Bringing A Taste Of Childhood From China, By Way Of A Food Truck In San Gabriel

A certain amount of braggadocio is to be expected from any restaurateurs. So it makes sense of all the Chinese skewer places in the San Gabriel Valley, Max Liu thinks his Senmo Deep-Fried Skewers is really something special.

For one thing, unlike all the other joints, it’s a food truck.

“Very few Chinese people have a food truck [in Los Angeles],” Liu, who is from Northeastern China, said in Mandarin. “But more importantly, we never ate this kind of food at a restaurant growing up, it was always from a pushcart on the side of the road.”

So when Liu and his wife Senmo (yes, the truck is named after her) decided to try to make a go at the SGV’s vast Chinese food scene — doing it on wheels just felt natural.

"Food truck captures that feeling of eating street food from our childhood,” he said.

A taste from the past

Whether you call it skewer, barbeque, or kebab — grilled meat on a stick is as commonplace and popular in many parts of China as tacos are in the United States. Regional specificities vary from what cuts of meat are used to how they are seasoned.

The neon sign says: "Handmade skewers. Finding the taste of childhood."

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But in the Northeastern part of the country, skewers are such a culinary obsession that it's been said that pretty much anything that can be grilled, will be grilled.

Customers waiting for their orders.

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Liu's hometown of Shenyang is in that region, where skewer joints dots its streets and makeshift stalls have a way of materializing seemingly out of nowhere. As a kid, one of Liu's fondest memories was sampling from street vendors that had set up shop outside of his school.

"We didn't have a lot of money back then, just a few dollars to spend on things we liked to eat — grilled skewers, deep-fried skewers and other street snacks," Liu said. "That was our collective memory in the '80s and '90s — getting out of class and gunning for the street food. That's the vibe we are going for."

From China to the SGV

Liu and his family have been in Los Angeles since the mid-2000s, and now calls the city of San Gabriel home. In the span of 17 years, Liu says he's done different lines of work, and the idea to start a skewer truck only came to him in 2021 at the height of the pandemic.

Like so many others, Liu was out of a job. Since the couple loves to eat, they figured, why not turn their passion into a business?

"My wife was craving skewers, but we couldn't find anything that fit our palate," Liu said.

Various grilled meats on sticks from Max Liu's food truck in San Gabriel

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And turned out, the cooking part was a cinch.

"It's all the food we had since we were young, the taste is seared into our minds. We know you can stick this on a skewer, you stick that on a skewer. We know how should you eat this food, how do you make that food, what sauce to use. I guess it's a foodie's intuition, you know," he said.

Next, Liu started looking for a food truck rental with the set up they needed — a deep fryer for the skewers and an iron griddle for their Teppanyaki dishes were non-negotiables.

Max Liu's food truck in San Gabriel.

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That took a bit of time. But on Oct. 13, 2022, Liu drove the baby blue four-wheeler to San Gabriel, parked it at 600 E. Valley Blvd., and opened for business. It was the first day he was able to legally operate the truck.

Liu didn't advertise, nor did he create a Facebook or Instagram page at first — and not even on WeChat, the popular Chinese social media platform.

"We told our friends about it and they started coming," Liu said. "Then others saw the food truck and tried it and liked it and told others about it."

Now, the truck operates Wednesdays through Sundays at the same spot in San Gabriel from around 4:30 p.m. until 10:00 p.m.

The menu

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Senmo Deep-Fried Skewers is not a purveyor of the "everything that can be grilled will be grilled" mantra from Liu's Chinese hometown.

What his food truck specializes in are made-to-order staples, like chicken and beef skewers, various veggies, and specialty items like jelly eggs — a reconstituted "yolkless" egg or cilantro wrapped in bean curd that are specific to the region.

Liu does most of the cooking, while his wife handles the orders. Sometimes his parents show up to lend a hand.

More menu items.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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Despite being thousands and thousands of miles away, Liu says between Costco and the phletora of Chinese supermarkets in the area, they are able to find the ingredients they need.

As to how closely his skewers resemble those from his childhood? Liu gives himself an A minus. His customers, he says, have told him his skewers are hitting home.

But Liu wants to spread the gospel of his childhood skewers beyond the Chinese community.

"I want to get this out to the world. 'Orange chicken' or 'kungpao chicken' are not real local Chinese food. I want people to be able to know what real street food from Shenyang tastes like," he said.