As you may have heard, food trucks are one of the most exciting and successful factions of today's restaurant industry. From its humble taco-based origins to the elaborate and exotic mobile offerings seen in cities all over America, this is one trend that isn't going anywhere. Capitalizing on that good fortune, however, are Nestlé and Wise Foods. Four…
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Once in a while, we'll discover a dish at renowned Brooklyn food truck frenzy Smorgasburg that really catches our eye. Chef Fatima Ali of VanPakistan serves up locally sourced, Pakistani-inspired fare that hits all the right notes."A traditional Hyderabadi chicken biryani was one of my favorite dishes growing up — layers of fluffy, spice-laden rice,…
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Venture capitalists and other wealthy investors have been a major boon to high-tech and forward-thinking food startups; traditional restaurants not so much. However, new federal regulations that go into effect this week should make it a lot easier for restaurateurs to raise money, according to CNBC.The new rules, enacted as part of the Obama administration's JOBS Act, are…
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We all scream for ice cream...well, maybe not in February. It's too bad that the Cream Brothers, John Lutz and Tim Robinson, don't know this.Robinson, a former cast member and current writer for Saturday Night Live, joins 30 Rock alum Lutz as his loud and dense brother and business partner in a three-part web series, The Cream Brothers, for…
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Put down that expensive bag of frozen potatoes — the cheap, fresh ones are just steps away! Seriously, potatoes are really easy to prepare, inexpensive and available year-round, which is why the U.S. Potato Board is potato-launching a fleet of decked-out Spud Nation food trucks across America as part of its new mobile marketing program.…
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Ben Vaughn is perhaps best known as the host of the Food Network series Food Inspectors, in which he helped small restaurants prepare for looming health inspections in episodes with such ominous titles as “Rats in the Cellar” and “Slugs in the Walk-in.” Perhaps because it sounded more like Billy the Exterminator than a cooking show,…
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[caption id="attachment_76054" align="alignnone" width="700" ] Behold: David Chang will soon be dishing out spicy chicken sandwiches in NYC.[/caption] Welcome to the afternoon roundup! If it happened in food today, it’s news to us. Here are a few stories that have caught our attention. NYC Restaurants: David Chang made a big announcement over the weekend at…
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[caption id="attachment_75985" align="alignnone" width="700" ] Men on a Filipino island risk their lives to gather birds’ nests that are made into a Chinese soup.[/caption] Welcome to the afternoon roundup! If it happened in food today, it's news to us. Here are a few stories that have caught our attention. Food Trucks: A food truck exploded…
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If you thought the food truck craze had finally fizzled out, well, think again. Consider Grilled Cheese Truck Inc., a Florida-based company that recently went public and that, as you probably guessed, sells gooey cheese sandwiches out of vehicles currently wheeling around the greater Los Angeles and Phoenix areas. In a story on Bloomberg, a…
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Food trucks were once the bad boys of dining, stalked like rock stars via Twitter feeds by hungry fans. But nowadays, food trucks are just as much a part of the dining establishment as chefs’ tables and gastropubs. Big chains like Applebee’s and Taco Bell have started using the popularity of curbside eating to promote…
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The busy line at the Le Refectoire truck.[/caption] With the tickets to prove it.[/caption] They're called pommes frites, OK!?[/caption] Yeah, pommes frites.[/caption] Ribeye steak is seared, then sliced... [/caption] ...and griddled to order.[/caption] A steak sandwich in Paris? Mais oui.[/caption] Clay Williams is a Brooklyn-based photographer with a serious thing for street food. He recently…
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Parisians have fallen hard for a European version of the dirty water dog.[/caption] The cart is hauled by special 3-wheel vehicle from Italian brand Piaggio.[/caption] Hot dogs can be topped with Alsatian sauerkraut, fried onions and Cheddar.[/caption] Owners Emilie and Guillaume Juhel.[/caption] Clay Williams is a Brooklyn-based photographer with a serious thing for street food.…
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The Cantine California truck serves burgers, tacos and cupcakes to a Parisian audience hungry for flavors from the US.[/caption] "In our first weeks of operation we counted 15 policemen stopping us mid-service demanding our business and permitting papers," says owner Jordan Feilders.[/caption] Medium rare? Oui![/caption] That folks is a Parisian hamburger.[/caption] Diners huddle around a…
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[Editor's note: There are several reports coming out of this weekend's Electric Zoo festival about drug overdoses and now a sexual assault. The New York Times blog reports on the former here, and Spin.com has a report on the alleged assault and ticket refunds here. That said, we were on hand for the food, and…
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Scoping out the food scene at NYC's premiere electronic music festival may not seem like a priority, but if you can't even temporarily remove whichever part of your costume is preventing you from eating, there's going to be a problem. This weekend, Electric Zoo takes over your (read: my) entire 3-day weekend in its fifth…
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Truckers in the Wild is one of our favorite new shows over here at Food Republic. In the six-part series on VICE, New York City chefs and cookbook authors Max and Eli Sussman – the latter of whom is the author of our Ad Snacking column – explore the food truck scenes in vastly different…
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While everyone’s attention this week has been turned to Charlotte and the Democratic National Convention, it was my trip last weekend to the state’s “Research Triangle” that yielded many favorable (food) returns. Commonly known as “The Triangle,” the area comprising Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill as its three corners, has received national acclaim in the…
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Think you’d never hear mutual funds and food truck in the same sentence? Neither did we, but thankfully for our caffeine habit, Vanguard proved us wrong. Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment managers, launched an “At-Cost Café” food truck in New York yesterday, which is selling its coffee — you guessed it — at-cost.…
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Eating fried food may be bad for your diet, but it doesn’t have to be bad for the environment. Zeph and Liz Courtney of the soon-to-launch Snap Food Truck in Brooklyn will take the leftover oil used to make their rave-worthy items, like panko-crusted avocado fries, and reuse it to power their truck. In other…
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Dante Gonzales of Dante Fried Chicken and Ride or Fry fame could star in his own version of Where's Waldo? I first tried to track him down in LA a few months back, but he proved elusive. Searching for him on the internet leads to various snippets of his past — rooftop parties in Brooklyn,…
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I love the idea that food trucks are innovative and you can start them up with just a little bit of capital. You can be a real business person. That’s great. The problem is I feel like they really have to organize themselves and the city [of New York] has to learn how to deal…
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Jason Kessler reports from days 3 and 4 of The Taste of LA, following his harrowing recap of too many burgers, beers and babes from days 1 and 2. SUNDAY
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Scoping out the food scene at New York City's premiere electronic music festival may not seem like a priority, but if you can't even temporarily remove whichever part of your costume is preventing you from eating, there's going to be a problem. This year, Electric Zoo expands to take over your entire 3-day weekend (thank…
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There are two schools of thought regarding the halal carts serving up sizzling curry-spiced chicken over fragrant rice with a side of salad, all doused with "white sauce" (a blend of yogurt, mayo and white vinegar) and thick, vinegar and chili-heavy hot sauce. And if you're not salivating after reading that, you belong to the…
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As we touched on last week, there’s a revolution flowing through the food truck culture of Baltimore city. The old guard, the taco trucks in Highlandtown and on the street corners of Fells Point’s Broadway, have given way to a new, hipper, more creative culture of food trucks that ain’t shilling your mama’s idea of…
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