos, tortas, cemitas, etc. All said though, it's still, on average, about 30-50% more expensive for an average meal.
I'd argue that the greater act of exclusion is simply access, based on where the nuevo trucks don't go. The price point is certainly a deterrent but if you live in East L.A. or south of Bell, you don't even get to decide if you want to pay for a $2 taco if they never roll through your 'hood to begin with.
i actually had the border cantina tacos at some fancy art gala thing. they were pretty good but they had some sort of rehearsed speech thing describing all the bits and pieces in each taco and i was like ugghhh.
Right - I was thinking 30-50% based on the difference in entree prices but if you're strictly buying tacos, then the markup is closer to 100%+.
By "prices set to exclude" are you suggesting that these trucks could charge a cheaper price but are deliberately overpricing in order to deter people?
When Kogi started, there were only a few new-wave food trucks on the scene; now that number is hovering near 200, says Hiller. And where experimental entrepreneurs once dominated, corporate players such as Jack in the Box and Sizzler are entering the fray."
in all honesty, im making an unsubstantiiated assumption. but yes, i am basically saying that prices are set to exclude, especially when you take into consideration that a lot of these places are making the "gourmet" distinction and as you stated, they will only go to certain neighborhoods. with that information i dont think its much of a stretch to assume theyre pricing certain folks out.
Eight dollar taco is actually on some social engineering? I have so much to learn--I was thinking it was just people trying to make as much money as possible.
The only food truck I hit with any regularity is the taco bus by my work. It's a converted school bus that you actually climb into. Solid.
http://www.foodcartsportland.com/
Like any place that has a lot of food carts in one place, you're going to have some that are incredible. You'll have some that taste okay. Of course, some that are just "eh" or worse. I love places like Big Ass Sandwiches, Van Schnitzels, Happy Grillmore, and Cackalack's because they make some good food.
Locally, there's one primary food truck and those are taco wagons, so I don't have the kind of variety I'd like to try when I'm in Portland, but a few weeks ago I had burrito and two tacos for $6. Other places, it'll be 1 dollar or 1.50 tacos. It's great stuff, and I have no issues with them (the trucks).
All of this came from literally being raised on food carts back in Honolulu. I had "summer fun" up at Booth Park in Pauoa and for lunch outside there was either a hamburger truck (with incredibly greasy fries but so damn good) or a chili truck. There were times when my dad would want a bowl of chili & rice, and we'd head to the park, buy a few bowls, and sit at the park. But my mecca of food carts is and will always be the Tsukenjo Lunch Wagon.
They pulled the truck from the streets a few years ago, and now simply run the small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is naturally crowded. Then again, I haven't been back home in 11 years so I can look at the menu or a plate lunch from Tsukenjo and just drool. I've been a fan of food carts long before it was trendy, for me it was just lunch or dinner on a regular basis.
Excuse me, I like crai now.
i ate at the calexico cart once a week for like 4 years, and its the jam, but they must've lost their permit near me or something, because they haven't been on wooster in months. i cry.
well, unless they shrank them just for Memphis...the Korilla tacos are teeny tiny...not even a standard taco sized tortilla. Sucked too.
I have a huuuge gripe about these AND how the city controls them.