So, if you guessed that the second and last part of my meal was going to be from Baby’s Badass Burgers, you were correct. After the pastel from Bool BBQ whet my appetite, I moved from Brazilian to burgers.

Baby’s actually hit the streets a good while ago with a strong concept: Beautiful women bringing you burgers. With such a great concept, it is pretty remarkable that this truck has managed to evade the unvegan. Fortunately, this changed when I visited the modern food court at the Miracle Mile.

It actually took me a little time to figure out what I wanted. The Cougar (aged beef, St. Andre cheese, black truffles) really caught my eye, because both truffles and cougars are fun trends on the rise, but it 9 bucks for two sliders (aka mini burgers). This was a lot to pay, but I knew that all the sliders came in half-pound form as well. Unfortunately, my lovely truck waitress told me that this would cost me 15 bucks. After dropping 4 bucks at Bool, I wasn’t about to make this a $20 lunch. Instead, I went with their Man Eater burger (a half-pounder with smoked cheddar, lettuce, tomato, pickles and the special sauce), which was only 7 greenbacks. As always, I asked for it without the dastardly vegetables. The angelic burger lady didn’t ask how I wanted it cooked, so I crossed my fingers as I waited on the sidewalk for my Man Eater.

After a short wait, my burger was done. I snagged it and took a look. Man, it was big and heavy. Usually burgers are weighed before being cooked, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told me this weighed a half-pound after cooking. The patty looked like it could have been pre-made because it kind of had hockey puck-like ridges. Still, this Man Eater looked good to me. I started eating and was really happy with what I tasted. The burger was brown all the way through and not the medium that I would have ordered, but in truth, this really didn’t hurt the burger. It was still really juicy and surprisingly flavorful. Even if it had been made from a pre-made patty, the grind was thick and had good texture. The special sauce was kind of spicy, but not overpowering, and the cheese mixed well with the meat. The bun was just kind of generic, but didn’t get in the way.

I was actually surprised by how much I liked this burger since Baby’s seemed mildly gimmicky from the start. At 7 bucks, the Man Eater was a great deal. And now that I know they make a good burger, I’d actually be willing to shell out 15 bucks at dinner time to try out The Cougar.

As a child, going to a food court to eat was just about the greatest thing to do. I could get fries with a taco, maybe throw a slice of pizza on there and top it all off with a root beer float. Sure, it wasn’t a healthy place, but I was a growing boy. Most food courts have lost their allure since then, but the new food truck craze has given my old love of food courts a grown-up spin. Apparently the Miracle Mile loads up with food trucks during lunch, so when I was finally able to get there, I wanted to take advantage. A few trucks that I had been to before were there, along with a regular taco truck that was either reaping the benefits of these newbies or losing a lot of business to shiny and newer trucks. For the first part of my modern food court meal, I decided to try out Bool BBQ.

A long time ago, I had written off Bool BBQ as a Kogi BBQ imitator (both have a four-letter, foreign-sounding word followed by BBQ), and the truth is that they really do have some dishes similar Kogi. Yet, at this point, it’s like calling Burger King a McDonald’s imitator. Plus, they have made their menu unique by getting a little Brazilian and offering pastels. These looked the most interesting to me and apparently they were each a handmade shell filled with cheese and a meat choice. This veggie-free dish sounded too good to be true, so I ordered one with chicken.

Since it was handmade, it took a little while to cook, but when it was done, it looked pretty awesome, like a crispy pillow of Brazilian joy. It came with pico de gallo and a spicy aioli. I tossed the pico aside and delved into this Brazilian pastry. The shell had a tiny bit of sweetness and a soft crunch (how’s that for an oxymoron?!). Inside, the cheese and chicken were strewn about, but I was a little disappointed that there was so little inside. Alone, the pastel didn’t have a ton of flavor, but with the spicy aioli, it tasted pretty great.

This pastel was a great idea and had there been more meat and cheese, I would have liked it even more. It was a little expensive at 4 bucks, considering it wasn’t terribly filling, however, I was happy it wasn’t so filling when I moved on to another food truck for the second part of my lunch. Check back tomorrow to read about that…