That's right. When the out-of-town food trucks come for the big SactoMoFo events, I stock up. SactoMoFo4 in April? I ate truck food for three days. After all, these trucks only come to town once in a while and I get to them in the City even less. Here are the items that I get and save to eat over the following couple of days.

First you need to be prepared. I am lucky in that I live two blocks from the event site and so I go home a few times during the day. Better my own bathroom than those porta-potties! But if you are not close by, bring an ice chest with those freezer ice blocks to keep it cool. After all, it gets hot in the summer. You also need a variety of baggies or plastic containers to put everything.

Here are the things I always get that last well.

I love the steamed buns from the Chairman Truck. These actually do keep well for the next day. Place them into a plastic container for careful storage. When you are ready to reheat them, put them in a microwave steamer with just a little bit of water to steam, and then nuke them for a minute. They revive just great. If you don't own a microwave steamer, I would plate them and drape a wet paper towel over them and then nuke them.

El Porteno's empanadas are an easy one to keep. Sure the pastry suffers a little, but overall they keep and reheat really well.

A Curry Up Now or Red Truck Tahoe Indian burrito keeps really well also. They are wrapped up tightly in foil. I bet you could even freeze a couple without much problem.

Hapa SF's sisig and lumpia will survive a day or two, if you can keep yourself from eating them.

These are just a few of my favorites that you can count on me getting tomorrow.

On Wednesday KCRA Channel 3 aired a story regarding food truck safety with the emphasis on how many fail health inspections. In typical TV news fashion, all of the teasers were making it sound scandalous, dangerous, and scary.  And more typical still, it only showed the issues they wanted to emphasize without giving all sides of a three dimensional picture.  So below are some points I would like to make.

1. This story does not distinguish between old style "roach coach" catering trucks and the new gourmet trucks. All of the shots focused on gourmet trucks and there were none of catering trucks. What I want to know is what was the ratio of failures between old school catering trucks versus gourmet? I suspect that, should you break them down into further distinctions, the catering trucks are where the higher percentage of violations occurred. (While I agree with Stitches n Dishes that ALL trucks should be passing inspections, I'm still curious to see if there is a difference in violation occurrences between the two types. And I still take issue with the KCRA's only showing gourmet trucks.)

2. The story fails to mention that whenever there are special events, such as SactoMoFo or Concert in the Park, that the trucks get inspected again. So even though they might officially get inspected only twice a year, in reality they could be inspected six or more times a year depending on how many special events they participate in. 

2b. They get inspected for every county they operate in. In the case of Krushburger, Drewski's, and others, they have permits from not only Sacramento County, but also Placer, and Yolo counties. So they are getting inspected by those health officials as well. In that regard, they're getting inspected way more than restaurants are.

3. The story fails to distinguish the levels of failure in health inspections, whether they be trucks or restaurants. Here in Sacramento a restaurant can get their placard in Green/Pass (everything is good to go), Yellow/Conditional Pass (minor violations that must be fixed within 24-72 hours and then reinspected), and Red/Closure (fail!). When you read a health inspection, which everyone can do via the county website, you can see the level of violations.  

It is important to note that a business can get a Yellow/Conditional Pass notice and continue to sell. They are not forced to close down completely while they fix things. To my knowledge, trucks have always gotten yellow notices. Now I went in to do some random inquiries on the database myself. I won't name restaurants, but the first one I pulled up (in Old Sac) got a Yellow, a Green, a Yellow, and a Green in the span of one week in February. 

What are Yellow violations? Things like the refrigerator not staying at the proper temperature. Fix the thermostat so it chills properly. Or not having the proper separation of hand washing versus dish washing. One thing that restaurants will have that I doubt very much you will ever see in a truck report: pests. Because trucks are cleaned out and stored every night in a licensed commissary, they are not going to be breeding grounds for roaches and rats. I'll pay $20 to anyone who supplies me an inspection notice for any Sacramento gourmet level truck that has signs of pests.


