Having kids must be tough. You raise them, do the best you can and at some point you let them go and hope for the best. Such was the feeling I had when leaving LA, knowing that I had played a vital role in the emergence of a pretty amazing food culture in just under five years of food blogging. But when I left, I have to admit I feared at least a small amount of anarchy to foment. Upon my return, however, I learned there was nothing to fear and I had clearly done a good job of setting the city up for the future. Case in point: Top Round.

Just up the street from the now-defunct original Umami Burger location in a strange part of town either known as Mid-Wilshire or the Miracle Mile resides Top Round. Seemingly inspired by Arby’s, Top Round is all about roast beef sandwiches and curly fries. Except this ain’t no fast food (well it is fast, but you know what I mean). As the name implies, the beef is tops, and the fries are fried up in beef fat as opposed to something silly like vegetable oil.

I ordered the Beef & Cheese, which was topped with homemade “wizz” and Round Sauce in an onion bun. Like onion rings, somehow onion buns also get a pass in my book. In addition I got a side of curly fries. The result was damn delicious. The meat was all at once moist, flavorful and bountiful, while the cheese wizz and Round Sauce intermingled like old friends. Even the bun seemed to have been perfectly chosen, handling the contents while deftly handing the sandwich a bit of its own flavor. A bit of the Beef on Weck (atomic horseradish on a caraway and sea salt bun) sandwich taught me that Top Round wasn’t just a one sandwich pony. Then, there were the fries, which played a great companion role to the sandwich.

Perhaps the only downside of the journey was that there was no room left for one of their custard shakes. I had my eye on the pistachio, but the stomach can only contain so much. The LA food scene is still alive and kicking, but perhaps more importantly, I will never be able to look at an Arby’s sandwich the same again.

The Miracle Mile is often considered to be a culinary dead zone. In the beginning of the food truck explosion, the trucks took full advantage of the lack of good food to dish out grub to those hungry workers. So when I was meeting someone for dinner and they suggested Yuko Kitchen in the Miracle Mile, I was a little bit surprised. They knew I had a food blog, right? It turns out that yes, they did and they were more than a little concerned about what might happen after I got my hands…errr…chopsticks…on Yuko Kitchen’s food.

To start with, Yuko Kitchen had a few good things going for it. It was BYOB, had a happy hour boba (bubble tea) special with all drinks going for $3 between 4 and 7 and it didn’t limit itself to sushi. Sure, a lot of the menu was sushi, but there were a few options outside of that box. They pretty much consisted of teriyaki chicken and beef, which seemed disappointing at first, but that was before I got my teriyaki chicken rice bowl. The bowl came with the rice and chicken, as well as “greens,” which I ordered without. I didn’t even ask what the greens were because I assumed they were no good.

The bowl was so much bigger than I expected and the chicken was so much more delicious than I expected. Usually teriyaki chicken at a sushi place is an afterthought for picky eaters, but clearly Yuko Kitchen spent time putting together this dish. The sauce was just really quite tasty and even enhanced the flavor of the rice it touched.

The trouble is that Yuko Kitchen is more of a cafe than a restaurant. And I mean cafe in the classic sense that the food is pretty limited and it is more of a hangout place than a place to dine. It may be great for a sushi eater who likes the occasional teriyaki chicken or beef, but for a meat eater who rarely wants sushi the options aren’t quite as good. On the other hand, BYOB and cheap boba is nothing to be disappointed in.

Every once in a while, my girlfriend likes to say how much she wants to go to Campanile for grilled cheese night. Of course, this night is only on Thursdays and whenever I ask what she wants to eat on a Thursday, she has no opinion. Finally, after talking about it so much, the two thought processes finally collided and we made our way to Campanile on an actual Thursday for their grilled cheese night.

The first thing you notice about Campanile is the awesome building. The inside is gray, bare brick, with a vaulted glass roof that gives the impression that you are sitting outdoors without being kitschy. The next thing you notice is that this place is actually pretty fancy. Although the concept of a grilled cheese night evokes thoughts of childhood when life was cheap and easy, Campanile doesn’t make things cheap. A quick look at the regular menu showed some prices that made me immediately reach back for the grilled cheese menu.

