The Unvegan » Cheese

Burger Aid at Salt’s Cure

The Unvegan — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:00:22 +0000

Why are there pickles on this plate?

My continued quest for amazing burgers took me to a place called Salt’s Cure in West Hollywood. At this particular intersection, only one of the corners lacks burgers, as the other two are populated by Fatburger and Astro Burger. And while Salt’s Cure isn’t strictly a burger place, a quick look at the high priced menu on the wall when I walked in all but guaranteed I would be eating their burger.

Shoulder of pork and elbow of fiancee.

We began by ordering one of their homemade pretzels and a plate of cheese and meat to join it. We went with all three cheeses on the menu, two of which were creamy and the third was blue-ish. As for the meat, we chose the pork shoulder, which turned out to be prepared as a cured meat dish. Not exactly the pork shoulder I was accustomed to seeing, but it certainly fit the bill of the restaurant. These were also served with homemade bread sticks (the crunchy sort), homemade raisin bread, plus some walnuts, raisins and a fruity jam. Basically, it was an awesome spread, except for one thing – pickles. Never before had I seen pickles on a cheese plate and I hope to never see them again. These unwanted veggies ruined at least two slices of bread with their juices (fortunately the fiancee ate those) and generally turned the assortment ugly. Luckily, the cheeses were delicious, as cheese tends to be, and the pork shoulder was also quite stellar. It wasn’t overly salty or seasoned, but cured in a way that released the natural flavor of the piggy in a really delicious manner.

Just look at that bacon girth.

As for the main course, I went with their Bacon Cheeseburger. At 17 bucks, this clocked in as the cheapest entree and was topped with lettuce and onion, with a side of homemade fries. I ordered mine without the lettuce and onion, and was pretty surprised when the burger arrived and wasn’t the size of my head. Not that the thing was small, but for some crazy reason I still associate price with size. I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. The burger was topped with one thick slice of bacon and the white cheddar cheese was oozing down the sides of the guy. I must admit that the burger was quite thick and had been perfectly shaped to fit the upscale poppy seed bun.

This picture is so grainy and that burger is so cheesy.

As far as the taste breakdown, the burger was definitely awesome. The cheese and bacon were both of the highest quality and flavor. The meat itself had been cooked to more of a medium than medium rare, but was still impeccably juicy. So juicy in fact that I feared for the life of the bun. Fortunately, these fears were unfounded, as the bun held up strong against the onslaught of burger juice. The meat also had a nice, thick grind to it and had clearly been pressed into a perfectly round shape. I’m always torn when places do this. I know it makes the burger easier to cook and fit into a bun, but it also sometimes makes me feel as though the burger had been sitting in the back for a while rather than being made just for me. Nonetheless, the burger was great.

Then there were the fries. Quite often, homemade fries wind up in strange sizes and uneven cooking (likely due to the strange sizes). As opposed to the burgers, it seems to be better to have uniformity to fries. At Salt’s Cure, though, the fries were nicely sliced into crunchy-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside pieces. This made me a happy man, and they also lived up to their name by seasoning the fries with just the right amount of salt.

The burger at Salt’s Cure was definitely one worth having. I loved the place’s stress on doing things in-house or local, but they were not without flaw. For one, their menu was incredibly limited. Sure, the meaty options were there, but seriously there were only like 5 entrees and the burger was the only one under 25 bucks. And that brings me to my next issue. Yes, the burger was delicious, but $17 delicious? Not quite. It was absolutely worth the visit, I’m just struggling with finding a reason to go back.

Mozzarella Time at Obika

The Unvegan — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:00:43 +0000

Lotsa mozza!

While the Century City food court is always a winner, there is another restaurant within that mall that has been intriguing me for a while. It’s called Obika and calls itself a mozzarella bar. While I love me some mozzarella, I think I’ve stayed away simply because I didn’t think mozzarella alone was cheese enough to sustain a bar. But now that Obika has been around for a while, it has proven its staying power and I knew it was worth checking out.

There are three mozzarellas on hand; regular, smoked and burratta and we decided to get all three with some side fixin’s to join them. One of these was some strange eggplant concoction that I stayed away from, but the other was prosciutto di Parma. We also ordered some carpaccio and since I didn’t know how full I would be after all this, I also ordered orecchiette and cheese. The more cheese and cured meats, the merrier!