I know that we gourmet truck fans know the truth and won't let KCRA's or any other news story scare us away. Most people have the brains to know that TV stations just want ratings and they will tease and slant a news story to get you to tune in. Where it does a disservice is to those who aren't familiar with gourmet trucks. 


Restaurants and trucks fail inspections, usually only at a Yellow level. If gourmet trucks have higher citation rates it is more likely because they are actually being inspected more frequently, not less, than restaurants.


Don't forget my other site: sacfoodtrucks.net

Added note: I didn't put it up above because I don't think it should be seen as a reason or excuse, but most of the trucks in Sacramento are used (exception is Krushburger's new truck and the upcoming new Drewski's truck). Old trucks mean a lot of breakdowns, both truck and kitchen. Drew alone has had to replace the transmission and engine of the truck and has ongoing issues with his fryer. But restaurants can have old equipment and breakdowns too and so another reason why I didn't include this point above.

I should have gotten more local trucks, but the crowds and lighting under the freeway sometimes made things difficult. This is my first complex video using titles, captions, music, and mixed media. Hope you like it.

One thing I noticed the last two SactoMoFos is that the lines are crazy from 11 to 3, but then from 3 to 6 there's really not an issue - short or no lines at all. The trade-off, the best stuff is sold out. So it's up to each person to decide - brave lines for the best food or wait til later for the shorter lines but slimmer pickings.

They say the wheels of government turn slowly. Or, to use another analogy, sometimes your issue gets put on the back burner while the City Council deals with the boil-over pot on the front burner with the mess of the Kings and the arena deal.

Next Saturday is SactoMoFo 4, which is almost exactly a year after the first one. When my ex-partners and I created SactoMoFo, it was to bring awareness to the restrictive food truck ordinances in Sacramento. To do that, we held the first Sacramento Mobile Food (SactoMoFo) Festival at Fremont Park. 

We knew that the best way to get the City's attention was to bring the new gourmet trucks together in one location. Next bring the citizens and the City Council and let them see the quality of the trucks and the food they provide as well as the popularity and the demand.

Back in April SactoMoFo was a bit chaotic, being the giant success it was. It was our first mobile food festival and so many people didn't know what to expect. I've been to many mobile food events now and here are my best tips for you.

Go as a team! The biggest tip of all. Not a huge team, but one of about 4-5 people. You should all get into different lines and order enough to share with your group. The reason you only want about four people is that some trucks will limit the amount of food you can order at one time. If you had a team of 10 but were only allowed to order enough food for four, that would be hard to share.

Go early. It's all about lines and so I'd much rather be at the front of the line then at the back of a 2 hour line.

Bring utensils and containers. It makes it easier to share, but I also happen to like to order enough so that I can eat things later or the next day. I can only eat so much and if there are 22 vendors, there is no way I could eat it all while there.

Bring chairs. This is not always allowed, but for events that are on concrete with no place to sit, this is a big one.

Bring small bills. Help the trucks out so that there's not a problem with them having to run to a bank for change to break $20s, etc. It also makes the lines go faster.

The last thing isn't really a tip because it happens naturally at these events - Make friends with those around you. In fact, this is one of the things I love best about food trucks. People socialize while in line and waiting for their food. There's a camaraderie that is so awesome. When was the last time you chatted up all the tables around you at a restaurant? Nope, it's food trucks that create this social atmosphere and that we want more of here in Sacramento.

Have a great time!

When we were busy planning SactoMoFo last year we knew that we would have to bring a lot of gourmet trucks in from the Bay area. As of last fall, all we knew of in the Sacramento area were traditional catering trucks, not the gourmet kind, and street vendors like the tamale ladies, BBQs, and the Wood Fired Pizza Company.

Then we were contacted by Mama Kim to tell us she had a truck here in Sacramento. None of us had heard of it and so we asked her to send some pictures and her menus. Turns out, as far as I know, she had the first gourmet, non-taco, roving truck in the area. (Note that Leaven & Earth is stationery.) She had been doing minimal roving in the County, outside of City limits (mostly North Highlands).

