Sampler Platter: Baja Fresh to franchise Calbi BBQ truck, 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger, world's largest cupcake

Angry dairy farmers dousing police officers in milk, a franchised nouveau food truck and fake restaurant receipts top today's food news roundup.

-- Baja Fresh has acquired the Calbi BBQ truck and will franchise the concept. Nation's Restaurant News
-- Fresh & Easy is expected to end the year with a loss. Fast Food Maven
-- 1,316-pound Guinness World Record cupcake is unveiled at a breast cancer benefit. Breitbart
-- Farmers spray police officers with milk -- from live cows! -- at a protest against falling milk prices in Brussels. New York Times
-- Need to generate a fake restaurant receipt for your expense report? Expense-a-Steak will do it for you. Wall Street Journal
-- Meet the 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger: beef patty, bacon and cheese on a Krispy Kreme doughnut. New York Daily News
-- Although banning fast-food eateries probably won't reduce obesity rates, some people love the soda tax idea. Los Angeles Times
-- Can an anthropomorphized pickle with skinny legs, high-top sneakers and a baseball cap make frozen pickle-juice popsicles seem cool? Bob's Pickle Pops
-- Can a 20-minute Web-only "rock opera" featuring the exploits of fake rocker White Gold get people to drink milk? Los Angeles Times
-- Six tips to get you the most out of dineLA 's Restaurant Week. LAist
-- The Obamas spend their 17th wedding anniversary at Blue Duck Tavern. Positively Barack

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: A farmer sprays riot police with milk from a cow's udder during a demonstration in front of European Union headquarters in Brussels. Dairy farmers drove hundreds of tractors into the center of Belgium's capital on Monday in the hope of pushing farm ministers into backing more funds to help them survive the milk price crisis. Credit: Yves Logghe / Associated Press

Grilled Cheese Truck to host 'pre-melt' at Farmer's Kitchen at Hollywood Farmers Market

[UPDATE 12:36 p.m.: sign-ups for the "pre melt" are full, but there is a waiting list in case of cancellations.]

While readying the Grilled Cheese Truck to roll out, chef Dave Danhi quietly announced via Twitter this morning that he'll be hosting a pre-melt this Sunday, Oct. 11 at the Farmer's Kitchen at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Danhi will be dishing out sandwiches from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Those who want to attend should sign up for the event via the website. Expect a line.

Danhi's been testing a slew of recipes including a traditional cheddar and tomato melt with bacon bits sprinkled into the crust; the Caprese Melt made with heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, balsamic syrup and fresh basil; and the Sweet Sammy (pictured at right) made with King's Hawaiian bread, roasted banana puree and Nutella

--Elina Shatkin

Photo: The Sweet Sammy dessert sandwich from the Grilled Cheese Truck. Credit: Robert Danhi.

Sampler Platter: Vendy Awards, giant burrito eat-off, America's best burgers, Costco comes to New York City (sort of)

A burrito bigger than a baby, the truth about Thousand Island dressing, Korean barbecue in Koreatown and more in today's food news roundup.

-- Street food gets the red-carpet treatment at New York's Vendy Awards. Gourmet
-- Govind Armstrong, executive chef of 8 Oz. Burger Bar, shows you how to make his grilled cheese and short ribs sandwich. Epicurious
-- Essex parts with chef Chris Ennis, trims menu, will expand. Food Fair by Diego opens in Mid-City West. Eater LA
- -Binary Tastebuds and Choisauce compete to see who can eat more of the massive Special Burrito at Manuel's El Tepeyac. L.A. & OC Foodventures
-- America's best burgers. (No L.A. joints on the list.) Travel & Leisure
-- Man starts business delivering low-cost Costco items to New York City residents. New York Times
-- Quarrygirl lists L.A.'s top five omnivorous restaurants for vegans.
-- Where Thousand Island salad dressing and six other condiments get their names. Mental Floss
-- Eating LA checks out the $16.99 all-you-can-eat meal at Hae Jang Chon.
-- Hungry Kat noshes on pork belly, spareribs and stew at Ham Ji Park.
-- Just four days after announcing that its new Vegemite spread would be called iSnack2.0, Kraft says it will axe the name because so many people hate it. News.com.au
--The Boston Globe has a beef with reality cooking shows.
-- Bangladesh rewards farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats in an effort to protect crops. AP
-- First Lady Michelle Obama approaches diet and exercise with moderation and sanity. NY Daily News (On Nov. 10, she'll kick off "Sesame Street's" 40th anniversary season with an appearance that focuses on health and nutrition.)