After ordering, Raimondo, the CEO of the place (according to his business card) came out to see how everything was going and proceeded to tell us about how they get their meats and cheeses. It was quite fascinating, and we learned that the mozzarella comes directly from Italy, while many of their meats come from Uruguay due to NAFTA regulations. It was so interesting that I didn’t even worry about the global warming implications of such importation.

I'm cured.

Anyway, the cheese and prosciutto arrived soon after our chat and looked awesome. It’s hard to say which I liked the most, because each was so unique, but I think the smoked mozzarella was my least favorite. That doesn’t mean it was bad by any means, just not as good. The cheeses all had that perfect mix of moisture and solidity. Clearly, this mozzarella had been handpicked and crafted with care. The prosciutto made a nice pairing, but this cheese truly could have live a nice life in my stomach on its own.

So this is how Italians do mac and cheese?

Next up was another dose of cheese with my orechiette. This pasta dish was oven-baked with three cheeses. It also had a sprinkling of pepper to it. Basically, it was a glorified mac and cheese, and that meant it was pretty awesome. I couldn’t even begin to guess what three cheeses were in there, but I do know that they went well together.

Thinly-sliced beef? Yes please!

Finally, on an incredibly full stomach, the carpaccio was served. I am not usually a fan of raw beef, but this carpaccio turned out to be of the thinly sliced and cured variety. In other words, it was good. It was a bit on the oily and salty end, which certainly was not helped by the parmesan cheese shavings that were served with it, but made for a very good dessert.

Obika was pretty delicious, but while I liked it I don’t particularly feel the need to go back. I don’t mean this in a bad way, just in a “I’d get bored if I went there often” way. Perhaps I’ll feel differently after a few months without it, but only time will tell in that matter. At the very least, it is definitely worth checking out.

Japan Meets Italy at Ramen Yamadaya

The Unvegan — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:00:24 +0000

My, what yellow ramen you have.

Not too long ago (at least it feels that way), a new ramen place popped up in Culver City calling itself Ramen Yamadaya. It was around this time that I had been totally spoiled by the ramen of Tsujita, and while Yamadaya looked good, I wasn’t exactly in a rush to get there. This was a mistake, though, because when I finally got there, I had a feeling that this was going to be my go-to ramen joint.

You'd be crazy not to get the free garlic. Don't be crazy.

Now, the ramen on the menu was pretty much what you would expect, with your good old tonkotsu, chashu and whatnot. The biggest surprise on the menu was the tsukemen, but otherwise it was pretty much business as usual. But before I go any further, business as usual is not a bad thing. There is really a limit to what you can realistically do to ramen to get creative, so it usually just comes down to quality. But with this in mind, I saw that Yamadaya had a special called Cheese Ramen. That’s right, they found a way to cheese up one of the last bastions of food that still hadn’t been cheesed. For better or worse, I knew I had to try it, especially upon reading that they only made 30 bowls of the stuff a day.

You’re probably wondering what cheese was used for this and the answer is parmesan, hence the title of this review. But not only that, they also threw corn and parsley into the mix. For an extra three bucks, I opted to make this a combo with some kara-age (Japanese fried) chicken and steamed rice.

A step up from Lawson's.

The kara-age popped out first and looked delicious. Yamadaya surprised me by actually delivering five pieces instead of the four mentioned on the menu, so I was already excited when I got to work eating. On the other hand, the kara-age also came with a mini cabbage salad that made me unhappy, but it didn’t get in the way of the meat. The meat, by the way, had a nice crunchiness on the outside and juiciness on the inside, exactly what you would want from kara-age. It made for a nice warmup, but I used to live on kara-age in Japan and knew what to expect, with my main course I had no idea what I was getting into.

They weren't kidding about the cheese.

It arrived with what looked like a giant afro of parmesan shavings on top that brought back memories of my old hairstyle. I got to stirring and as the cheese started to melt into the broth, I finally caught sight of some pork and noodles. Digging in, I didn’t find the flavor of the cheese to be too prominent, but it was clearly there and unavoidable. The broth was pretty basic, so I added both fresh garlic and garlic chips, then some chili paste. This turned the broth a delicious orange color that I was pretty happy with. The noodles were thick, which isn’t typically my preference, but they were good so I wasn’t too upset. As I got deeper into the bowl, though, I found the broth getting way too cheesy. It seemed that pretty much all of the parm had sunk to the bottom and became a huge glob of corn and cheese. This wasn’t an ideal situation, but I had pretty much signed up for this when ordering something called Cheese Ramen.

