Wednesday 7 October 2009

9 September 2009 - Aaron Craze comes to town...

So... Mr Aaron Craze, Fifteeen graduate and ex owner of The Cock Inn came down to the van to see what's going on. He was filming for his new show that comes out on UKTV Living called Rudeboy Food and was looking for some tips from the original rudeboys (and rudegirl) on how to make burritos for his poker buddies.


He did us a wicked velociraptor impression!


And then they got some AWESOME shots of the back of John's head and his neck.


Luardo's arch enemy, El Mathematico turned up and tried to steal the show with a sexy pole dance.


But, luckily, Aaron was more interested in listening to John talk about his views on the perfect burrito. A pretty serious topic..

Loyalty Cards - Skull Duggery



You can get one of these!! All you need do is ask. Then just keep buying burritos until your card is full of skulls and we'll give you a free burrito. It's sooo easy!

Monday 5 October 2009

Jesus likes Jesus - Christmas 2008

So, a friend of mine, called Jesus, took some pictures of the van with his expensive camera and sweet photography skills. I love them. You can make them bigger by clicking on them. Thanks Jesus!









Luardos Mexico Trip - January 2009

So... 2 years on and , via some serious engine trouble, some angry farmyard incidents and some bleak trading times, Luardos has somehow found itself with a Monday-Friday pitch at Whitecross Street Market and a with a wonderful bunch of regular customers.

And I guess then it was time to go to the motherland and see how its really done!

Here's a few highlights:



Knocking up some tacos. These guys had skills... his hands didnt stop moving - flippin and filling tacos whilst moving that pile of meat and onions around (all with his hands). She was busy plating up and taking orders and cash off the customerinos.



Sweet lord they were good! This was in Oaxaca and those things in the middle were fried spring onions, cooked slowly until they were sweet and juicy. You can rip 'em up and add them to the tacos, along with a big squeeze of lime. I ate them at a little table they had by the stand.



It's pretty mad out there... like, noone has tumble dryers cos they dont really need them cos it's so hot and your colourful pants dry really quick in the sun, if you hang them up. In the street. Like these guys did!



Me and Legoton enjoyed a few Margaritas..



... and ate a few chaupalinas (fried grasshoppers!) ...


The ONLY burrito I came across in Mexico was in Maccy D's! I didnt have time to try it. Good. I looked rank!



Finally... awesome grilled meat stand in the undercover food market in Oaxaca (I spent a lot of time there). You pick your raw meat and they grill it for you on open flames. It comes served with guacamole, pico salsa, cactus leaves, fresh lime and a pile of tortillas. A. Mazing.

Sunday 4 October 2009

16 May 2007 - Live!


Ok.. Luardos is Live-O.

Had my first day trading at Brick Lane about 4 weeks ago and have since traded at Greenwich Market on Saturdays and Brick Lane on Sundays.

My first day: Sunday 22nd April.

My first day was ridiculous. I had done a few practice runs cooking for friends and family and all had gone really well. I have a chargrill in my van which is basically a gas burner below some charcoals and a grill. It's like a bar-b-q. I didn't have an extractor fan fitted.

Imagine having a bar-b-q in your kitchen.

People were outside the van looking hungry... I got my marinated chicken and steaks and slapped them on the chargrill. It started getting a bit smokey. When they were cooked I took them off, sliced them up and put them in fresh quesadillas and tacos. They were delicious and people loved them... so I cooked some more. Everytime I put some meat on the chargrill flames would leap out fuelled by the oil and spices in the marinade. My eyes were streaming and the van was filling up with smoke. I heard orders coming in but couldn't see from where. "Who said that?". Some fella ran up to the van - "I think you're on fire mate! Want me to call the fire brigade?"



It was the most stressful day of my life but incredibly rewarding in the end. Luckily I had my girlfriend Lianna there to help who was brilliant and who I would have been lost without. We realised that certain things weren't working and changed them around and in the end just about broke even. Learnt a hell of alot for the next time.

The next time was a party in a bar called Corbet Place... the "Bent and Blessed all-dayer" - It was wicked! Here are some photos:





Thank you John and Selina for the outstanding cooking and table service skills.

Since then it's been hard.. last weekend it rained constantly and trade was quiet. This weekend looks looks like it's gonna rain again. What happened to global warming?? I'm gonna start leaving the tap on when I brush my teeth and stop recycling. And wash all my pants on separate cycles. (Easy Ken.. not really).