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Pushcart vendor Lourdes Sanchez of Santa Ana. Credit: Karen Tapia-Anderson / Los Angeles Times

Lomo Arigato, Mr. Roboto: Peruvian-Japanese fusion food truck hopes to roll out

In our ongoing series of profiles of L.A.'s nouveau food trucks (the DineLA truck, Grilled Cheese Truck, Nom Nom Truck, Frysmith, Kogi), we bring you Lomo Arigato: a fusion of Peruvian and Japanese flavors sold out of a converted FedEx truck (Twitter: @LomoArigato).

The operation is almost entirely a one-man show that's driven, staffed and cooked by Eric Nakata, 27. Growing up in Gardena and West L.A., Nakata always had a thing for food and started in the industry as a dishwasher at Torrance ramen shop, Men-Bei. He went on to work at Kamiyama Sushi in Lomita, where he spent two years training as a sushi chef under Travis Kamiyama. Around 2006, Kamiyama partnered with Rocio Yamashiro to open Kotosh, a Japanese Peruvian sushi bar in Lomita.

"I knew the catering part and the food is good, but we never really got new customers," Nakata says. "Not a lot of people looked at Peruvian food and Japanese food and thought: That's a pretty good fusion. From there, I thought we had to let other people in L.A. try this."

Sampler Platter: Find L.A. food trucks, pet-friendly restaurants and win 52 free dinners

Finally, an easy way to keep up with all of Los Angeles' fancy new food trucks. Plus, a cooking lesson from Christopher Walken.

-- Finding it difficult to keep up with L.A.'s burgeoning nouveau food truck scene? Ever wish someone would collect their locations into a handy website? Now some mad genius has! Find LA Food Trucks
-- Christopher Walken cooks a chicken. YouTube
-- The 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to eat them. L.A.'s one mention: Fosselman's Ice Cream in Alhambra. Guardian
-- Pittsburgh welcomes world leaders with open-faced sandwiches. And pirogi and spaetzle. Los Angeles Times
-- BLD's chef de cuisine Diana Stavaridis is now Tweeting about her nightly plat du jour at @BLDchefD.
-- The Virginia Avenue Project, an after-school program that provides one-on-one mentoring to help kids, is sponsoring a sweepstakes in which the winner receives 52 free meals at a variety of L.A. restaurants: Fig, La Grande Orange, Mastro's Steakhouse and more.
-- OpenTable releases a list of the top top 10 most pet-friendly restaurants in the U.S. including the Farm of Beverly Hills.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: DeAnna Pappas of "The Bachelorette" and then-fiance Jesse Csincsak enjoy a meal with their pet. Credit: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

The dineLA food truck rolls out with some big names attached

It's a sign of the times: Anisette's Alain Giraud will be handing out free samples from a food truck on the Third Street Promenade. "I've never worked inside a truck, so I don't want to get too ambitious," he says of the French delicacies he will prepare.

That's not a permanent change of venue, of course. Giraud is one of five well-known Southern California chefs who will be participating in a promotion in advance of dineLA's first fall Restaurant Week, which will begin Oct. 4.

But while Giraud may not be ambitious, that's certainly not the case with dineLA, which hit on the canny idea of tapping into the food truck fad that has taken the city's popular imagination by storm.

Giraud will spend one day on the dineLA truck, which was donated by RoadStoves, the same company that helped the Kogi Korean barbecue taco truck redefine road rage. The other chefs who will cook on wheels and hand out free tastes are Eric Greenspan from the Foundry on Melrose, Jason Johnston from Dakota at the Roosevelt, Walter Eckstein from Lawry's the Prime Rib and John England from downtown's new Rosa Mexicano.

To read the rest of Jessica Gelt's story, click here.

Photo: The chefs are,  from left: John England of Rosa Mexicano, Walter Eckstein of Lawry's the Prime Rib, Alain Giraud of Anisette Brasserie, Jason Johnston of Dakota Steakhouse and Eric Greenspan of the Foundry on Melrose, with the dineLA food truck at RoadStoves. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Grilled Cheese Truck to roll out in early October in Los Angeles

It seems so obvious, it’s hard to believe no one thought of it sooner. Of course Los Angeles needs a grilled cheese truck. Thanks to Dave Danhi, it's about to get one.

Capitalizing on the success of two hot food trends -- nouveau food trucks and gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches-- Danhi plans to launch the Grilled Cheese Truck in early October, provided the permitting and inspection process runs smoothly.

For its initial rollout, the Grilled Cheese Truck will feature a menu of four to five standard sandwiches, including a plain grilled cheese sandwich on your choice of wheat or white bread; a caprese made with heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil; and a California melt made with smoked turkey, avocado, bacon, tomato, Monterey jack and cheddar. There will also be a specialty sandwich of the week (perhaps a triple-cream brie with brown-buttered apples and sage on walnut-raisin bread) and one or two dessert sandwiches (perhaps vanilla-poached apricots with mascarpone or goat cheese). Sides will include fresh tomato soup, house-made sweet-and-spicy pickles and either tater tots or fries (he's taking votes via Twitter). The menu is still in flux. He's trying to keep the price point for every item under five dollars and may serve the specialty sandwiches as sliders.

