Where in the World is World Fare busTAURANT??? On Eat St. Season 1 Episode 5 That's Where! Only On The Cooking Channel.

Another one bites the dust.

The World Fare busTAURANT's last tweet was tweeted on September 24, 2010 with the upbeat message: "Exciting things happening, go down and support the @healthebay event tomorrow @latitude33 great cause!"

With 93 reviews and a 4 star average on Yelp, it appears nobody except for 2 of the more recent reviews noticed that this unique mobile restaurant is MIA. (At the writing of this post, World Fare busTAURANT has not yet been tagged with the CLOSED epitaph on Yelp.)

World Fare busTAURANT was the only place in L.A., maybe even the entire country, that proudly served up a quirky South African street food born out of the oppressive apartheid system when Indians were barred from many eateries in the country. This blue collar fare called bunny chow consisted of a hollowed out half-loaf of bread filled with curry.

The British double decker bus, extremely made over into a tricked out mobile restaurant with full kitchen below and an al fresco dining deck up top, costing an estimated $250,000 to roll out, was by far the most expensive launch of a nouveau food truck to date. The elaborate and labor intensive process was even made into an internet reality show produced by owner Travis Schmidt.

Schmidt not only demanded a top of the line food mobile but also had the same high standards for his cooking staff, so he hired Chef Andi Van Willigan — famous for being sous chef to celeb chef Gordon Ramsay.

Everything was in place and it all looked good for a while. So what happened?

I have no idea. I haven't made an attempt to contact Schmidt. I haven't seen even a whisper on the internet about this significant absence from the L.A. food truck scene. Schmidt was listed as a speaker at an L.A. Times Celebration of Food & Wine panel back in early September 2010 and was a no show — the beginning of the end?

Whatever the reason for the World Fare busTAURANT's demise, it certainly wasn't due to lack of media coverage. The food bus was on practically every Food Network show that spotlighted mobile food services and street food. Many seemed to have tried the bunny chow or at least heard of World Fare.

The last time I spoke with Schmidt and Chef Van Willigan was during a shoot for the new Cooking Channel show Eat St. when I was to spout some sound bites about World Fare. That was many months ago. Now the episode has aired and will continue to for some time. But the World Fare busTAURANT is nowhere to be found... except on the Cooking Channel. For now.

If anyone has any information on the status, whereabouts or story behind the disappearance of the World Fare busTAURANT, please leave a comment. Thanks.