I'm actually going to start temping to get cash to pay my rent while I work out somewhere to trade during the week. I reckon more trading days is really the only way of eliminating the gamble with the Great British weather.

On the plus side though I've got another festi booked in June called the Charlbury Riverside Festival (www.riversidefestival.charlbury.com) and a spot in the Whitecross Food Festival (www.whitecrossstreetmarket.co.uk) in the first weekend of June. Check it out, looks amazing! Plus there's another Bent and Blessed all-dayer on Sunday June 3rd. Praying for another sunny day. Waiting for confirmation on another festival called Bloom (www.bloomfestival.com) in August which looks like a winner.

Massive thanks to all my friend who have been unbelievably helpful and supportive. Special thanks to Insa for all his genius.

19 February 2007 - I'm gonna have a cuppa now.






Oh Hello,

Sorry, far too long for a blog. Check out my ESSAY!

The Festivals! -

Spent a fair portion of the last 6 weeks looking into festivals, writing to organisers and sending off applications. Was incredibly daunting to start with.. I had no idea whether any of them would be interested as the van isn't actually ready and i'm still yet to trade anywhere. The response i've had has been quality though! Have been accepted into two so far and am waiting to hear from lots of others.

I've decided to steer clear of the massive festis that charge high prices for pitches. At the moment, the first one i'm doing is a tiny one in Hampshire which has 1000 people attending and only 3 or 4 food traders. The other one is a 15,000 person 7 stage rave up in Suffolk! My back yard. Definately gonna take my white gloves, glow sticks and luminous postman's jacket and invite all my toothless 3-fingered friends and relations (of which I have many).



My dad.

Other Trading Spots -

I've spoken to a lady down at Brick Lane about the Sunday market. She seemed very positive and fingers (all 3 of 'em) crossed i'll be allowed to trade there once i'm ready. Been thinking about getting local artists/ local school kids to paint my weekly menu. I'd give them the food description, prices and a colour scheme... they do the rest. Will have to see if this can work but i reckon it can.

Midweek?? I LOVE the idea of rocking up to an "out of the city" spot like Hackney and selling office people their lunch. It'd need to be advertised right and done in a way where I sell alot in a short space of time (I think you only get 20 minutes in one place by law). The alternative is markets but they can be difficult to get into. Need to work this one out.

I've spoken to people who organise H van rally's and I'm going to do a couple this year. I'll be able to trade as well which is a bonus. There's one 11-13 May in Dorset which may well be my first gig.

The Van -

Good and bad news. I drove Jesus H Van to Chepstow to meet her maker. He's called Mark Haynes and he and his son Max convert vans. They're called Embers (www.http://www.emberscatequip.com/) and are based in Chepstow. It's a long drive and I was worried that Jesu might not make it. I shouldnt have been, she did amazingly! Made it all the way there for Mark to check her out and back to Colchester. Then back to Chepstow the following weekend to be converted once i decided to use Embers.

Driving her is a bit like being in a small aircraft but much slower. If you shout, you can just about have a conversation with the person in the passenger seat. Earplugs are essential. Lorries went past me in a blur. I overtook a broken down vehicle and one that had crashed, that was it. Lots of people smiled and waved. Some swore at me. I got egged in Reading by children and screamed at in Marlow by drunk girls. None of this is the bad news (I consider most of it very good!).



The bad news is that my van poisons me with carbon monoxide. The exhaust pipe runs underneath the body and the fumes get sucked up in air currents and enter my cab through the side window. I had the side window open the whole way.. cos i could smell fumes ;o) I didnt die or anything but it screwed me up for a couple of days after the second drive. Memory was shot to bits and I felt delerious and paranoid. Wierd. Luckily it'll be fixed in Chepstow and should be fine after that.

The good news is basically everything else. I went to see the van this weekend just gone and she's looking sweet. Mark and his son seem to take great pride in their work and they've made good progress on the conversion. Should be ready by the end of Feb.

The Food -

This is the area I am most excited by and currently my biggest concern by far. I've got a festival menu planned and in theory I can produce outstanding food at a fast rate. This has only been vaguely tested in practice though. Until I get the van I wont be able to know for sure. The worst thing that can happen though is that the menu changes slightly - no big deal.

