http://www.latimes.com/theguide/restaurants/la-oe-nguyen21apr21,0,6181417.story
"This is a cultural disaster. Forget the Getty -- it's the taco trucks, and their crowds, that are the true culture of L.A. "
Bravo, Thi!
Melanie Wong
Apr 21, 2008 11:11AM
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CHOW Pick, posted December 03, 2008
Food Media, posted December 03, 2008
Green, posted November 25, 2008
Wine and Drinks, posted December 03, 2008
Great piece. Since the "unfair competition" claim is often made about taco trucks, I liked Thi's reasoning: "Ron Mukai, an East L.A. developer, says the trucks are unfair competition, edging out the "legitimate brick-and-mortar businesses." But the county's 14,000 registered catering trucks seem just as legitimate as restaurants -- they're just providing a different service. Restaurants provide meals, and a table to eat them at, and walls to eat them within. Taco trucks provide food, pure and simple. They charge less because they're selling less."
Or to put it another way, for many of us the choice is not "taco truck or taqueria" it is "taco truck or deli" or "taco truck or drive-thru fast food." It meets a completely different set of criteria for making a choice than a taqueria.
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The charge of "unfair competition" is often heard. However, is it the role of local government to ensure fair competition? There's no such thing as a level playing field, and it's a slippery slope inviting court challenge for public officials to restrict commerce attempting to do so. This is an anticompetitive action, not one that fosters "fair competition". What's the standard for judging what is fair or unfair competition and should county officials be making that determination? Taco Bell has economies of scale and great market advantage in its brand name, but no one seems to be kicking them out of the County.
An earlier article in the LA Times estimated that the legal catering trucks face competition from as many as 28,000 illegal vendors in operation. Brick and mortar restos would knock out more of the competition by pushing for enforcement action against that much greater number of unlicensed vendors. But instead of devoting scarce resources to protect the public health and safety by addressing the issue of unlicensed vendors, which is a legitimate role for government, law enforcement will spend their time setting stop watches on licensed trucks.
"Putting the brakes on East L.A.'s taco trucks"
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-...
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Mr. Mukai is overstating their case. The majority of b&m 'Mexican' restaurants in the county still serve a mediocre, overly gringo-ized product.
The restaurant owners would do much better by differentiating and marketing themselves. I'll gladly travel longer and pay more for imaginative, regionalized cuisines served in a great atmosphere.
If you just serve the basic matrix of taco, burrito, tostada by asada and pollo why invest in a restaurant?
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Thats exactly it.... L.A. will never come close to fulfilling its Mexpotential until there is MORE competiton from the Taco trucks & sidewalk vendors. The thing that makes D.F. so great is that you have people with no overhead, preparing food right in front of your face, using things like Testicles, Tongue, Cheeks, Frog Legs etc., etc., the restaurants generally can't compete at the Street Food level so they have to really distinguish themselves to survive... and that is why there is an outlet for more refined items like Duck in Mole Verde etc.,
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Bravo, and good luck with the interview!
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Thi, hopefully KCRW will get you for a 'Good Food' segment if they haven't already:
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/gf
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Thanks for the kind words, folks. I'm glad you like it. It was funny - i've been buried so far in my philosophy dissertation, that it took me about 3 drafts to stop sounding like a philosophy logic-bot and start sounding vaguely like a human being.
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Nice work.
On a side, a dissertation/book/study on the history, cultural and economic impact of taco trucks would be a great read and useful. Might be fun to write as well.
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Well written and timely article. Glad I'm not the only one dreading the demise of taco trucks. Thanks Thi.
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Terrific article, Thi. We here in NYC are experiencing a similar phenomenon of 'cracking down' on street food purveyors of al types, and can relate to your fear. If only I could get cemitas poblanas here, I would.
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Links to two more good articles on this topic -
"Keep On (Taco) Trucking: Notes from the taquero resistance"
By Jonathan Gold in _LA Weekly_
http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/counter-intelligence/keep-on-taco-trucking/18741/
"The Great Taco Truck War"
By REBECCA WINTERS KEEGAN/EAST LOS ANGELES in _TIME Magazine_
http://www.time.com/time/nation/artic...
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Sounds like we're all in agreement...
http://www.chowhound.com/grinder/5323
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Looks like the first enforcement of the ordinance just started.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
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The truck owner backs up the contentions of many people that, contrary to the claims of detractors, taco trucks are not in direct competition with "bricks and mortar" operations. Furthermore, the owner is clearly licensed and paying taxes -- so why shouldn't he park his own truck in front of his own restaurant?
****
"Valdovino, from Mexico, said nearby stores have complained his truck (which is parked in front of his own restaurant) is "invading" the neighborhood, creating trash on the sidewalks and traffic in the streets.
"Whose business am I stealing? My own?" he said.
Valdovino and his two brothers started serving tacos out of a truck in 1983, he said, and moved their business into the restaurant 17 years ago.
"The truck outside is for busy people who only have a few minutes to eat. Customers arrive, order and are served," he said. "In the restaurant you have to wait longer, but inside there's more variety — enchiladas, quesadillas, caldos, birria, menudo."
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I don't have an issue with taco trucks. The people who wrote and supported the ordinance apparently do. I just gave the link.
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Didn't mean to imply that you did -- I was just commenting on the article you posted and how it relates to previous discussions.