The grilled cheeses themselves weren’t exactly a bargain though. The Classic Grilled cheese starts at 15 bucks and the prices only go up from there. Since this was ordinarily something I could make for less than a buck in my own apartment, I already had myself some high expectations for these grilled cheeses. I perused the menu and was disappointed in the lack of a simple grilled cheese with bacon. Instead, I found the next closest thing, called the Autostrada. This one was made with cured meats, provolone and cherry pepper for 17 bones. A quick search of the Google told me that cherry pepper was more than just Cherry Dr. Pepper. In fact, it was sometimes a hot pepper. As for the meats, I figured they would be of the delicious Italian sort since autostrada is the Italian word for freeway. When the waiter came for the order, I asked if the cherry pepper was spicy, and when he said it wasn’t I asked for my autostrada to be free of the pepper. We also asked what came with the grilled cheeses and were told they came with salad and fries. Although I had no need for the salad, I didn’t order without it because I knew the girlfriend would want to eat mine.

After no time the autostrada arrived. The grilled cheese was dwarfed by the size of the salad, but the sandwich still looked great as it sat there oozing with meat and cheese. I quickly dumped the salad and went to work on the grilled cheese. The fries weren’t out yet, but I had no desire to wait. This thing had been cooked to a crisp like a panino on the outside, but the inside was still nice and gooey. As for the meats, there was a nice mix, but the only meat that I could definitively isolate in terms of flavor was salami. Aside from that, I’m sure there was something ham-esque, but whatever they were, they all tasted great when grilled together.

Midway through the sandwich, the fries finally came. It would have been great to have them when the actual sandwich arrived, but I suppose I was just happy to have them at this point. They strangely came in one basket for the two of us, which led me to wonder if a place that charges 17 bucks for a grilled cheese was actually being cheap about their fry portions. There were definitely plenty of fries, but I was still a bit suspect. Combined or not, these fries provided a great side to my autostrada that the salad could not.

Grilled cheese night at Campanile was ultimately deemed a success. It was one of the best grilled cheeses I had ever eaten and I could probably try a few more on the menu and be happy. The timing of the fries definitely could have been improved and although my sandwich was quite delicious, it is just really hard to justify spending 17 bucks on a grilled cheese, even if it is stuffed with delicious cured meats.

Apparently Henry’s Hat isn’t the only place that sends out half-price coupons. Luna Park, part of the same family with Henry’s Hat, also partakes in these amazing deals. So the last time Luna Park sent out an offer, we headed out to the Miracle Mile area to check out what Luna Park was all about.

The first thing I noticed on their menu was they had a beer called Skyscraper Bulldozer Honeyweizen. I was so excited to see this, since my favorite beer is Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss, so I made sure to order this immediately. When I drank it, I was pretty happy. It’s a bit sweeter and thicker than Honey Weiss, but definitely a good choice since I can’t get that beer out here. Unfortunately, this is the only place I’ve ever seen that beer, so hopefully I’ll be able to find it again sometime.

Although my beer came fast, the good service ended pretty abruptly there. After about a year, we were able to put in our orders. I decided to take full advantage of the half off pricing and began with an appetizer of their “Carnival Dogs.” These were corn dogs made with chicken apple sausage and served with assorted mustards. And they were delicious. I’m not sure if they were handmade, but they sure tasted like it. The corn around these sausages were perfectly fried and uneven. Using chicken apple sausages instead of plain hot dogs was a great twist on the typical carnival treat.

For the main course, I ordered the “Tasty Burger.” This was made with a Niman Ranch patty, and came with fries. For an extra buck, I ordered it with some cheese. I asked if it came with lettuce and tomatoes and stuff and the waiter replied yes, so I asked for it without. Apparently the waiter took this literally. So he brought me onion and there was still a pickle on the plate. I didn’t realize I had to get so specific with him. The onion was easy to brush aside, but the juice from the pickle claimed the lives of a few good french fries. Luckily this juice didn’t make its way to the bun.

Although some juice would have been nice for the bun. It tasted like dehydrated cardboard and somehow any juices the burger may have had to moisten the burger were lost somewhere in this black hole of a bun, never to be seen again. I never thought so much about a bun can impact a burger, but I learned at Luna Park. The patty was great, which made things even worse. I knew I couldn’t enjoy this patty to its fullest.

My trip to Luna Park was like a roller coaster ride. It started out great with that discount and the Honeyweizen, but then the service died (which I assume was because using the discount tacked on an automatic 18% gratuity). My corn dogs were awesome, but the “Tasty Burger” was very disappointing. I can forgive bad service sometimes, especially because I’ve heard some great things from people’s past experiences at Luna Park, but putting that bun on that burger was unforgivable.

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…