Vendy Awards (click here for more info)

Saturday, 5/15
4 to 7 p.m.
(Street) Food Fight
With so many food trucks now trolling the streets of L.A., it was only a matter of time before New York's popular Vendy Awards (tickets, $50) hit the West Coast. At this inaugural event, you'll taste food from the award finalists like India Jones Chow Truck and Bigmista's Barbecue, plus drink your fill of beer, wine and soda. A panel of esteemed judges picks the winner. MacArthur Park, 7th St. at Wilshire Blvd., MacArthur Park; streetvendor.org/vendys/la

Chef Sumant intro

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/station/as-seen-on/Food_Truck_Week__India_Jones_Chow_Truck_Los_Angeles.html

Saturday 3/27 Charity Event

On February 23 a fire completely destroyed their home and all their belongings. NOW THE HEALING BEGINS WITH...

Friends of the family of Jose Albertini, Maria Estigarrivia,and their daughter Luna SPONSORING...

The Meier Street Multi-Family Garage Sale/Fundraiser Day isn’t just a big rummage sale, it’s a celebration of the healing power of community (and a day to have some fun!) Music, games, a Meier Street Kids Bake Sale, face-painting, live auction at 1 p.m, and more!

Come support Friends of Luna, have a cupcake or two, and bid on great items to take home!
* 3700 block Meier Street *
GARAGE SALE benefit & AUCTION
saturday, March 27
10:00-3:00
auction at 1:00 with comedian Johnnie Walker
on Meier street, between McCune and Victoria, mar vista, 90066
North of Venice Bl
*all proceeds go to fire victims jose, maria and luna*

For more information or to donate via check or paypal:
www.friendsofluna.com

Eater LA Write Up & More Photos!

Seriously, we are very happily overwhelmed by the love for us on internet. We've only been rolling for just a bit more than a week! Just to show how crazy LA is now about the truck scene... No because our food is great yeah!

Eater LA has given us a nice mention and you can read about it here: http://la.eater.com/archives/2009/08/12/meals_on_wheels.php Thanks to Meghan at WagStaff LA we got to find out about this post! (twitter.com/wagstaff_LA)

Also more beautiful photos from our friends. Carlos at Burgergam (twitter.com/burgergasm) has written a great article about his experience with Chef Sumant and the truck. Make sure to follow him to find your "burgergasm"! Here's the link to his article about us http://la.eater.com/archives/2009/08/12/meals_on_wheels.php

Great great great! Folks please please also blow us up on Yelp http://www.yelp.com/biz/india-jones-chow-truck-santa-monica and become a fan of our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Angeles-CA/India-Jones-Chow-Truck/108675686908 (and suggest it to your friends lol)! That would be a great help for us! This week we are hitting farmers market locations to test them out. So stay Twitter tuned!

FAQ about India Jones Chow Truck!

It's been a roller coaster ride for us at IJCT.... many parking blues, missing friends by a few minutes etc etc. But still the restaurant on wheels scene is super exciting!

As so many people are sweet and give us love and support, many people are wondering about our truck more. Cyrus at CA Taco Trucks (@catacotrucks, californiatacotrucks.com) is going to a blog entry for us and just interviewed our Chef Sumant. Might be a good read for all of us so we'll post it here :D

AND also a photo of Chef Sumant cooking at home!

1) Indian food in a taco truck? Are you serving Indian tacos? What's the deal here? Why a truck?

Our "featured" item is Indian frankie, meat or cheese wrapped in paratha. It is actually a very popular and staple street food in India. The idea of it is similar, but our frankie is an authentic Indian dish, not an "Indian" take or version of taco.

2) Do you have any regional specialties? Where is the chef from? What's his background? How'd you decide on the menu? How does real Indian street food impact what you choose to sell?

Chef Sumant Pardal is originally from a famous restaurant family in the city of Jaipur, India. He covers all regions on India but more prominently Punjabi cuisine. Some of his signature dishes include butter chicken and lamb biriyani. He's had 12 restaurants in LA so far and this being the newest venture.

Menu is designed to feature easy-to-carry street style food like frankies and also his signature dishes like butter chicken: more simply street food and curry. It is as authentic as it gets.

3) How much of an influence was the Kogi BBQ truck? How did you decide on your route? Do you have a set location/route? Being from Santa Monica, I approve of the Westside. :)

Kogi showed many restaurateurs as Chef Sumant a possibility of different style restaurants. So for that we are greatly inspired and very much motivated. The economy is said to be one of the worst times for our industry, but this whole phenomena that Kogi created has given alot of us hope.

We've only been on the road for 4 days as we speak, so we are still in the process of testing our location: i.e. parking situations etc. Chef Sumant lives with his wife and a son in Santa Monica, so that's why the West Side is our domain.

4) What's been the most surprising thing that you've learned about operating a truck? Did you buy or lease it? How much harder is it to work in a truck kitchen than a real kitchen?

We are leasing the truck. Quite a few things have surprised our chef: that truck kitchen is actually really not bad to work in, he was able to set this whole business up in 10 days (rather than in months in regular construction of a restaurant) and most of all the power of Twitter!

Very First Full Day Operation!!!

Overwhelming support on Twitter, thank you guys so much!

We know we've missed a few of you when you were looking for us... we promise we'll be better at updating our location. Sorry and thank you for baring with our new venture!

Lady Ducayne @ladyducayne on Twitter wrote a beautiful blog with photos for us!

http://ladyducayne.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/india-jones-chow-truck-silver-lake/

She was so kind to let us use her beautiful photos from the blog. So thank you Lady Ducayne!

You guys make sure to see the blog and follow her on Twitter :D

Another day in LA summer with great Indian food. Bon apeti everybody!

First Trial Run!!!

Finally the IJ truck hit the street of Santa Monica today, yay!!!

Because we kept it pretty low key we didn't get to meet a whole bunch of people, but we had a great day!

People enjoyed food, liked our new logo, Twitter community is really supportive, we really can't complain! We promise we will be better at updating our location!

Stay tuned for our schedule and location on Twitter!!!