What is unique about Mama Kim on the Go is that the menu changes regularly. Most gourmet trucks will focus on a certain food theme. Miniburger does burgers, Wicked Wich does Pittsburgh style sandwiches, Cupkates does cupcakes, and Hapa SF does modern Filipino. But because Mama Kim has been a caterer first and foremost, she just changes her menu depending on her mood. One week it will be salmon roll sushi, the next banh mi sandwiches, and many times you'll find her very popular tri tip sandwiches.

As of last Friday I am no longer associated with SactoMoFo. It's a bit sad because I created the name and it is a pretty cool name, isn't it? 

The three of us had different ideas of what SactoMoFo should be or do after the April event. I am definitely on the trucks' side and have been pretty outspoken in my blog and how I express myself. In order for me to continue to do so and not have my personal feelings confused with SactoMoFo's, we decided that it is best that I break off on my own. I will continue be a food truck advocate because I will always love street food and the idea of the trucks.

I heard from many that you wanted a better way to track the trucks because you don't all use Twitter, etc. So I made a Sac Food Truck Tracker and will try to get the trucks' schedules for each upcoming week. 

I also created a @SacFoodTrucks Twitter account so that I can continue to share news from around the country to show how similar our struggle is. I keep close tabs on what other cities are doing about their own ordinances in the hopes that we can either use a similar one or be an example for other cities.

At this time I don't see a pressing need to create a Facebook page, but that could change.

I hope that the people who enjoyed what I shared and created on the SactoMoFo pages will continue to follow and support me on the other sites and here, as always. Please let your other food truck loving friends know about the new sites as well.

As many know, last year I got to meet and get my picture taken with my Russell Crowe. I was beaming for a week and even now, when I feel down, I just have to look at that picture of us to cheer myself up.

That’s the kind of glow I have now after a super successful SactoMoFo. After nine months of planning, it went off superbly. And to think that as of late January, we hadn’t yet had our County permit meeting and I was stressing. Yes, we actually pulled it off in just three months.

NOTE: As of April 20, 2012, Miniburger switched its name to KrushBurger.


6  a.m. was pretty early to be eating burgers, but I wasn't about to turn down an opportunity to be one of the first to sample the burgers from the new Mini-Burger Truck (MBT). I was up early for their spot on News 10 Good Morning with reporter Kate Larsen. Today marks the public debut of the truck at Niello BMW Mini (off of Fulton) from 11-7. It also gave me the opportunity to promote our Sacramento Mobile Food Truck Festival (SactoMoFo) coming April 30th.

I met owner Davin Vculek and his chief burger chef, Sam, on their truck. It was still pre-dawn, but Sam was already cooking up a few items for us to sample. Davin explained that they refurbished a 70's era food truck and have placed equipment in it so that they can move from place to place and still keep the grill hot. The deep fryer has a latch lid. Off to the side is a slicer to slice real cheese. There are no microwaves - another difference between gourmet trucks and roach coaches. Remember, gourmet truck food is made-to-order from fresh ingredients. Roach coaches are just reheating prepackaged, and selling pre-prepared food.

The beef they use is from Five Dot Ranch, local, and is used by other restaurants in the area. They also have buffalo and chicken breasts. Their buns come from Grateful Bread and their produce is all local too.

They gave us some samples to share of the OG, which is a basic cheeseburger with a little bit of grilled onion, and the Ninja, which has Asian slaw, lotus chip, jalapeno, and Srirachi aioli. The Ninja has a bit of a kick, but not that much. I'd consider it mild. What I was impressed with was that these really were mini-burgers that were thick, juicy, and medium rare - just the way I like them. Sam scoops out the beef with an salad scooper so that they are all the same size. Then they mash them down with press. This makes it a quick process.
From their sides I really liked the sweet potato tots seen above. They were perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. A definite side order request for me on my orders.

Here is the menu that is filled out with your choices. I believe Davin says that the customer fills it out and then hands it up to the window, again, speeding up the process. After all, with the current laws in place, MBT will still have to move locations every 30 minutes within the City limits.

Davin plans to have another truck in operation in a few months. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for him as he pioneers the gourmet truck biz in Sacramento.

Note: This review was written before I developed a working relationship with Miniburger.