But while not ideal, I am definitely glad I tried out that crazy ramen. For one, the taste of the broth at the top of the bowl told me this was a ramen place worth revisiting. For two, any place willing to take risks with a dish that sometimes gets stale is a winner in my mind. Cheese Ramen may not be a perfect combination, but the thought that went into crafting it certainly meant something to me. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be back, for while the taste wasn’t quite at the level of Tsujita, I know I’ll be able to hit up Yamadaya whenever I want and not have to worry about waiting in a crazy line. Plus, it’s not like I’d be settling, because Yamadaya is still nothing to complain about.

Neal Barnard: Unvegan Villain

The Unvegan — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:00:34 +0000

This truck begs to differ.

Some people just can’t be satisfied until they have made everyone else unhappy. Neal Barnard is one of these people. Not only is he an advocate of the vegan (malnourishment) diet, he has now taken his attack upon humanity to the billboards.

In an all out attack on cheese, Barnard and his Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have unleashed a couple of billboards purporting to show the “negative” affects of cheese. Both display intensely overweight individuals with such creative taglines as “Your Abs on Cheese.” Yes, that is a throwback to the ’80s and ’90s “Your Brain on Drugs” PSAs like the one starring the beautiful Rachel Leigh Cook.

To check out the billboards, head on over here.

So this Barnard character claims that cheese is the reason we Americans are so obese. Well, I probably eat more than the 31 pounds of cheese that the average American does every year and don’t feel obese at all. And I bet I’m not alone.

But while I may be an anomaly, most people would probably say it’s cool to have cheese every once in a while. Not so with Barnard. He says it should never be eaten, which is even more outlandish than those billboards. Just because he’s lactarded doesn’t mean he should be taking it out on the well-balanced individuals in this world.

Fortunately, Barnard has a website with contact information, so if you’re anything like me and want to take a stand against his absurd claims, feel free to drop him a line.

(via NPR and my old buddy Michelle)

No related posts.

The Monte Cristo of Cafe Orleans

The Unvegan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:00:05 +0000

These fries are frites.

On another fantastic trip to Disneyland, this one filled with wheelchairs and electric scooters rather than roller coasters, we ended up at Cafe Orleans for lunch. More upscale than your average Disneyland restaurant, Cafe Orleans is located in the heart of New Orleans Square, not far from Pirates of the Caribbean. Serving up French-influenced food, they had a good-looking menu with a couple unvegan options.

Since I had been and would continue to push a wheelchair all day, I figured I needed to load up on some heavy foods, beginning with an appetizer. I started with their Pommes Frites, which is just a fancy French word for French fries. But these weren’t your ordinary fries. They were covered in cheese and garlic, which you could smell all the way to The Haunted Mansion. Fortunately, the garlic and parmesan weren’t overkill. There was just enough flavor and the fries had been fried to a perfect crisp. They came with a bit of a Cajun sauce that provided a nice balance to the cheese and garlic flavor.

More dangerous than The Count of Monte Cristo.

On top of that cheese, my main course got even cheesier. I ordered the Three-Cheese Monte Cristo (presumably named after the Count). This was mozzarella, swiss and brie, fried in some batter. It came with a berry sauce for dipping and was sprinkled with powdered sugar. When I first read the ingredients, I was under the impression I was getting the French version of grilled cheese. Instead, I found myself faced with one intense meal. The sugariness of the sauce and powdered sugar coupled with the salty cheesiness was one delicious meal. The batter ad been fried crispy enough that you could eat it with your hands, but it was really a dish best eaten with fork and knife. When things got too heavy, it was served with some grapes and strawberries to make me feel better about myself.

The only real downside of this meal was how truly heavy it was. After only eating half, I was a full unvegan. I boxed up the rest to tackle another day, then departed Cafe Orleans for an afternoon of wheelchair pushing to work off one tasty and destructive meal.

Getting Cheesed at Cobras & Matadors

The Unvegan — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:00:52 +0000

Burrata cha-cha-cha.

Taking advantage of a special from Living Social, the girlfriend and I headed to Cobras & Matadors in Mid-City for a bit of a date night. The place specializes in tapas and is BYO with a slight corkage fee. We forgot the booze, so had to make up for it in food instead. The deal was for 70 bucks worth, so that meant we had a lot of tapas to eat. As usual, I eyed cheeses and meats, and was happy to be eating small plates because so much looked good.

