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Of Sweet Potato Fries, Sliders and Pulled Pork, Meet the GastroBus
After several years working as a cook and executive chef for catering companies, Antonio Medina was ready to try something on his own. Seeing the the designer food truck trend, he and his wife took to some of their favorite food and hit the road.
"It sounded a lot more reasonable than opening a restaurant" Medina explained as he chopped vegetables. "And this is something we can do together," pointing to Lana, his wife of three years, who gave up her job as a teacher to pursue the truck with him.
Medina wanted to do something with bistro food and with more and more gastropubs popping up around Los Angeles he went in that direction, finding a nice play on words, naming his truck The Gastrobus.
There's no beer (that would illegal), but his menu serves up a great variety of pub foods like pulled pork, smoked bacon and skirt steak sandwiches ($6) with sides such as salads and sweet potato fries ($2.50). Specials found at the recent Downtown Art Walk included corn flapjacks ($2.50), cheeseburger sliders ($6) and root beer floats ($3).
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"I fancy myself a bit of a sweet potato fry connosieur and these were nearly perfect," wrote Yelp's Los Angeles Community Manager Dawson S. on her review of the truck. And she's right, they were damn good (as well as the corn flapjacks).
Medina has also taken to locally bought fresh food, setting up shop every Sunday morning at the Los Feliz Farmer's Market. He gets there early, buys a variety of vegetables and improvises dishes right there and then. "This is where his creativity and talent really comes into play," says Lana.
You can follow The GastroBus on Twitter at @thegastrobus
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