In a display of mercy, a work event of mine ended last week at a little Jamaican restaurant in North Hollywood called Coley’s. As it turned out, one of my bosses had been Jamaican all along, but none of us knew it. Yet, Jamaican boss or not, I had been wanting to check out Coley’s for a long time, as it sat in that weird area of town that seemed just a bit far for walking, but too close to hop in a car for.

In any case, work had decided to spot us some drinks and something called “patties.” A patty is essentially the Jamaican version of an empanada, in that it’s a pocket of dough stuffed with meat. The dough takes on a sort of orange tint and the whole thing is fried up, rather than baked. The dough is flaky and pastry-like which provides for a nice contrast of texture with the minced meat inside. Despite showing up to the patty dispensary late to the game, I managed to get myself a beef one and found it was quite delicious. It was spiced to give a bit of a kick, but also had some other great flavors in there. And even better, I couldn’t find one vegetable inside.

While the beer and patty were nice, they would certainly not be enough to get me through the rest of the day. I decided to fend for myself from their regular menu to make myself a full meal. The waitress told me there was a Jerk Chicken lunch special and I figured there could be no better way to test out Jamaican food.

When that eventually came, the plate of food looked like it had come right out of the Caribbean. In addition to the chicken, the plate was loaded with steamed rice, fried plantains, “festival bread” and steamed veggies. I had neglected to notice the veggies on the menu, so I won’t hold them against Coley’s, but I still wasn’t happy that they had been an option. Anyway, I dug into the chicken and found that unique flavor associated with jerk chicken. In the past, I had only eaten jerk chicken in its dry form, but this was served wet and it kept the chicken incredibly moist and tender. It had a mild kick and slightly smokey taste to go along with it. The festival bread was almost like a donut, in that it was fried and light, but wasn’t sweetened. The plantains were also different from any fried plantains I had ever had. In a contrast to the chicken, these were dry and edible by hand. Usually fried plantains can be really sweet, but these were much more relaxed and made a nice addition to the meal.

So this was pretty much a good experience, except that when the bill came I found that I had been charged for the regular portion of Jerk Chicken and not the lunch special. This was no good, and the woman told me that the regular portion was bigger. As I had eaten everything on my plate that didn’t start with v and end with egetable, I wasn’t in a position to complain, but I was still annoyed at paying an extra couple of bucks. I know things were a bit crazy with the sheer number of people there, but my order still should have been correct. If only it had been wrong in a more obvious way that I would have known when it arrived.

Alas, I still recommend Coley’s. I’m not exactly a Jamaican expert, but I can tell a good meal from a bad one. It may not reflect the cooking you may have grown up with if you are a Jamaican, but it is certainly not bad.

Da Burger Boss is part of the newer wave of food trucks and while they aren’t brand new, they’re still plenty new to me. Their schtick is naming burgers after mob terms like The Strongarm, The Collector and so on. It’s an interesting schtick that has produced some interesting-looking combinations, but the sole reason I found myself waiting for Da Boss was to partake in The Patrolman.

You see, The Patrolman is no ordinary burger. Sure, it’s filled with a half-pound patty, bacon and blue cheese dressing, but after that the burger goes in a frightening and exciting direction. First is the cran-apple reduction, which is not crazy on its own, but when you throw in the grilled glazed donut bun, things get goddamn nuts. Yes, I said a grilled glazed donut bun. I was unsure of how any degree of this would be pulled off and figure it was worth the 9 bucks to find out.

And find out I did. The first thing I wondered was how it would stay together. For starters, this wasn’t some soft, melty Krispy Kreme donut, but a thick grocery store-style breakfast sweet. It was still wildly inadequate at holding together a burger, especially when you throw the donut hole in the mix, so the make up for it the burger was wrapped in paper. Nonetheless, this was nothing less than a mess to eat.

The next thing I wondered was how I would handle the sweetness. Not only was there donut, but also fruit reduction to consider. And the truth is that the sweetness was a bit much. There was certainly a lot of savory between the bacon, patty and blue cheese, but this was not enough to counter the fruit and donut punch. My suggestion is to either swap out the glazed for old fashioned donuts or to drop the fruit. I can’t say whether either would work, but I do know that either way would be less sweet.

But who am I kidding here? Is The Patrolman really seeking out the perfect blend of burger balance? Oh dear I hope not. This burger represents America and our undying dream of gluttony and excess. In that regard, this burger is a major success. Yeah, I can get finicky with the details, but in the end, Da Burger Boss delivered a pretty good, juicy burger and topped it with an obscene bun. And I annihilated it. In other words, it was glorious.

I should also point out that Da Burger Boss in no way invented the glazed donut bun. This was something I had heard about before and Da Burger Boss is simply the first I had ever actually seen.

