Twitter Truck Tuesday – Irvine Chamber of Commerce – Orange County, CA

If somehow you missed the OC Foodie Fest this past weekend or you have the gourmet food truck fever, tomorrow is another chance to get your grub-on in the OC. Irvine Chamber of Commerce will be hosting 10 of OC’s food trucks for lunch.

Irvine is quickly becoming the gourmet food truck hub of Orange County. More and more mobile food courts are popping up in Irvine. This latest edition will surely attract a crowd. Limited seating and shade provided.

Here is a list of trucks scheduled to be there:

• Barcelona On The Go
• Calbi BBQ
• Dan Dan BBQ
• Dos Chinos
• Louks
• Morsel’s Bakery Truck
• Oh For Sweet Sake
• Piaggio On Wheels
• The Lime Truck
• Tropical Shave Ice

Date: August 31, 2010

Start time: 11:30am-2:00 p.m.

Location: Irvine Chamber, 2485 McCabe Way, Irvine

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Long Beach Street Food Festival 2010

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this year there seem to be a ton of foodie events going on in Southern California. It is hard to keep up with them all!

This past weekend was the first ever Long Beach Street Food Festival. You may have read the article we wrote leading up to the event. The Long Beach Junior Chamber of Commerce Charitable Foundation brought together a bunch of gourmet food trucks, with ticket proceeds benefiting the Adopt-A-Teacher program and Long Beach City College Student Scholarships.

The event had an amazing turnout. Not surprising, I mean 20+ gourmet food trucks on a beautiful summer day at Rainbow Lagoon Park in Long Beach. Perfect weather, great music and spectacular food, how could it not be a success?

We were lucky enough to get in to the event early and hung out most of the day. We had a wonderful time and ate a lot of great food. We did not get to every truck but stay tuned to this blog for more in-depth coverage on some of our favorite food truck experiences.

We look forward to supporting this event in the future! Check out these photos from the event.

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Making the Taco Gourmet – Dos Chinos – Santa Ana, CA

One of these days I may have to visit a regular restaurant but that just seems almost like a chore. Food trucks are still so much fun and I keep finding ones that really take their food to the next level. Dos Chinos is no exception. They do gourmet tacos! We are talking fancy marinades, good cuts of meat and big flavors.

This past weekend Kim and I finally stopped off to check these guys out. There truck is nothing special. It looks more lunch truck versus gourmet food truck but do NOT let that stop you from walking up to that window. This family owned and operated business is all about good service and great food.

Garden Grove Short Rib Taco

Most of their menu selections are available either in a taco or burrito. To help us try more items we did mostly tacos. First off was their Garden Grove Short Rib taco. This was short rib marinated in Jose Cuervo Tequila Korean BBQ sauce. This is the only time I will do Jose Cuervo and look forward to it. It was an awesome marinade.

Oahu Shrimp Taco

Then on to the Oahu Shrimp taco, which was Hawaiian garlic butter shrimp with a pineapple salsa. Normally I am not a big fan of fruit salsas. They remind me of 1995 when I still lived on Maui. Plus warm pineapple? Really? How do people eat that? However on this taco the sweet of the salsa really worked with the savory of the garlic shrimp. Yum!

Hollywood Chicken taco

How about a Hollywood Chicken taco? This taco has Thai coconut curry chicken with a tamarind sour cream sauce. Coconut curry in a taco……..really works! Just enough to taste the Thai style curry and the sauce was a nice finisher.

Filet Mignon Asada

Our last taco was the special of the night, Filet Mignon Asada. Yep, you read that right. As you may know by now I am not one of those people that goes to a steak place just to order a filet. Really, who cares, yes it is the nicest cut of meat you can get but there is so little fat it usually has no flavor. Well, when I go to Dos Chinos again this is the first thing I will get! Filet rocks as an Asada. Well it rocks for sure if these guys are making it.  By the way, it was only $2 for a taco.  What a deal!

Dos Chinos Fries

We topped our meal off with their Dos Chinos Fries. The have clarified garlic butter and cotija cheese. The saltiness of the cotija with the garlic butter were a knock-out combination.


If you have not figured it out, then you need to read this again! We loved the food at Dos Chinos. They can get pretty busy and they cook everything fresh so there may be a wait but, it is worth it. They are very friendly and are becoming more and more active on Twitter. I think if they figure out the social media game they will become one of the top trucks in the OC.

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Now There is a Vegetarian Food Truck in the OC - @SeabirdsTruck - Orange County, CA

Last weekend we heard rumors of a brand new gourmet food truck in the OC. Turns out this alleged truck was parked over at Tanaka Farms in Irvine. We had to go check them out. Turns out the Seabirds truck started serving organic vegetarian and vegan fare in May. I have been to all kinds of trucks in the last serval months. However this is one of the first ones that was completely vegetarian.

I have learned that good food is good food and it comes in many styles. Seabirds serves good food! They have a very simple menu. Couple appies, couple of tacos, couple "burgers" and some very good sweet potato fries. They have a simple truck. Nice and clean as you would expect. They also try to be earth friendly. Even their "plastic" bags are degradable.