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I've spent time in Singapore and Malaysia, where hawker centers are the standard for most folks who get at least one if not all of their daily three squares. My father-in-law who is from Malaysia commented back in 2001 about the absence of hawker centers in LA. Immigrant communities, great cuisines that have their representative street food cultures, and huge parking lots that are underused most of the time. He asked me what I thought about starting up a venture like this. My response to him was that the general food culture in LA (and for that matter probably most of the US) is used to having a roof over their heads with air-conditioning and furniture that isn't glorified lawn chair stuff - the kind of plastic resin chairs and tables that have varying degrees of sticky "patina" layered on them that one typically finds in the hot muggy hawker centers in Asia. "Bottom line: it ain't gonna happen soon, my dear father (in-law)."
That was my perception seven years ago this month. Street food since then has increased markedly with the growing popularity of taco trucks, tamale ladies selling their goods out of their car trunks, frutas stands, coupled with food offered at stalls from the endless list of farmers markets that have opened over the past five years, as well as food festivals and the like. Has the general Angeleno attitude toward food culture evolved enough to where permanent or at least semi-permanent hawker centers could be opened and supported?
A similar example is the current status of the day laborer issue. Many of the day laborers around So Cal who have been harassed and pushed off of the street corners have now found a decent alternative in some cities. Centers have been set up to formalize the process where the day laborers now don't have to throw themselves at passing trucks in hopes of getting a job. And it's not the formalizing of the process that I am emphasizing, rather the establishment of places that street vendors can sell their products, and customers can congregate much like at a farmers market to peruse the offerings and enjoy them. I don't claim to have all the answers or logistical aspects worked out - I'm just throwing another bone into this soup of ideas... any thoughts?
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As big a fan as I am of taco trucks, it must be said that the the hawker centers in Singapore comes as a direct result of actual street food being banned by the government. The centers came about less out of a sense that people loved street food than they did as a way of getting the damned stalls out of the way of traffic and rich people's sense of well-being. (Fiorello La Guardia did much the same thing in New York City; the Arthur St. Market and the Essex St. Market are leftovers of this.) The fact that people liked the hawker centers was a happy accident - the Singapore government certainly pulls down the ones in the way of development without a second thought, although public pressure seems to have kept Newton and Maxwell alive years after they were condemned.
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The evolution spurred by the Singapore govt is exactly what I think might be some sort of halfway point for some - not all - of these vendors in LA. Your description that, "The centers came about less out of a sense that people loved street food than they did as a way of getting the damned stalls out of the way of traffic and rich people;'s sense of well-being.", is partially true in my eyes. I think there would have been a revolt if the street food had disappeared. Most folks still get the majority of their meals from hawker centers around town, within their apartment blocks, MRT stops, etc., and it wasn't until recently that Malaysia actually formalized hawker centers by law as they wanted to enforce more strict health codes (potable water, hot water, etc.). The govts know that the street food culture is a necessity to the population at large. And it sounds like you've spent a fair amount of time over there - you know that rich, poor, and everyone in between visits hawker centers. As you know, many of these hawkers have reputations that are decades old and citywide. I've seen the most well-dressed businessmen in Euro-cruisers pull up and grab some kick-ass wonton noodles in KL's suburbs, drive over from Newton to Ang Mo Kyo for their favorite chicken and rice, and hang out at Woodlands for the some of the best seafood. Maybe the issue you referred to in regards to "the rich people's sense of well-being." has to do with the NIMBY issue.
The development issue that levels existing hawker centers doesn't surprise me. The Singapore govt is one of the most proactive and pragmatic bureaucracies in the world. If they need something done, and they feel that it is attainable, there's no doubt in my mind that they'll do it. The biggest issue Singapore obviously has is lack of space. Couple that with their goal of increasing their population by another 50% within the next decade (I believe from about 4 million to about 6 million), and there's no doubt that anything that is in their way of accomplishing this will be mowed over. According to my bro-in-law over there, the govt is trying to pull in intellectual talent by the thousands from China, primarily for IT and finance.
Whatever the case, I think we are pretty much in agreement that some kind of compromise has to be achieved as no one in this issue is going away.
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I think the little or under-used parking lot is the way things will go. I've noticed this arrangement in the Fruitvale District of Oakland and in SF -- trucks parked off-street in a private lot but still very visible driving by. It almost seems ideal actually..bringing some value and service to an under-used resource and area with minimal expense to most parties. If the venders adhere to health codes, keeps cool and clean up, I’d see it as win-win.
I'm not sure hawker centers would work in LA, although I could be very wrong. (I don't live in LA but grew up down there.) Part of the deal is taco trucks en masse cover lots of territory and miles and make it convenient in route whereas centers would be less so. I could see centers in high traffic areas working...but I'd guess brick and mortar restaurants would be just as upset or more so since it's not just one truck but many vendors.
Farmers markets usually don't compete directly with stores and are usually only there for 1/2 a day. Labor centers are another deal.
As for the recent popularity and hipness of taco trucks, it’s a bit amusing since they've been around forever. However if it helps vendors earn a living and people get good eats, it’s all good.
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Actually there are a number of semi-permanent hawker centers.... have you been to Alameda Swap Meet, El Mercadito or Plaza Mexico?
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