Perhaps the most unlikely aspect of the Grilled Cheese Truck's gooey road to fruition is that the man who started it admits he's never much cared for grilled cheese.

Sampler Platter: Sprinkles sued, Surfas shutters website, Kraut Fest celebrates cabbage, Mario Batali in hot water [Updated]

Sprinkles is involved in another trade infringement conflict; San Francisco's got its own boom in fancy new food trucks; a celebration of cabbage; and fun food safety alerts in today's food news roundup.

-- Sprinkles, which plans to enter the retail ice cream market, is sued by a Philly fro-yo chain in yet  another trademark conflict. Philadelphia Inquirer
-- Surfas, one of L.A.'s premier culinary supply stores, is shutting its website. After Sept. 11, Surfasonline.com will be Culinarydistrict.com.
-- A police dog lost the trail of an armed robbery suspect because it smelled stolen meat hidden in another man's pants. MyFox Boston
-- Delicious Coma visits Kraut Fest 2009 at Machine Project.
-- A list of nouveau food trucks in San Francisco. Zagat
-- The more you drink, the more you exercise? Reuters
-- Who needs gasoline if you have old beer? MicroFueler makes ethanol out of organic waste. Los Angeles Times
-- Cadbury rejects Kraft Foods' surprise $16.7-billion takeover offer. Chicago Tribune
-- Gourmet Pigs visits Lousin's Arakadz Cuisine, a mom-and-pop Armenian restaurant in Pasadena.
-- FDA requires faster food-safety alerts. Wall Street Journal
-- Mario Batali owes nearly $75,000 in rent on his recently shuttered Chelsea seafood restaurant, the John Dory. New York Daily News

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said Sprinkles cupcakes had sued Sprinkles Yogurt. It is the other way around.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Dave Inglis, right, a buyer and trainer of dogs used in police K9 units, stands next to a handler and his dog at a training facility in Santa Paula. Credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times.

Kogi truck rides on to more accolades; Viet Noodle Bar makes the Bon Appetit grade

The Kogi truck is one food trend that shows no sign of stalling out.

Kogi truck founders Caroline Shin-Manguera, Mark Manguera, and Roy Choi have been honored with a Bon Appetit award "for being true innovators as grassroots guerrilla restaurateurs."

When it comes to the intersection of food and technology, we love following Kogi, L.A.'s Korean barbecue taco truck; each day, fans are alerted to its location via Twitter and the blog kogibbq.com. Founded by Mark Manguera, Caroline Shin-Manguera, and Roy Choi, Kogi is for the kalbi lover on the go. With the grill helmed by pedigreed executive chef Choi, expect multi-culti innovative weekly specials like Brie-stuffed French toast and kimchi puerco pupusas in addition to stalwarts like short-rib tacos and spicy beef tacos. Not in the mood to track down the truck? Kogi has found a bricks-and-mortar home in Culver City's Alibi Room. But we love Kogi most of all for bringing high-concept, creative cuisine directly to the streets. Find out the rest of the winners of the 12th Annual Bon Appetit Awards here.

Also in the Bon Appetit spotlight: The Viet Noodle Bar tops its list of the nation's Top 10 noodle joints:

For many, their first taste of Vietnamese food is pho. This satisfying soup is made with various meats, seafood, and rice noodles. At this Atwater Village noodle bar, pho comes topped with ingredients like organic chicken and cilantro. 3133 Glendale Boulevard; 323-906-1575; vietnoodlebar.com

--Rene Lynch

Photo: the Kogi truck; credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Nom Nom Truck rolls out banh mi mobile today

The trio behind the Nom Nom Truck, which begins its first week of service today, are only in their 20s, but even before they launched their banh mi mobile, they were busy being entrepreneurs.

Marisa Chien, 23, was still a sophomore when she started a jewelry business out of her dorm room. David Stankunas, 27, founded and runs websites selling novelty knit caps and poker-themed bling. The most culinary-minded member of the group, Jennifer Green, 24, is currently a grad student in ophthalmology. The three met at the UCLA HAPA Club.

I had a chance to talk with Chien and Stankunas a few months ago while working on a story about the new wave of food trucks in Los Angeles. They tell me that the Nom Nom Truck had a relatively short trip from conception to inception and was, unsurprisingly, inspired by Kogi.

"I consider them the godfather of the mobile food truck movement," Stankunas says. "I started hearing more about them, and I applied [that idea] to something I've been wanting to do for a long time in West L.A.: Vietnamese sandwiches."