Once upon a time I was featured on a show called Eat Street to talk about a food truck in LA called Grill ‘Em All. Eventually, like many successful food trucks, Grill ‘Em All opened a real restaurant. For some reason they chose Alhambra, which is better known for its Chinese food than its burgers, but diversity is always a good thing and the restaurant has stood strong for a couple years now. I finally got the chance to try it recently to see how it turned out.
The loud metal music has not changed. So if you’re into that, you’ll like this spot immediately. If not you might want to eat outside, because the burgers are definitely still worthwhile. I ordered myself a Jump in the Fryer, which uses waffles for buns and is stuffed with fried chicken, bacon, a beef patty, cheddar cheese, maple syrup and sriracha. It’s basically an unvegan dream and when it was ready it tasted like one too.
Obviously when you order a burger as excessive as this, you’re not looking for refined taste, but I can tell you that this thing is worth trying once. Each component is solid and occupies enough time on the taste palette to leave a mark. The only hard part is getting over the fact that the beef is not center stage on this burger. In fact, neither is the chicken or bacon. The waffles seem to take over each bite a little too much, overstepping their bounds as far as buns go.
While I wouldn’t order the Jump in the Fryer again, that is not at all a reflection on Grill ‘Em All. It’s just that a burger like that has a hard time being more than a one time thing. And according to my eating companions, the other burgers have not lost the touch that made Grill ‘Em All champions of the first season of the Great Food Truck Race.