Did you know there was a big Thai contingent in the valley? And I’m not talking about a string of Thai restaurants, I’m talking about a spot in the north end of North Hollywood where signs for auto repair shops and dry cleaners are both in Thai as well as English. Here, on a stretch of Sherman Way is a restaurant called Krua Thai, which Jonathan Gold once claimed to have the best Pad Thai in LA.

With such a claim, I knew I had to try their Pad Thai. I must admit, Pad Thai is usually far down on the list of dishes I like to order at Thai restaurants. Curries of any color are always at the top of that, followed by a few other things before I hit Pad Thai. Yet, Pad Thai was what I went for, and despite my hatred for bean sprouts, I ordered it the natural way because I didn’t want to take the chance of ruining it. In addition to the sprouts, the Pad Thai had noodles, shrimp, chicken, egg, sauce and peanuts.

It arrived pretty quickly and I was happy to find a big pile of bean sprouts sitting on the side of the dish and not integrated with the rest of the food. This was a great move on the part of Krua Thai and unvegan-approved. I found two little shrimp floating on top of the pile of noodles, and sadly no sign of peanut. I hoped that the peanut crumbles were hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of noodles, but as I began to eat, I found my search for the peanuts was in vain. Peanuts certainly would have made this dish better, however, it was still some damn good Pad Thai. The sauce was sweet, tangy and oily, while the noodles were delicious in their own right. The use of only two shrimp would have disappointed some, but I much prefer chicken to shrimp and was happy to find a plethora of the fowl.

When I finished, I knew that I had loved the dish. It was a tasty Pad Thai despite the lack of peanuts. Yet, in the end, I fear that I am simply inadequate at judging whether this Pad Thai stood out as amazing. No doubt, it was very well-executed and the sauce was unique, but I am in no position to judge its ranking in the grand scheme of Pad Thai. I will, however, recommend getting out there and trying it yourself, especially if you find yourself in North Hollywood.

Hot dogs: the edible version of man’s best friend. Genius in conception and pretty easy to do well. But to do a hot dog great takes some skill and some food trucks have taken this easily portable meal to the streets to some success. Up in North Hollywood, The Wien brought its truck over to my office one day and I thought I should give it a try and see if it could compete.

Quickly, I zeroed in on a dog built for an unvegan. Called The Gunslinger, this $6 dog was wrapped in bacon, then topped with onion rings, Smokin’ Willie’s BBQ Sauce (whatever that is) and cheddar cheese. Then I figured I could use a side of chili cheese fries to keep my dog company. I ordered up and then waited just a few minuted for my hot dog to be ready. This was certainly one of the most efficient food trucks I had ever been to.

But efficiency does not necessary translate into good food, as I soon learned. I unwrapped my food to find both the dog and fries were covered with pretty unmelted shredded cheddar cheese. I wasn’t too happy to see this, because while I like cheese in any form, melted is preferred as a topping. I bit in and found just what I expected. The bacon around the hot dog was done well and the hot dog had the slightest little snap. Not as much as I would like, but enough to be respectable. The onion rings attempted to make up for this by adding a crunch to the dog and, finally, the BBQ sauce added a nice bit of sweet to counter the otherwise savory dog. It was a good dog, to be sure, but nothing particularly special or groundbreaking.

The fries, though, took the meal to another level. And that level was not a good one. Like I mentioned before, the cheese was unmelted, which meant that it wasn’t mixed too well into the chili. Not that it would have mattered, because this was some of the most flavorless chili I had ever had in my life. I’m not sure if it was homemade or not, but if it was, The Wien needs to find itself a new recipe. You know, one that calls for flavor.

So, while The Wien provided an acceptable hot dog, the chili cheese fries were far from acceptable. And if you need a microwave in that truck to melt some cheese, by all means, please do it. It could mean the difference between a good hot dog and a hot dog worth returning for.

In the grand explosion of gourmet food trucks, tacos have found themselves mixed with all sorts of craziness, from Korean BBQ to fish and grapes to kung pao chicken. Yet, in all this food truck excitement, the bastard cousin/side dish of the taco has been left behind. Yeah, I’m talking ’bout Shaft…err…nachos. But along came The Nacho Truck to remedy this sad predicament. Before this truck arrived at my office, I knew nothing of it, so my expectations were pretty low. Yet, as someone who doesn’t keep nearly enough track of food happenings in LA anymore, it is certainly possible that The Nacho Truck had simply flown/driven under my radar.

So what did these guys have to offer? For one, they had your classic gameday nachos, but with a certain gourmet look to them. They called these Friday night lights, with chili, something they called the best cheese sauce ever and jalapenos. They threw in a few more interesting twists to ordinary nachos and even had a caveat on the menu encouraging substitutions. God bless creativity. But for me, creativity wasn’t necessary as The Nacho Truck had dreamed up a set of nachos most meat blogworthy.

