Anne Fishbein

seafood taco at Prime Time

If you only started eating your dinner at taco trucks after Roy Choi revolutionized the food truck scene, you might not realize that food trucks have been lining the streets of this town for a very long time. In today's feature food story, journalist and documentarian Patricia Nazario looks at the traditional catering truck and considers the evolution of the industry in the wake of the current fleet of more gourmet mobile eateries.

The Los Angeles County Health Department tallies about 6,000 permitted catering trucks. About 200 are gourmet: snazzy vehicles dishing up (mostly) fusion food, with a strong online presence. But the vast majority are run by Mexican or Central American immigrants -- native Spanish speakers, disconnected from technology.

Read the story, and check out Anne Fishbein's gorgeous slideshow of Prime Time Cuisine.

Screenshot of Ron Swanson's Twitter page

The Boba Truck

Since it's launch in 2010, The Boba Truck has become a serious contender in the Southern California bubble tea scene. Patrons know it for its unique flavors like Fuji Apple Green Tea and Rose Oolong Tea -- but there's actually much more behind the four-wheeled tea spewing machine. Turn the page for six things we bet you didn't know about the Boba Truck.

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Cousins Maine Lobster

Two cousins hot for shellfish, lobster delivered daily from Maine and a stove on wheels: Cousins Maine Lobster Truck soft-opens from April 27-29 in L.A. and starts serving to the masses on May 4. It's not your typical frozen lobster-dispensing truck, explains co-owner Jim Tselikis. "Beyond our storyline," he says, "we are embracing the education we can offer customers. Amazing seafood, a family story and the chance to learn about the Maine lobster industry, the fishermen and the process of catching lobsters." The menu, which hasn't been released yet, ranges from $6 for smaller items to $12 for a lobster roll.

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Gary Leonard

Original CicLAvia

The fourth CicLAvia bike event opens the streets of downtown L.A. to non-motorists this Sunday, April 15. Originating in Bogota, Columbia, in 1974, the South American event now reserves a whopping 75 miles of street for cyclists and pedestrians. Here at home, we'll see a 10 mile web with 5 branches (there's no designated 'start' or 'finish' point) conspicuously absent of the usual bumper-to-bumper occupants.

As anyone who has graduated from Huffy's and handlebar streamers knows, eating properly can make or break a bike ride. Over 25 food trucks will be dispersed between each of five hubs throughout the day, in addition to many of your favorite downtown establishments. But beware: Many restaurants and bars that bustle on weeknights close their doors Sunday.

Take a look at some of the following highlights, where we'll be giving our saddles a rest. Arrive early. By 3 p.m. the event will end and the city streets will ebb back to their original purpose. Don't have a proclivity to pedal? Grab a skateboard or rollerblades, or just walk the central vein on Spring Street. Consider a different kind of city, where the only "fuel" you purchase is between buns or nestled in a corn husk.

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Ben & Jerry's

Look out for this truck.

The day after Tax Day, Los Angeles residents will do two things. Galvanized by the promise of impending refunds, some will start throwing cash around. Crushed beneath the weight of checks they just mailed off, others will batten down the hatches, crafting new family budgets, vowing to spend less on even the little things -- like avocado on a burger and those midafternoon froyo snacks. Thankfully, the day after Tax Day, somewhere in Los Angeles, a little thing -- specifically, that froyo -- will be free. According to this Twitter feed, the travellin' Ben & Jerry's truck will be breezing through L.A. on April 16.

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Screenshot of Anthony Bourdain's Twitter page

ricardodiaz11/Flickr

The Buttermilk Truck

Tonight starting at 5:30 p.m., BBC America will host a free food truck fest at the Santa Monica Food Truck Lot at Main and Ocean to promote the premiere of No Kitchen Required. The new reality competition show is a sort of Top Chef-meets-Survivor battle in which a trio of chefs "are dropped off in remote locations where they must work with the locals to hunt, forage and collect ingredients for a locally inspired meal."

As with the case when you have to compete with anyone for free food, BBC America recommends that you get there as early as possible. Participating trucks include The Buttermilk Truck, Lobsta Truck, Frysmith and CoolHaus. There also will be a screening of the first episode of the show at 7 p.m. before it officially premieres on April 3 on BBC America.

G. Snyder

Super perro, all dressed up...

Ever since the closing of Pasadena's Tutti Frutti two years ago, Los Angeles has found itself lacking a single, solitary purveyor of the Colombian street food known as the super perro.

What is this bizarre semitropical creation? Imagine a hot dog taken to its architectural extremes, layered with avocado, pineapple relish, cilantro, onions, tomatoes, crushed potato chips and a latticework of squeeze-bottle spreads -- garlic mayonnaise, mustard, and a chile-spiked fancy sauce, among other things.

In certain neighborhoods of New York, the super perro is known to draw a cult following -- a reality that becomes all the more alarming when you consider our fine metropolis had nothing to match it.

Until now.

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M. Rochlin

Thee Slut

We might have started off our morning exercise with a brisk walk up Crescent Heights but when our looping route took us up to Santa Monica Blvd and then back down Fairfax Avenue and we passed the Eggslut truck, thoughts suddenly turned to breakfast. Their signature dish, Thee Slut, is a comprised of a lovely coddled egg, potato puree that seems to contain as much butter as it does potato, a sprinkling of chives, and grains of coarse gray salt that you spoon from a glass jar meant for baby food.

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