Bah! Our First Tow

A lot of fine food truck folks have shared stories with us about engine problems, which seem to happen all the time in this business. Well, just a week or so into Frysmithing, our truck needed to be towed.Turns out a bolt attaching the starter to the engine sheared off into the starter itself. Brook's dad, Ed, tried to pull out all the stops to get the car running. At one point, he disappeared for ten minutes and reappeared with a shopping cart that held a big-ass concrete block. His plan was to force the starter into place for a one-time start that might get us back to the commissary. Well, nothing worked, so away we towed.The best part of the debacle was that we met some helpful folks. These two excellent guys, Helm and Noel, were kind enough to help us push the truck after it gave out. Then, they called us over some folks to get fries while we were stuck. They're much less blurry in real life.

Engine's Fixed!

Our starter got fixed yesterday, so, gladly we're back slingin' fries . Going to the Verdugo from 3-8 and the Brig from 9-1ish. Thanks for the auto advice and sympathy, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Frysmith had our first on-the-job breakdown last night. So, unless we can get a part tomorrow morning, we won't be able to serve this weekend. (No Black Friday Fries for Breakfast!)

Despite our engine problems, we still have lots to be thankful for. Thanks first to our twitter followers for their helpful suggestions (unfortunately, hitting the starter with wrenches, cans, etc. did not work). Thanks also to "anonymous" who commented a great idea for vegetarian enchilada fries, which we tried last night while stranded on Ventura Blvd (scrumptious!). Lastly, big thanks to Noel and Helm, who not only helped us push the truck, but also called their cousins to hang out!

We hope everyone's having a great Thanksgiving!

Vinyl Die-Cuts on the Frysmith Truck

Someone requested that I dish out more info about the actual work that goes into operating a food truck. I'd be happy to oblige, but first, here's some catch-up on getting the Frysmith truck ready for operation!

On the recommendation of a friend, we took a road trip to San Diego to get our vinyl applied by Gogo Displays. Rather than wrapping the aluminum we worked so hard to get bare, we opted for die-cut vinyl embellishments. Since the vinyl isn't printed but red and yellow all the way through, it won't fade as easily as printed wraps do. Plus it's deeply saturated so it pops against our weathering aluminum truck.

I've always been curious how people install this stuff, so I stuck around and took pictures. It's a pain-staking process (especially around the rivets)!

Frites-Style

Due to numerous requests, we decided to try out lunch this week! We've gotten a lot of emails from office denizens in the mid-Wilshire area, but had no idea that a deluge of fry lovers would descend upon us today!

To meet this unexpected demand, we're going to start frying our fries frites style. With this classic technique you first fry the fries around 325 degrees. Then, you zap the taters again at a hotter temperature (375 degrees plus). At fancy restaurants (those ones that serve fries) the chefs will fill a whole speed rack full of pre-fried fries and then finish them off right before serving for a quick and crispy result. These fancy restaurants will also traditionally use suet (AKA beef fat). I love me some beef fat (and pork fat... at the end of the day I like to sip the leftover dregs of our unctious Kurobuta pork belly). But, we're going to go with the slightly healthier canola on this one.

Try out our new techique tomorrow night at The Brig!

We Love Kennebecs

Thanks to everyone who came out to our grand opening at The Brig last night! We gave away a lot of cookies and only had a few servings of rajas left (the night's big seller) before we sold out of our lumpy, yet delicious, Kennebec potatoes.

Kennebecs have a nice dry texture and high starch, which equates to a nice and crispy fry (no offense to the steak fry crowd, but we prefer fries with some bite). We soak the freshly-cut fries in water to wash the starch off the outside and pack more moisture into the fry so the inside is a little fluffier. At the end of the day, our fry bins are coated at the bottom with silky white potato starch... quite soothing on hands puffy from french fry cutting!

Frysmith Grand Opening This Friday

Frysmith is grand opening this Friday night at The Brig! We'll be at the food-truck epicenter in Venice from 6:30p to 9:30p (or 10p if we still have fries) and as part of the kick-off, we'll be giving away free truck-made cookies.

Sweetly complementing our core fry menu, the grand opening cookie line-up will include:

Chili Chocolate (choc chunks, pecans and 4 types of chili powder)
Curry Apricot (curry, dried apricot, almonds and white choc)
Green Tea & Cranberry (green tea, dried cranberries and white choc)
Cranberry Chip (choc chunks, cranberries, pecans and oatmeal)

Come load up on fatty goodness this Friday!

Veg Oil Tank

We're waiting on some parts for our veg-oil conversion (so we can run our truck off delicious canola oil!). But, we got the process started with a custom-made tank to hold all that used fry oil in.

Jake at Aero Tanks whipped out a 30-gallon tank to fit what space we had left under the truck. It hangs right below the ordering window and we had vinyl lettering placed above it to proudly declare that we'll be running on veg.

My dad was concerned that the gas cap is clearly visible. To him, it's an open invite to drunks to use our oil tank as a urinal. I think he's being paranoid, but just in case: Please, inebriated customers, don't pee in our veg oil tank!

The Frysmith Truck

The Frysmith truck is ready!
Here's our first menu board.