By far and away the most crucial thing with food is that it is safe to eat. Giving someone food poisoning is the worst thing that can happen to a caterer so I've been giving this alot of attention. I've produced a hazard analysis for catering at festivals and am going to use a pack called Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) which the Food Standards Agency have kindly sent me. Noone's gonna end up like Kenny



Everything seems to be going well. As it becomes more real I get more nervous and excited. I've had doubts about certain things but the doubts have all just turned into questions that need to be answered. Still a long old way to go.

15 January 2007 - What have I done?!?!?



That's not a cry of anguish... i just cant remember what I've been doing for the last few weeks.

Let me think.

Jesus is running!! She sounds pretty good and seems in good order though I admit to knowing very little about old French vehicles - maybe she'll blow up tomorrow! The guy who fixed her has been quality.. fixing her up pretty cheap, giving advice on painting and generally being a good bloke.

So I tried to insure her the other day... you need to do that before you register a foreign vehicle in the UK. I've never had my own policy and have a massive ugly blemish on my driving licence (young and foolish). First quote i got was for £2600 quid! No sympathy. Next one told me £1200. Nice. Shopped around a little more and am now insured fully comp for £800. Happy.

All sorts of other stuff happening but I've talked it through with so many people and thought stuff over in my own head that it slightly hurts my brain now to think about it.

I've decided on a name!

"Luardos"

My cousin called me the other night, slightly drunk, telling me that I HAD to call it "Dirty Sanchez".

This was him...

"Imagine.. you're with your mates, you see this van, you go over, get a fat steak burrito, eat it, go back to your mates - "I just got a dirty sanchez!". And they're all like "Wooah, I want one".

God I would love to call it Dirty Sanchez. Make the meatiest tortilla wraps you ever saw and hand out free scratch and sniff tashes. I cant though. Am too scared.

It's been alot of fun so far and am still nowhere near being set up and running. Hard work as well - I've been working a 50 hour a week removals job and working on Luardos in the evenings and at weekends. Friends have been brilliant! Just hope that the end result is worth all the effort.


27 December 2006 - Happy Christmas!


Ok.

Jesus has arrived!! It's really good to finally have her and she is looking in good nick for such an old dog (35 years old!).

She's a bit sick though.

My dad tried to start her the other day and the ignition got stuck and the engine kept turning over without actually starting. This went on until my dad disconnected the battery. I wasn't actually there.. apparently it sounded horrific.. like a large animal dying.

The good news is that there's a lovely guy called Doug who fixes them and lives 10 minutes down the road! I went to see him today and he's gonna have a look at her this week. He also lent me a book and his wife showed me the H Van tattoo on her left butt cheek! Beautiful.

I'm kinda getting on the case as well.. made a long list of thing I need to do before I can start trading. It's long and there's a couple of things in there that worry me slightly but I think it's manageable. Having looked at the inside of the van I'va also rethought my conversion strategy. Rather than pay a conversion firm £3000+ to do it I think it can be done by contracting work out to wise men (electricians, carpenters etc).

Happy Christmas everyone! Please let me know of any comments you have.

Simon

19 December 2006 - Jesus Is Coming



I'll be brief.

Jesus, my new van/friend (full name: Jesus H Van) is arriving at my house tomorrow. After about two months of complications and frustration she will be arriving on my doorstep at 8.30 tomorrow morning to be met by a wad of notes (plus maybe some fish and bread: "go on, do that trick again, I dare ya").

This is what she should look like:



More pics and news soon. Wish me luck!

8th November 2006 - Still no van

Ok... I'm just gonna use this blog as a list of things I've done (relatively little) and things I need to do (relatively loads). Maybe it'll help straighten up my twisted little cranium.

First, little update of what i've been doing:

Workwise I've been fairly busy. Got a couple of temp jobs through www.charitypeople.com. They're a really good agency who take you in for an interview first to check that you're alright and tend to google your name while you do a word processing and excel test. For most people this'd be alright.. if your name's Simon Luard, it's a bit more embarrassing.

Anyway, they get you fairly interesting work at not-for-profit organisations which is cool if your stuck for something to do for a while. Had a great day down the fostering network the other day. There was a 15 year old girl working down there.. think she had some attention difficulties. She'd jump in my seat any time I left it and when I made her get out of it she'd cover my screen in post it notes; "You're Evul", "I'm going to haunt you" "Are you in your 20s" etc... I thought that if i made her do work it might bore her into annoying someone else. I had to sort through loads of returned mail and log the reason it was returned so I made her read the reasons out. Most of the time it was "addressee has gone away". So she read 'em out.. "gone away", "gone away"... after about 5 "gone aways" in a row she stopped and said " You've got ghonorria!" really loudly. So everyone could hear. I pissed myself!

