Food Truck Night

Last night was the first Food Truck Night in the Victorian parking lot on Main Street, Santa Monica. From memory, there was about 7 food trucks - A Vietnamese Sandwich Truck, A Shrimp Truck, A Chinese Taco Truck, A Korean Truck, An Indian Food Truck, A Korean Taco Truck, and an Ice Cream Truck. I feel like I'm forgetting one. Anyhow, it was a pretty damn cool idea. The trucks were there from 5:30pm-10pm. The basement tavern was open for drinks, serving outside in the parking lot and also inside the Victorian upstairs in addition the the regular basement service. As usual, the Food Truck lines were long - not super long - but fairly long. The prices seemed to be a little higher than normal. I paid $8.75 for Korean fried chicken with rice. It was tasty, but not the greatest deal or largest of portions. You can feast on a lot more delicious Korean food and drink beer and pay for waiter service at Soot Bull Jeep for about $20-25. Or you can still get a ginormous, almost two-meals 1/2 chicken platter at Zankou for $10-11. Maybe the truck I visited wasn't the best deal or maybe the trucks needed to pay the Victorian for the space and bumped their prices.

It was a scene. A lot of young 20s-30s couples and people hanging out along with mothers with young children. Lines too long for convenience purposes, but for the social aspect, it is pretty fun. Great to see the adventurous and limited nature of the food. Vietnamese Sandwichs, Korean Pork Belly stir fry, Chinese pork tacos, all sorts of inventive food crammed together like a rolling food court. Really nice idea. Since the evening was so nice, I got a gin & tonic at the upstairs bars as an after dinner drink and relaxed. It was $7. So the night ended up being not the cheapest. You want to do it cheap - the way to go would be the Vietnamese Sandwich for $5 and Budweiser special for $3. That's a good deal. Or maybe a chinese taco combo for $5 and the Bud. Or bring a thing of water. Cokes were $2 - rip off.

Great neighborhood activity. Already spread the word to most everyone I know in the Main St. neighborhood. Could see going every Tuesday so long as they do it. Good to do neighborhoody things. Reminds me of the days before cell phones when you just ran into people and "bump ins" were more common. Soon, with geolocation and everyone voluntarily being tracked by their iphones, there will be no bumping into anyone at all, you'll know where everyone is at all times and everyone will know where you are at all times. It is the stalker's dream and the introverts nightmare.