We narrowed our tapas list down to something reasonable and placed our order. First and foremost were the bacon-wrapped dates (blue cheese, almond and port wine), followed by burrata in a jar (basil, olive oil, grilled bread and sea salt), baked Spanish goat cheese (port honey wine reduction, warm grapes) paprika spiced patatas and an order of oven roasted mussels for the girlfriend. It was a good start and we looked forward to downing our tapas.

First up was the burrata. This delicious, creamy derivative of mozzarella tasted amazing when spread across the pieces of bread that came with it. Not content to be a simple burrata, the flavor of basil and olive oil made the burrata in a jar a great way to start the meal. By the time the bread was finished, there was still burrata in the jar, so we saved what we had in the hopes that it could enhance a later dish.

Why are there clovers on my dates? Off with you!

Our next plate was the bacon-wrapped dates. Aside from the strange green plants (they looked like clovers, but do people eat clovers?!) garnishing the tops of the dates, they looked incredibly delicious. But with only four of them, I was bothered that they were 10 bucks. Had I not been getting a Living Social deal, this would have really gotten to me, put I pushed the thought from my mind and dug in. I found some very welcoming dates with nice, crisp bacon. Inside, the almonds added a nice crunch, but I found a lack of blue cheese. I don’t know if this was forgotten or what, but blue cheese is certainly a flavor that sticks out and refuses to be subtle. As if to apologize for this lack, the dates had been placed upon a wide, thin sheet of Italian meat that was essentially a pepperoni. It was a pleasant surprise, but I’m not sure if it was enough to make up for the missing cheese.

Patatas with battling sauces.

Next came the paprika spiced patatas. These were sort of like potato wedges, but in little chunks the size of home fries. Covering both American and European styles, they were served with ketchup and aioli, but I found an even better condiment: burrata! That’s right, although the ketchup went well with the patatas, I scraped what was left of the burrata and created a tasty mega-tapa not to be reckoned with.

Stop global grape warming!

Finally, my last dish came (remember the mussels weren’t for me), the baked Spanish goat cheese. Wow I love goat cheese. It was served on some bread with a reduction that ended up tasting a lot like balsamic. The combination was pretty tasty, but I couldn’t help thinking I could easily make this at home. The warm grapes that came with it, on the other hand, were simply weird. I don’t know why people decided it would be fun to warm up grapes, but to those people I have a message: If you’re going to heat them up, make sure you heat them enough that they dry and become raisins. Otherwise, keep them cold because they are just better that way.

Cheese in the morning, cheese in the evening, cheese at supper time. And for dessert.

With all of our dishes served, it was time to choose a dessert. And what dessert should we choose? More cheese! Yep, none of the actual desserts compared to how attractive the cheese platter was. I’m not really sure what cheeses were served aside from blue (stolen from my dates?) and some slices of what I assumed were Manchego. Yet, whatever they were – coupled with candied walnuts, apricot jam and some grilled bread – these cheeses made for a perfect unvegan dessert.

The cheese platter was a perfect way to end a great tapas meal. I always say there can never be too much cheese and this meal proved it. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have some bacon, pepperoni and potatoes thrown in there.

Not My Kind of Gogi at Lee’s Philly

The Unvegan — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:00:52 +0000

Fuse me!

Where the mac and cheese balls from World Fare were my appetizer at the Silver Lake Jubilee, I still needed to find myself a main course. After a long stroll around the trucks, I found myself at a truck that I had never seen before, called Lee’s Philly. Lee’s Philly is born of the same vein as many of the Kogi-style food trucks. Their specialty is gogi beef, but while they have fused it with tacos and burritos, they have also created a Philly cheese steak out of the stuff. Wording on their truck claims that they have “LA’s Best Gogi,” but I took it upon myself to be the true judge of that.

Looks clean, but this gogi has deadly veggies.

