In the last 48 hours, there’s been a big confusion (not to mention worry) about the future of OC Din-Din a Go Go. This made me want to savor a gourmet truck in case there was no chance of finding something tomorrow. After work, we made our way to Santa Ana to have dinner with Piaggio on Wheels and Dos Chinos.
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| Pork Bellies with a mango chile sauce over rice |
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| Steak pichanta with zucchini over rice |
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| Tofu and zucchini over rice |
Wow, the world of gourmet trucks have grown so fast, that we actually outgrew ourselves! I found this tweet from Tropical Shave Ice that the OC DinDin a Go-Go got canceled. We (the foodies) are not sure if it is due to the crowds or K1 got complaints from the property management, or we were not giving K1 customers a place to park.
Right now Tropical Shave Ice and Lomo Arigato are looking for a new place to call Wednesdays “home”, and that will involved a place that can accommodate lunch trucks, lots of foodies, and parking! Good luck!
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| Screenshot from @TropShaveIce |
After we ate our food from the Abbot-Kinney Street fest, we noticed the Morsel’s Bakery Truck was at the “Guns and Hoses” fundraiser at the Irvine Auto Square. We hopped on the 405 freeway and made our way south.
The event was breaking up, so we took our Strawberry & Banana cream puff to go. We found a Starbucks in Lake Forest and enjoyed our dessert with a glass of iced tea.
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| Slightly melted from the heatwave… Strawberry & Banana cream puff |
Normally on Sundays, there are not many trucks roaming around LA or Orange County. Today, there was a plethora of trucks…. Tropical Shave Ice tweeted that there was a bunch of trucks at the LA Flea Market at Dodgers Stadium. Nom Nom tweeted they were going to be at the Abbot-Kinney Street fest in Venice. The Lime Truck was serving up lunch at the Bruery in Fullerton. As I mentioned, finding food truck is feast or famine… today it was a feast!
I talked Martin and Karen into going to Venice. There were a bunch of trucks I wanted to try, and I’ve been to Lime Truck many times. I wanted to do the LA Flea Market but there were more truck in Venice which lured me.
We arrived in Venice roughly at 11:30 to find Abbot-Kinney blocked off. I tried circling the block and was even tempted to pay $20 for parking. Finally I asked Martin to let me and Karen out to get food, and then he could pick us up when we were done.
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| Ludo Truck: fried chicken |
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| Provencal Pepitte Boneless chicken balls, infused with rosemary and herbs |
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| The Grilled Cheese Truck |
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| Cheesy Mac Macaroni and cheese with sharp cheddar |
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| Dosa Truck (southern indian cuisine) |
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| Not actual photo: For some reason my picture did not turn out. I ordered: The Slumdog which is Indian “Pesto” rubbed inside the DOSA with Paneer, Fresh Spinach and Masala Dosa Potatoes A “Dosa”is a south indian type of crepe. |
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| Vizzi Truck |
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| Statham Spaghetti by Vizzitruck Garlic cream & blackforest ham reduction |
My parents came over for dinner, and afterwards we went to get dessert at Oh For Sweets Sake.
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| Chocoate chocolate chip cupcake |
It has been a few days since I’ve been to a gourmet food truck. A few days seems like a week!
While having breakfast with Martin, he noticed Komodo was in Arcadia at the REI parking lot.
I saw a tweet from Happy Ramen Cup, saying he was going to be in Torrance, but it was just too hot for ramen. Then, Oh For Sweets Sake was going to be in Laguna for a Boys n Girls fundraiser, but she was also going to be in Fullerton later tonight.
I actually wanted to go to Marina Del Rey for the “Heal The Bay” foodiefest, but the heat and crowd was a big turn off. It was slim pickings for lunch, but we picked…
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| Komodo foods, the official LA Entourage |
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| Asian marinaded chicken taco Grilled Orange Marinated Chicken with Stir-Fried Rice |
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| Fish n Grapes taco Deep-fried Alaskan Cod tossed with Fresh Grape Salad |
Tonight, the winner of the Great Food Truck Race, Grill em all, was at the Bootlegger Brewery in Fullerton. As a food truck chaser, that should have been a no brainer for me to go try them. Instead my long time girlfriend (or my “bff” as girls call it) wanted to to go Island Burgers for dinner.
How ironic that I give up a chance to eat a “bohemeth” burger from @Grillemalltruck for an ordinary brick n mortar restaurant burger. Sigh…. she must be a good friend, eh?!
Then again, after checking twitter, maybe it was good I didn’t go. Look at the line!!!
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| Photo of @bootleggersbrew and @grillemalltruck. Insanely crowded. photo taken by @threefrenchs |
Wow, food trucks have indeed gone main stream!! I received a tweet from the Auto Club of So cal who wanted to share a write up on LA food trucks being featured in this month’s Auto Club News.
Click this link to read the article on the “newer” trucks you can find in the greater LA area. Too bad they didn’t interview Orange County Foodies to represent the OC!
Yesterday was the weekly food truck gathering at K1 Irvine’s OC DinDin a Go-Go.
LA trucks Ahn-joo and Nana Queens (as featured in the Food network tv show: The Great Food Truck Race) were going to be there. Normally I would not hesistate and make my way to Irvine in a heartbeat… except I also had a Ducks hockey game… and I NEVER miss a Ducks game.
What to do.. what to do… ???
Lucky for me, it was only a preseason game, and those games do not count. Also, hockey is not popular here in The OC, so there was no reason to worry about a crowd… especially on a preseason game.
We decided to take a chance, fight the rush hour traffic, take the food to go, and gorge out at the Honda Center parking lot! I went home, got Martin, and made our way to Irvine, arriving a little before 5:30 (fortunately before the crowd arrived!).
I was 2nd in line at Ahn-joo, and Martin was 4th in line at Nana Queens. After I placed my order, I ran to Nana Queens to take Martin’s place, and he went to Piaggio’s to order his food. By the time I got his pudding, his order was done!
We avoided the 55 freeway traffic by taking Main Street to the 5 freeway, and made it to the Pond at 6:20…. and was able to be in our seats before the puck dropped at 7 pm! Wow, that was teamwork!
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| Korean pork potstickers (dumplings) from Anh-Joo |
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| Korean garlic fried potato wedges from Ahn-joo |
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| Korean Fried Chicken over egg fried rice from Ahn-joo |
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| The “CarNana”: a banana pudding and vanilla wafers topped with caramel from Nana Queens |
Like many foodies in Orange County, I follow Nancy Luna, dubbed the “Fast Food Maven” from the Orange County Register newspaper. She blogs and tweets about the food industry in the OC, and the trends such as gourmet trucks.
I first met her in May 2010, when Oh For Sweets Sakes first launched at the REI in Santa Ana, and Brooklyn Boys decided to call it quits. She interviewed me while ordering food at Piaggio’s, and featured me (again) today! She had me give my two cents on food trucks in Orange County, and how I felt that trucks were learning to work as a team, not flying solo.
I hope you’ll get a chuckle out of the write up… it totally made my day!
You can also click here to read the article.
looking for food trucks 