Food truck stalking: NomNom and GastroBus

With so many food trucks roaming the streets of Los Angeles, it's just about impossible not to find something to suit your appetite while out on the town. In addition to the prerequisite tacos and burgers, you've got sushi, pastrami, Indian, Vietnamese sandwiches, gourmet tacos...there's an even a truck serving buttermilk pancakes and waffles--for dinner!

To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly a fan of eating from a truck. The whole chasing and following tweets and waiting in line and standing up while eating is all too much work and effort to just eat something hastily put together. And like many of you, I prefer to consume grub while sitting down, although it's debatable if I make less of a mess that way. (Editor's note: hell no!) And yet I did partake in a Kogi BBQ chase-and-eat last year, and I found the whole experience to be such a time kill for just OK food.

But of course I wouldn't be here writing this post if I hadn't recently killed more time by trying out a few of these mobile eateries, and first up is the Nom Nom Truck.


Serving Vietnamese sandwiches known as banh mi, Nom Nom Truck frequents the Sawtelle area near my house, of part of West LA heavily saturated with fine Japanese, Chinese, and Korean eateries. Bold. My wife and I made it out one Fridaynight to give Nom Nom Truck a try.

The menu is very simple: A foot-long banh mi for $5 or $6, and Vietnamese tacos for $2.50 each. Meat choices include BBQ pork, grilled pork, tofu, and chicken. Banh mi can also be had deli special style with ham, pate, and head cheese. We each opted for a $8 combo which included a 6" banh mi, two tacos, and a drink.

My two tacos, one chicken and one BBQ pork:


Yeah that really is two tacos, they're just small and mostly engulfed in produce. I can't tell which is which from the picture, but I can say that the pork meat was overcooked and chewy with too much gristly fat. The chicken meat in the other taco was much more flavorful and leaner, but a high veggie to meat ratio in both tacos made for an underwhelming overall taste. More meat and more sauce would have helped substantially. The Kogi BBQ tacos I had were far better in terms of taste and meat portions, and they're about the same price.

My deli special banh mi--pictured below--fared much better than the tacos. The deli meats and pate were delicious as was the crusty French bread


It was good balance of veggies, meats, and bread, and this was so much more satisfying than any Subway sandwich I've had. Next time I'll skip the bland tacos and just go for a foot-long banh mi.

A few days later I decided to try out The GastroBus:



GastroBus is a family operated truck and is helmed by a former Wolfgang Puck chef. A big selling point of GastroBus is its use of organic, farmer's market ingredients, and a menu which changes regularly based on availability and freshness of locally sourced food. The truck occasionally stops at a business complex near my house, and so I paid a visit during lunch to give it a try.

On the menu for my visit were a selection of sandwiches, sweet potato fries, egg flower soup with Asian vegetables, and sauteed pea tendrils. I love a good steak sandwich and so how I could pass up the Hanger Steak Sandwich with Chimichurri?



Served with tomatoes, radish, onions, and a fresh ciabatta roll, my $6 steak sandwich was extremely good and satisfying. The meat was cooked to a nice medium-rare to medium done-ness and there was no skimping on it either. Every bite was delicious and juicy with the thick ciabatta holding things nicely together. Two thumbs way up for this sammie.

I also ordered the Egg Flower Soup with Asian vegetables:


Served in a medium-sized cup, the egg flower soup was light, fragrant, and very fresh tasting. A bit pricey at $6 but the portion size was generous, and keep in mind you're consuming high-quality organic veggies from a local farmer's market. This sourcing adds a little to the price but I'm certainly not complaining; I enjoyed the soup--slurped it all down did I-- and would probably order it again. If GastroBus were to frequent my workplace, I'd certainly be out there on a regular basis.

Even though I mentioned I'm not the biggest fan of these trucks, you can be sure that this foodie is still on a mission to try others. The ButterMilk truck, Cool Haus, and Fish Lips all have my attention and so look for me to hit those up soon.


NomNom Truck
Location varies but they hang out on Sawtelle quite frequently; follow them on Twitter at @nomnomtruck for locations

The GastroBus
Locaiton varies and you can find them at the Los Feliz farmer's market every Sunday. Also on Twitter at @theGastroBus.