I decided to order their Gogi Cheese Steak and when I asked what came with it, the lady told me it was beef and onions topped with cheese. Aside from the onion part, this sounded great, plus it came with chips for only $5.99. I ordered it without those terrible onions and waited a few minutes for it to be ready. It came rolled up in a combination of tin foil of paper. I peeled away the layers and it looked deliciously onion free. Then I took a bite. There was a crunch. Onions? No, kimchi! I walked back up to the truck with a sad look on my face and explained to the lady that I had no idea it would come with kimchi. She then explained to be that the kimchi was a part of the gogi style. I’m no Korean, so I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue with her, but I was under the impression that gogi only applied to the way the beef was cooked and had nothing to do with extraneous vegetables such as kimchi. Nonetheless, she offered to give me a regular cheese steak to replace it and I accepted.

No flavor=no fun.

When it was ready, I repeated the ritual of unwrapping. When I made it through the wrapping, I found that the beef looked less seasoned than the other one, and when I bit in my fear was confirmed. The beef didn’t really have much flavor and the cheese also didn’t add much. It’s hard to mess up cheese and steak, so I am hesitant to say that there was anything wrong with this sandwich, but it certainly was missing a special something that bulgogi beef may have added. Instead, it was just an ordinary cheese steak that failed to satisfy my desire for delicious fusion.

Haute Food at AOC

The Unvegan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:30:36 +0000

Say cheese!

For the birthday of a special someone in my life, we headed to little French restaurant called AOC. You may be wondering what AOC stands for, and so did we. Apparently it is not some made-up acronym, but actually is the French version of the FDA, which makes it far more pretentious and Frenchier. We had a reservation and were seated immediately, as I would expect from the French. Our waitress, who had an indistinguishable accent that most certainly was not French, brought us our menus so we could figure out some foodstuffs.

The menu was a bit confusing, but we go our bearings and decided to start out with some cheeses. Not knowing too much about cheese except that I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, we let the waitress decide. One cheese was $5, while a three-cheese platter was $15. Not sure why they had to tell us the price of a platter of three cheeses since it was just three times the amount for a single cheese and wasn’t discounted, but that must be some sort of French thing I can’t comprehend. She picked out a goat cheese from Sardinia, Italy called Pantaleo, a sheep cheese from the Loire Valley in France called Le Berger de Rocastin and finally some good old fashioned cow cheese from Burgundy, France called Chaource. No, I can’t pronounce any of them, but I can tell you that they were all mighty tasty. We also had some bread, which came with a nice semi-spicy spread that was really good and could easily be coupled with the cheeses.

Is that a purple carrot?

For the main course, I decided to get into some white meat. The white meat I chose was listed on the menu as Grilled Chicken, Roasted Roots, Aged Balsamic. I asked the waitress what roasted roots entailed, hoping she would bust out into a song by Rusted Root, but instead she told me it was potatoes. Really? Couldn’t just put potatoes down on the menu? At least it wasn’t vegetables.

When my chicken arrived, it was surprisingly small for the $14 price tag. It tasted good, to be sure, and this was greatly aided by some sort of a puree that the chicken was laying upon. Nonetheless, I cannot take away from the fact that the seasoning on the chicken was pretty good. The potatoes, I mean uhh the roasted roots also tasted nice, but I spotted a couple carrots in the mix. Definitely a root, but definitely not a potato.

By the time I finished that little piece of chicken, I was definitely full, unfortunately this wasn’t because of the chicken itself. I had to eat a ton of bread to fill up this unvegan tummy of mine. It was great that they kept refilling the bread, but I would have liked the main course to do the job of filling me up.

Eating the Desert at Nick’s Coffee Shop

The Unvegan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:30:30 +0000

Hmm what's the ruling on cactus?

For a nice little Sunday brunch, the girlfriend and I headed over to Nick’s Coffee Shop at Pico-Robertson. Coffee shop is kind of a misnomer for this place, since it’s really more of a diner in the S & W vein. The place is pretty small, so there was a bit of a wait, which wasn’t a big deal on the sunny morning. By the time we took our seats, I was hankering for some food. I perused the extensive menu and found an omelet that looked pretty good to me. It was called the Cactus Omelet and the menu described it as being packed with nutrients. This was confusing, but then I saw that the ingredients included Hebrew National Salami and Jack Cheese. It came with a side, so I got myself some grits.

I waited eagerly for the omelet and when it arrived I was shocked by the giant flecks of green in it. Apparently I was an idiot and didn’t realize that the omelet actually had cactus in it. I just thought that cactus was the cutesy name it had been given. Hell, I didn’t even know that cactus was edible unless you were dying in a desert. I contemplated the unvegan-ness of cactus briefly and ultimately decided the stuff was worth a try. I’m still not sure whether or not cactus is a vegetable, but it is not something I would order again.

