Lardon

I love food trucks, I love bacon, and I'm pretty partial to free beer as well. This afternoon, Thrillist took all of these favorites of mine and gathered them in one place: the conveniently close Siren Studios on Sunset. Accompanied by good friend Nick, I waited in the hot hot heat at the head of the line - I was pretty excited about the whole thing, and made sure to arrive forty-five minutes early. Nick & I went over the game-plan: first, $5 donation to Meals-on-Wheels. Second, collect tickets for free samples at all trucks. Third, make a beeline for Lardon, the bacon truck. We were intercepted by some girls handing out free Dos Equis, which we begrudgingly accepted - then on to Lardon. I couldn't hang on to the Baco (a taco made with a bacon shell) long enough to photograph it; despite its cheddar cheese inclusions, I devoured it in one quick bite. We talked with Jeremiah, the owner, for a while, who listed the other menu items available: a bacon brownie and bacon pancakes, as well as a frisée lardon sandwich. We told him we'd be back, and moved on to Komodo for their asian-marinated chicken tacos with mandarin orange slices (this also didn't last long enough for the obligatory photograph - too delicious).

Nick & I decided to pace ourselves and find shade. Part of Siren Studios was open, with air conditioning and Bacardi Limòn flowing, so we found a table. I went back for the Frysmith offering, at this point not so starving I couldn't snap one off. The meat on top - yes, that's meat - was quite tasty, but the fries we agreed were somewhat underwhelming. Too crunchy, seemingly stale. Odd for a place whose specialty is fries - I've had better from In-N-Out.

Meanwhile, the dumpling truck served up two seafood shumai that neither of us was bold enough to try. This truck was perhaps the weakest link of the festival, but then, I'm biased against seafood. The fried chicken truck still didn't have their chicken ready, so it was back to Lardon for dessert. I got stopped six or seven times on the way back to the table by people wanting to know what I was holding, and
where they could get their own. The bacon pancakes were awesome - I mean, why alternate between bites of bacon and bites of pancake when you can have both in the same mouthful? And the bacon brownie was just off the chain. Rich chocolate brownie, almost fudgelike in texture, with Nutella spread atop, and bacon liberally applied on that, with a hint of sea salt as well. Take that, Animal.