Downtown Los Angeles was alive and PACKED with close to 30 street food vendors and (my best guess) over 5000 people from all over SoCal in attendance at the LA Center Studios for the first annual LA Street Food Fest.

This event was the first of it’s kind, showcasing some of the most popular street food vendors like Buttermilk Truck, Flying Pig, Frysmith, Grilled Cheese Truck, and a special appearance by Chef Ludo LeLefebvre’s fried chicken truck and more, as they offered samples of their delicious food that have developed the kind of loyalty and cult following the Street Food movement has developed.

Hit the jump for the full wrap up of my LA Food Fest experience complete with photos!

@boobiev, @007barista and I arrived at the LA Street Food Festin Downtown LA around 11:30 on a beautiful sunny Saturday and like ants to a picnic, all we had to do was simply follow the stream of people headed towards the LA Center Studios. And my what a picnic it was. After waiting about 30 minutes to get in (the line was easily an 1.5 hours long, if not for @MattArevalo and friends in line) we made our way into the grounds for what seemed like Food Truck nirvana. Thousands of people packed the grounds and lines were already ridiculous for some trucks, but I had to start the warm day off right, by stopping by the Get Shaved Ice truck first for some Hawaiian ice cream deliciousness.

For only $2, I got myself a Monkey Brains combo (shown above) which is Strawberry and Banana shaved ice over vanilla ice cream and topped with sweetened condensed milk, and I must say, this was quite possibly one of the tastiest frozen treats I’ve ever experienced. The crunchy sweet ice, combined with the creamy, smooth taste of the ice cream and condensed milk made for an amazing sunny day treat. Topped with their plum infused salt I could have easily just eaten that all day…..but who were we kidding, I was surrounded by tons of great trucks all calling my name. We moved on.

Lines ranged from 30 minutes up to 1.5 hours just to order food, with another 30 minutes of wait time just to get your food. The photo above was taken from the entrance of one of the Food Truck lined streets. There was a point when you couldn’t tell when one line started and the other one began. Many were complaining that the lines were simply too long for sample size portions, but it really is amazing what a polite request and a greased palm can do to make those wait times a moot point. Next stop, Buttermilk truck and my date with a Brick.

I’d heard quite a bit about the #NOMNOM’s from The Buttermilk Truck, but had yet to try it for myself. Namely I wanted to try the Brick (shown above), which is a layered, savory stack of flavors starting with a base of crispy hasbrowns, then smothered in sausage gravy, topped with an over-easy egg, with a deliciously soft and tasty biscuit topping this whole stack off. Although these portions were sample sized, this Brick was definitely enough to satisfy my breakfast cravings for the week. Next time I go, I’m definitely going to have to try their red velvet pancake bites which looked far too good to pass up.

The next stop was the Frysmith truck, which I’ve also heard was quite the rage, and judging from the 2 hour line, it definitely must have been. Another pleasant greeting and a greased palm got me to the front of this behemoth of a line, where I was faced with the dilemma of the Steak fries or the Foie Gras fries. After quickly polling the fans in line, I decided for the steak fries (shown above) which were delicious, covered with nice pieces of juicy steak, chopped up poblano chilés which definitely added a nice kick, and nice portions of cheese. The overall flavor was a spicy, tangy verison of carne asada fries, definitely worth the price ($3), but a 2 hour wait would have soured my Frysmith experience.

All this in addition to some delicious thai chicken skewers covered in a fantastic sweet and savory peanut sauce, some spicy tuna rolls, and a few Fizze sodas topped me off. My experience for the Food Trucks was complete and thankfully so. At around 3:00p.m. they closed the event off and did not re-open the gates until 4:30 which was pretty much a moot point as many of the vendors had already begun to run out of food by that time. A quick stop at the Oh Snap Studios photo booth for a souvenir photo was a must (pictured in the gallery), and then we were headed on our way.

Overall the event, the weather, the food, and the atmosphere we’re all top notch. The venue was hammered from the moment they opened up, but the people, workers, volunteers, and vendors, all did a fantastic job making putting this all together. The food truck workers were definitely the heroes of the day, always smiling and working their tails off to get the hungry people their food as quickly as they could. And the crowd thanked them for their efforts in the form of the satisfied smiles and the oohs & ahhs of a relieved stomach