Beer Battered Avocado taco

Enough small talk, I know you come here for the food! Seabirds truck is no joke. As with any food truck we visit we had to grab a few items. First was their Beer Battered Avocado taco. Yum! This was a taqueria style taco but with this piece of love in the middle. The piece of love was the crispy but buttery battered and fried avocado topped with cabbage, onions and some sauce. All of this in two warmed corn tortillas. These tacos sell like crazy so make sure you try one if you get a chance.

Seared Tofu Taco

Next was their seared tofu taco. The flavor and texture reminded me of a chicken taco you would get at a taqueria in Santa Ana and you know how good those can be. The tofu had a very nice firm texture and was perfectly seasoned. It was topped with diced onions, fresh cilantro and a spicy green sauce. I wanted to grab another couple of these. Those vegetarians may be on to something.

Seabird Burger

I do not know about you but when I see "Burgers" on a vegetarian food truck I just have to try one out. I picked the self titled Seabird. It is a seed and nut patty with lettuce, tomato, onion and their own seabird sauce. Yeah, this sounded weird to me as well. All I can say is I am now a believer. This almost had the texture of a real hamburger but it had a flavor all it's own. It was like having a veggie burger but without the over powering mushroom taste. It was earthy but distinct. Very good, the other ingredients were super fresh so that added a lot. The bun was nicely toasted. I will get one of these again.

Sweet Potato Fries

Finally it is on to their sweet potato fries. I am not a big sweet potato fan but considering what I was hearing from others on Twitter we had to try them. These were not what you see usually, they are cut and super lightly battered. The nice thing about the batter is they hold their crisp for a long time. My wife Kim said they were some of the best sweet potato fries she has had. Considering the way they prepare them I can understand why!


The only somewhat negative thing I can say about them is we had to wait quite awhile for out food. They had a steady stream of people which is good but it still took much longer than we expected. I am sure they will work the kinks out of there process. I think it is impressive that that was the only "gripe" I had. Nice job Seabirds!


We had a very good lunch and are looking forward to visiting them again. They are on Twitter but they have not quite gotten the hang of it yet. Hopefully they do soon because I think they have a chance to become a hit in the OC.

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Well Worth the Wait - @dumplingstation

Dumpling Station is another one of the trucks we visited last weekend. They serve, can you guess? Dumplings! Little pockets of love. They have a good number of items on their menu, we chose three to get good coverage.

Everything we got was very good. They cook everything to order so if they are busy be prepared to wait. When we visited them they had a pretty good crowd and we waited about 25 to 30 minutes after we ordered! However it was worth the wait. One other thing that surprised me was they were all cooked perfect. We got the impression they take pride in what they do. On top of that they were very friendly!


 Their dumplings can be ordered two ways either steamed or pan-fried (potstickers).  Here is what we ate on this visit:

Pan-Fried Chicken and Green Onion Potstickers (Cooked Perfect!)

Steamed Kimchi Pork Dumplings

Cream Cheese and Jalapeno Wontons

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Good Food, Isn't Complicated - @theTacoDawg

That is the main theme at the @theTacoDawg and they nailed it! Dang, I really love food trucks. Food trucks are all the rage these days. Some people wonder and some people get in line and dive in. I am lucky enough that more and more food trucks are coming to Orange County.

Today I was able to sneak over to @theTacoDawg. I tried a number of delicious items (some would say I pigged out!). The Beach Comber taco, comes with your choice of meat, cheese, savory citrus slaw (w/mandarin oranges), and chipotle cream. I chose chicken for my taco and it was awesome. It has a soft corn shell with tender chicken, cabbage and all the rest of the trimmings. It was light but full of flavor.

The Beach Comber

The Texan has choice of meat (I got beef), cheese, bacon, lettuce, tangy Tex Mex and BBQ sauce on a soft corn tortilla. Once again a masterpiece! The meat was perfectly seasoned, the lettuce crisp and the sauce added a nice punch of flavor to the taco.

The Texan

The Dirty Dawg, was an all beef hot dog, smothered in homemade chili, nacho cheese (YES!), crumbled potato chips and onions. TASTY! The dog itself had a nice texture to it. They must be quality dogs or they are cooked perfect, or both. In addition, the chili was a perfect accessory and the cheese was just what you would picture…ooey gooey. I really enjoyed the Dirty Dawg.

The Dirty Dawg

Are you full yet? I was, but I trekked on to the Deep Fried Mac & Cheese! Picture a square serving of delicious mac and cheese about inch and a half thick, then rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried to a nice, golden brown. Now break it apart and dip it into some ranch dressing. Doesn’t that sound like artery-clogging goodness? Well, it is better than that! You have to try this.

Deep Fried Mac & Cheese

Oh yeah, I cannot forget the seasoned fries. Think curly seasoned fries from a drive thru but not curly and cooked perfectly.

It was an interesting experience because they were also filming for some sort of show. It was fun watching it. With all of that going on they still served up killer food. On top of that the people were really friendly so all around it was fun. This was a very good lunch. I will visit these guys again!

If you have still not been to a food truck, make a point to go. If you need help finding trucks, please let us know and we will point you in the right direction!

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