Tsibugan # 10 and 11: Pinoy meals on wheels

Photo courtesy of Tapa Boy

Kababayan L.A. host Janelle So and Tapa Boy's Lawrence Fama.

For my tsibugan series, I usually write about Pinoy-American restaurants where I’ve been, as I only should. But today I thought I’d make an exception and write about two “places” where I haven’t been for reasons that I hope to make clear in a little it.

“Places” enclosed in parentheses should give you a clue. What I’m going to write about aren’t places as much as they are vehicles. Yes, that’s right: vehicles—trucks, to be exact.

I’m talking about Pinoy food trucks! Which would explain why I haven’t eaten there. These mobile kitchens or mobile canteens, as they are sometimes called, don’t stay put in one place, but rather move from place to place, sometimes more than once a day. But I thought I’d write about them because Pinoy food trucks have become a staple, as far as dining destinations are concerned, for Pinoys and many others in Southern California.

Food trucks, of course, have been around for the longest time. Even Pinoys in the Philippines know them as those customized trucks parked by the larger office buildings in Makati and Ortigas around lunch time. The back opens up to reveal what is essentially a turo-turo featuring rice meals, sandwiches, instant noodles, and other popular Pinoy foods, and drinks to wash it all down.

Well, here in Southern California, food trucks have been undergoing a revival of sorts in the past few years. Different trucks featuring different cuisines can be found in select downtowns. Even some of the big restaurant chains have unrolled their own vehicles, hoping to get a slice of the action.

The Los Angeles area is a veritable center for this phenomenon, hosting several trucks at any given time.

Another thing worth noting here is that indispensable to the operation of a food truck is its use of social networking websites suck as Facebook and Twitter—especially Twitter—to announce where they’re going to be on a given day. In fact, one wouldn’t be far off when one says the food truck industry owes its revival to mobile Internet technology.

Pinoy food trucks are a definite part of the craze, as they should, given the sheer number of Pinoys living in the Southland. There are a number of them, but two of the most visible are Tapa Boy and White Rabbit. Here are links to their websites, so you know what I’m talking about: Tapa Boy, White Rabbit. The two were recently featured on the Asian Journal, a Pinoy- American newspaper, under the headline “Pinoy Meals on Wheels: Pinoy Food Trucks are Driving Filipino Cuisine to the Mainstream.”

Like I said, I haven’t tried either of these guys, so I’m going to shut up now. I’m particularly curious about Tapa Boy because it claims to be the “original Filipino breakfast food truck.” I’m a big fan of the all-Pinoy breakfast. Whether it’s tapsilog, tocilog or longsilog, I make it my business to try it. So I’m going to make it a point to catch the Tapa Boy truck and let you know how that one turns out. Stay tuned.