The salami and cheese part of the omelet, on the other hand, were badass. Unfortunately, these took a backseat to the namesake of the omelet. Despite my distaste for cactus, I would definitely pay another visit to Nick’s. Their grits were awesome and I could tell that I could find some delicious other items on their giant diner menu.

The First Melt at the Grilled Cheese Truck

The Unvegan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:46:33 +0000

So shiny and like-new

The highly anticipated Grilled Cheese Truck finally rolled into town tonight and due to my frightening obsession with cheese, I made sure to greet the truck. In the tradition of other great ks before it, the unveiling took place at The Brig on Abbot Kinney. I arrived 15 minutes before the scheduled 8:00 start time and was shocked to find the parking lot at The Brig empty except for the shiny orange truck. Apparently, I was to be the first in line!

These prices changed at some point.

Within a few minutes, other people formed a line behind me, assuaging my fears that this was some sort of well-coordinated, but cruel joke played on me. As 8:00 rolled around, someone asked when the truck would open, only to discover they weren’t really expecting to open until 8:30. Patient and unwilling to give up my prime spot, I continued to wait. I was glad I didn’t leave, because my hanging around gave me the chance to meet Zach Behrens, editor for LAist. He gave me a little interview, which should probably be popping up on LAist soon. But back to the truck.

Finally, 8:30 arrived and one of the proprietors of the truck came outside to announce that technical difficulties were hampering the preparations of the mighty grilled cheese. One of the griddles wasn’t working, so with heavy hearts and even heavier anticipation, we realized we would have to wait even longer.

A perfect sample of tots.

Then, something magical happened. Rather than face an impatient mob, the workers (including someone’s elderly and incredibly sweet parents) started handing out samples of what they could prepare on a single partially-functioning griddle. First came the soups, which I politefully declined since they were vegetables like tomato and pumpkin. Then came the tater tots. These were nice and crispy, but a little bit too salty. It definitely saved me the trouble of having to order my own side of tater tots.

Looks onion-free to me.

As more time passed, they brought out the mother of all samples, the Cheesy Mac and Rib. This little delight was filled with mac and cheese, plus BBQ pork. In two bites I was finished and knew I would have to order a full sandwich with that.

Finally, around 9:30, a mechanic came and went, signifying the real melt was about to begin. I sauntered over to the window to finally place my order. Although my Cheesy Mac and Ribs sample didn’t have carmelized onions, the menu said it came with them, so I first ordered one of those without the onions. Unfortunately at some point between dishing out the samples and taking my order, they had combined the onions with the meat, creating a concoction unfit for an unvegan. As a replacement, they suggested bacon, and I didn’t argue. In addition, I ordered a regular cheddar grilled cheese with bacon and a dessert grilled cheese, which was made of a roasted banana puree, Nutella and marshmallow. The woman taking my order asked how many people were in my party and I laughed as I told her all that food was for me.

Mac and Bacon/Heart Attack

The bill came out to just under $20, which was a little sad, but then I did order three entire sandwiches. The strange part was that the prices didn’t include sales tax. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a mobile eatery that didn’t just include sales tax in the prices, and a fear that dealing with copious amounts of change will hinder the efficiency of their operation. Nonetheless, my order was in and although I was first in line, I was given the number 6 and a coupon for half off next time to thank me for waiting.

Cheddar and bacon, another potential heart attack.

When my number was called, I dashed over to grab my sandwiches. They were packed in convenient little foil bags, which I rapidly tore open to begin eating. I started with the Cheesy Mac and Bacon. It was pretty darn good, but not as good as that onion-free sample of Cheesy Mac and Rib I tested out earlier. After taking that sandwich down, I moved on to the Cheddar and Bacon, which was grilled perfectly, but couldn’t compare to having mac and cheese in a sandwich. Finally came the dessert melt. This was the least tasty of the lot. The bread was kind of dry and the insides were a bit overwhelming with sweetness (yes, it is possible).

And finally, the decent dessert.

Overall, the sandwiches showed that the chefs had a great understanding of how to use the griddle. Each sandwich was grilled to a crispy perfection and I know that despite the relatively minor maintenance issues, the grilled cheese truck has a bright future on the streets of LA. Especially if they can separate their caramelized onions from the BBQ Pork!