This small gem of a Tokyo taco truck was spotted by David K. Gibson of Snow Magazine in Harajuku. If you’ve eaten here, please drop us a line!

Heavy metal and burgers go together, this is a fact. Until now, there has not been a mobile food wagon to pair these items in the proper way. Enter sandman, er Grill ‘em All, a food truck specializing in meat ‘n metal. As you might expect, they’re on Twitter. We got the chance to interview the 2 man team behind the truck, which will be rolling out next week:

What is the concept behind Grll ‘em All?

Matt: With out getting way too brainy about it the concept is just Heavy Metal and Hamburgers. I know what you’re thinking: finally someone made this marriage happen. I agree, we are really blazing a trail here. What can I say, we are making people happy.

Ryan: Serving good food to good people, but staying true to our roots. That’s the most important thing to us.

What locations will you be serving?

Matt: We will be all over metro Los Angeles. Lunch, dinner and late-night service. Look for the truck outside rock concerts and crazy events. If you’re feeling too drunk after seeing Municipal Waste or Slayer, soak up the booze with a big, juicy burger.

What are your favorite burger places in LA?

Matt: I love Fathers Office, Apple Pan and 8 oz. but you can’t discount all the random burger joints in the valley and the burbs. There’s a charbroiled place in Glendale that I am all about. I had a chicken fried steak sandwich there the other day.

Ryan: I would have to say 8oz is a personal favorite, they have fried cheese curds and that’s a sure fire way into any Midwestern boys heart. The heavy hitters like Umami and Fathers Office are right behind. Jakes burger in Pasadena is a great place to get a custom burger and a Pabst on the cheap, but I also cant discount southern California favorites like In and Out and Tommy’s.

Is Kill em All the best Metallica album or is Ride the Lightening superior? (And French Fries for All?)

Matt: That’s a silly question because all true metal heads know that Kill ‘Em All is the biggest ripper in that catalog. ‘Hit the Lights’ remains the ultimate party starter. When that refrain kicks in you know a bottle is getting thrown against the wall.

Ryan: Ride the Lightning has a song all about being trapped under ice, doesn’t get more brutal than that. French fries for some and burgers for many. That’s a loaded question.

What is you and your crew’s background? Chefs? Restraunteurs? Backyard grillers?

Matt: Ryan is a chef, a great chef in my mind. I’m just a dude, a sweet dude in my mind.

Ryan: I’ve worked in kitchens for over ten years and Matt has been my best friend and personal taste tester all throughout, so what a better team to start a business right?

Taco burger? If not, why not?!

Matt: I’ve seen a burger taco before but never a taco burger.

Ryan: Exactly, why not?

if you haven’t been yet today, hit up http://www.kzergabegallery.com

Erik Cho is the chef behind FrySmith, one of an ever-growing number of mobile food trucks exploding onto the scene post-Kogi Los Angeles. While mobile chip shops are huge in England, they have yet to take off in the states, so Erik is well positioned to take advantage of the hungry throngs at all hours of the day or night. We caught up with the smith himself and asked him 7 questions…

TACO: What was the inspiration for the truck?

ERIK: Food-wise, fries with stuff on top has been at the back of my mind for a while. Possibly my favorite thing to eat as a teenager was grilled chicken, chili, tomatoes, onions and yellow chiles on top of fries sauced with a mix of ketchup and the juice from the chiles. I used to make it for myself at my mom’s burger store. My sister called it Alpo. It was delicious.

Truck-wise, there are just a ton of benefits to being mobile. It’s trendy now, sure, but as a business it’s great because you can take your food directly to where people want it. And there’s lower overhead, so it lets you offer good eats at good prices. And I never have to clean a bathroom.

Rajas Fries with Steak

TACO: What are your favorite taco (or other foods) trucks in LA?

ERIK: El Taurino and La Estrella are two standbys for me. Man, I could use a taco or four right now. Among other trucks, Kogi and the Green Truck have definitely been influential to us.

TACO: What will the menu look like?

ERIK: The menu’s the five core items that are up on our site plus a special or two. The specials will be pretty much whatever I feel like eating on any given day and sometimes they might not even be fries.

Chili Cheese Fries

TACO: How did you convert your truck to run on vegetable oil (very very cool idea btw)? Does the oil you use produce enough to run the truck?

ERIK: The truck’s not converted yet, but all the equipment’s ready to go. When the kitchen’s finally finished (hopefully soon), we’ll take it in. It takes about two days, and there are lots of folks who do veg oil conversions on diesel engines in SoCal. Since I want to change it a lot for freshness, our fry oil should be enough to run the truck. If my calculations are messed up, we can always bum some oil from our truckin’ brethren.

TACO: Do you like asada fries? If they are not on your menu, they should be :)

ERIK: Mmm, asada fries. Me and my stomach have heard of and experienced them. I think they probably overlap a bit with the rajas fries that I’m doing, so we probably won’t be serving them. Hmm, I could do a version as a special, though.

TACO: Where will the truck operate, do you plan to cover a lot of area or stay close to one part of town?

ERIK: We’ll be everywhere. At the beginning, our plan is to canvas the city to drum up interest. After that, we may settle in on more regular locations.

Kimchi Pork

TACO: Does it get hot inside with all the frying going on? How do you deal with exhaust issues, etc?

ERIK: We have a big AC in the truck. And a big exhaust system that’ll probably suck the cool air out as soon as it comes in. So, it’s going to be hot. Not sure yet if that means desert hot or fires of hell hot, but we’ll deal with what comes.

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Valley Village ~ CA

De Haro Truck Parts ~ 8953 Atlantic Ave. ~ South Gate

DAME