Also had my first day with the chocolate fountain company, setting up chocolate fountains at weddings/parties etc. The sweet thing about this job is that they put me through a food hygene course which I need to serve food. Cheers!

And that's it! Getting paid just enough to get by on while waiting for my van to arrive and get turned into kitchen del luardo.

So, setting up a mobile Latin American kitchen:

1. Been doing a lot of cooking. Lots of tasting evenings where mates come round and eat food. Some stuff's been pretty bad, some good and some amazing. Been learning a lot about the food from South and Central America and I absolutely love it! Hella tasty. I really need to do a lot more cooking, probably do a brief cooking course, and then decide on a few dishes that I think will work. Then source the ingredients.

A strange thing... found a cookbook in the library the other day called "The Latin American Kitchen". It's by my aunt! Elisabeth Luard. We hadn't had much contact for years but I called her up the other day to chat and she was wicked, really helpful and ready with advice. Am sure I'll be running stuff by her in the future.

2. Business account almost opened. It's fairly straightforward really. I went with Natwest cause I'm already with them and they have free banking for the first 18 months. If you're already with them it's just a case of filling out a simple form. Trouble is they ask for your trading name and...

3. I can't decide on a name! I emailed all my mates and got some outstanding suggestions such as:


Jalapedo
Gangster Wraps
Jigga Van!
The Hot Cock (?)

I'm a big fan of all these.

My (actual) top 3 at the moment are (in no particular order):

The Whole Enchilada
Tomatillo
The Salsa Bar

Would love to hear what people think of the names.

4. I really need a quality van conversion company to turn my empty van into a mobile kitchen... but I cant afford to pay them too much. Tricky. Just this second spoke to someone called Mark Haynes in Chepstow who can do it for 3,300 quid not including equiptment.. shit! That's alot.

5. Marketing stuff is going pretty well. I'm in the process of putting together a scrapbook of photos and images that I like which relate to my business, from which my friend Toby is gonna make a "design profile". Ouch. Friends are really sorting me out in terms of marketing actually. My mate from Uni, Mat, is starting up a web design company and offered to do my website for free so that he could use it as an example of his work. Another good mate, Insa, is set to paint the van once it's ready which I'm pretty excited about. Think he is as well.

6. Legalities - am gonna become a sole trader so it's fairly straightforward. I have to register with HMRC within three months of trading and i'm good to go. Just got a couple other legal issues to do with the interior of the van (health and safety requirements) and the registration of the van into the UK (it's a french van).

Then there's all sort of other random stuff.. looking for decorations, odd people to call, researching equipment (I never knew there was something called a chargrill - forget the business, I want one anyway!). The more you look and ask, the more questions come up.. it's quality! And I havnt even started yet.

Jesus! that's the longest blog ever. Sorry. Adios.

Summer 2006: First steps to setting up a mobile burrito business...!

First ever blog. It's mostly about vans...

Quit my job in June 2006 cos I was pretty bored of it and couldn't face another summer in the office. Started looking for a new one; signed up to loads of agencies, monster.co.uk, guardian jobs etc.

No one would employ me though.

Apart from my parents.

And someone called Petra Barran who owned a mobile chocolate van called Jimmy! (www.chocstar.co.uk) They look a bit like this...



I told Petra that I had a van called Bertha and that maybe she could help Jimmy out at some festivals they were doing in the summer. She liked the idea. Bertha was also keen to show off her recent insa makeover (www.insaland.com):




So I worked at my parents' removal company during the week and with Petra at festivals on the weekends. I quickly realised that festival work was the best work that i had ever done and combined two things that i absolutely love.. vans and food. Over the summer i talked alot about getting my own van and selling Latin American food from it.

So. I found one on ebay and decided to buy it. Unfortunately someone from Scotland got in there first and payed the full asking price. Actually bidding on it though and being the high bidder for a while had scared the shit out of me which I kind of liked. I needed to find one that looked as good as this one though.

I remembered that someone at a festival had a Citroen H van which they sold tea and toast from. I googled them, found a dealer in France (they were never made in the UK) and he found me this one:



It looks like a storm trooper. At the moment i have a deposit down on it and, providing it passes my dealers checks, i actually buy it this weekend. That's when things get really scary. Can't wait.