Year-round near-perfect weather is smile-inducing to say the least. Just a few minutes driving around with your windows rolled down makes it easy to understand why Los Angeles was the birthplace of the food truck. Sunny days and a leisure attitude definitely lend people the patience to wait on a 25-minute lunch line. Especially easy when you know that there is above-average-even-for-a-restaurant food at the end of it. And while chasing many of the trucks down from El Segundo to Venice and Santa Monica in a day was not the easiest task, trust that we had enough fuel in the car (and us) to get through it.
@dosatruck
DOSA
dosatruck.comSouth-Indian Street Food
As Brooklyn transplants, we automatically felt connected to Leena Deneroff. She left an office job in NYC to serve people what she’s passionate about: dosas (a crepe that is usually potato filled). At first taste, we knew why. But not only did Leena serve us our dosa, accompanied with a spicy chutney, she also became our L.A. food truck fairy, introducing us to everyone in her lot. And being a New Yorker at heart, she was not scared to dote on her favorites. Leena, thank you. We’d like to be you one day when we grow up.
@COOLHAUS
CoolHaus
eatcoolhaus.com/laGourmet, handmade ice cream sammies.
CoolHaus is one of the trucks that Dosa’s Deneroff introduced us to, and we can still kiss her for that. Our eyes went a little blurry when we saw the pistachio black-truffle ice cream in a ginger snap cookie. Lucky for us, the young man inside was a little short-staffed, and lonely, so he let us join him inside to see how the magic comes together. Food truck employees work long hours and we wanted to help. He showed us the art of hugging the perfect moldable cookies with a still-crisp outside around the ice cream we really don’t think we need to say more about. Oh yeah, there were other flavors, too.
@grlldcheese...
the Grilled Cheese Truck
thegrilledcheesetruck.comgrilled cheese sandwiches
One friend told us that if we were to visit one truck in L.A., it should be the Grilled Cheese Truck. Just the sight of the truck made us start drooling. And once we started talking to co-owner Michelle Grant, her enthusiasm led to hunger pangs and eyes veering toward the prize. Grant and co-owner and chef Dave Danhi just love grilled cheese, and why wouldn’t they? While there are a plethora of sandwich combinations to choose from, we could not turn down a chance to try a short-rib-filled sandwich washed down with a Nutella, banana and marshmallow combo for dessert. Not your childhood sandwich, but it’s nice to know they can make that, too.
@kogibbq
Kogi
kogibbq.comKorean-Mexican tacos
Kogi is like the godfather of not only food trucks in L.A. but every Korean food truck. Chef Roy Choi, along with co-owners Mark Manguera and Caroline Shin-Manguera, had a revelation over some late-night tacos. They thought, Wouldn’t it be great if someone put Korean barbecue on a taco? And that they did. A little over two years later, the Kogi phenomenon owns the streets of L.A. with four trucks and 500,000 Twitter followers. After devouring the Kogi dog and kimchi quesadilla, we can see why even after the flood of trucks that have opened after them, Kogi remains the classic.
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