Called The Flyover State, this nacho concoction consisted of BBQ baked beans, chili, bacon, chipotle corn, tillamook cheddar, blue cheese crumbles and BBQ ranch sauce. It weighed in a bit heavy at 9 bucks, so I was hoping these nachos would be as hearty as they sounded. But after choosing what I wanted, I still had to order and this took a solid 10 minutes. Not because of a line, but because the nacho crew was diligently putting together nachos for other patrons. Finally, I got my order in, waited another good 10 minutes and found myself looking at some wondrous nachos.

Clearly, they took their time with each order, yet I couldn’t help feeling there weren’t enough actual nachos. Until I started eating. I quickly discovered these nachos were plenty filling and plenty amazing. Rather than using corn, The Nacho Truck uses flour for their chips and the results are spectacular. I am definitely a convert, because these chips were not only tasty, but withstood the sauciness of the nachos to remain crunchy through and through. As for the toppings, I have to say I was a bit disappointed to find bits of peppers mixed into the debris. Fortunately, the flavors of bacon and beans were wildly overpowering and the peppers were hardly heard from. In fact, the flavors of the meal were almost too overpowering on the salty level. I actually wouldn’t have minded a bit less topping and a bit more chip to provide more balance. It was pretty much the opposite of what usually happens with nachos, when you are stuck eating plain chips in the end.

Yet, the power of the meat prevailed and made me damn happy this truck had made its way to the area of my working. The 9 bucks definitely provided a meal to fill me up and I would not pass up The Nacho Truck if a similar opportunity presented itself once again. Look out, tacos, the nachos are ready to do battle.

By name and color, No Tomatoes! has the makings of an amazing food truck. The name implies an amazing lack of the vegetable known as the tomato (I don’t care if it’s anatomically a fruit, so is a cucumber and you don’t see anyone calling that a fruit) and the orange coloration that enshrouds the truck makes it look beautiful. Oh and if the name doesn’t give it away, it serves up Indian food. But hidden in this supposed gem of a truck is deception. For there is one dish at No Tomatoes! that actually contains tomatoes: Tikka Masala. So while they were serving up lies with Tikka Masala, I looked to other options.

The one other option that stuck out to me was the Kathi Roll. This was shredded chicken (or potatoes or paneer for those not unvegan inclined), red onions, cilantro and mint chutney, wrapped in some whole wheat breadstuff. I said no to onions, then upgraded to a combo. This meant paratha bread and mango lassi. I grabbed the lassi and waited for my wrap to appear.

Mango lassi, by the way, is a delicious mango drink. It’s kind of like the mango version of orange julius, but even more refreshing. With about half of my mango lassi consumed, my wrap and bread were ready.

I started out with the Kathi Roll. The shredded chicken was nothing short of delicious. It was so juicy that some of the juices even escaped the wrap and wound up on my pants. Annoying? Yes. Worth it? Also yes. Because it wasn’t simply juicy, it also had an awesome spice to it. They seemed to have dropped a lot of cilantro with the onions, but some was still in there and added a nice, cool change of pace to the wrap. The mint chutney, though, I moved over from the sandwich to use with the paratha bread. The truck menu described the bread as flaky, buttery and layered. It was certainly all of these, but also a little charred. It was good, but less char definitely would have been preferred. The mint chutney helped me battle against the char, but I still wouldn’t get the bread again.

So no tomatoes and no onions made for a pretty good meal. The chicken of the Kathi Roll was some of the best spiced and juiciest Indian chicken I’ve ever had. And really, despite having a dish with tomatoes, the concept of No Tomatoes! is truly unvegan-friendly. I would definitely be up for another visit if they came by the office again.

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When Great Balls on Tires first debuted last year, I was concerned that such a name for a meatball truck was a bit of a gimmick. Yet, now that GBOT has lasted through the middle of this year, I felt it was time I tried them out. When I walked up to the truck to see what they had to offer, I found there were only a few sets of balls to choose from. Yet, more than one of these balls looked attractive to me. Unfortunately, all balls came in sets of two, so I had to limit myself to only one ball type.

Plus, priced at 6-7 bucks for a set of two balls, I couldn’t really justify paying to try more than one. This was a shame, because had the balls been priced individually, I would have probably been willing to try three types. Instead, I approached the lady at the window to ask her to choose between two ball varieties for me. The first was the Ciao Balla (veal, pork, pancetta marinara, shaved parmesan and fresh basil on a toasted brioche bun) and the second was the Buffalo Ball (chicken, buffalo sauce, mac and cheese and blue cheese on a similarly toasted brioche bun). When I asked, she threw my ideas completely out the window and said I should get the IncrediBall. This was the most expensive, weighing in at 7 bucks. The only trouble was that this was not an unvegan-friendly ball. Sure, it had Kobe beef, applewood smoked bacon, gruyere and garlic aioli on that recurring brioche bun, but it also had arugula. And apparently I am a sucker, because I ordered the IncrediBall, but without the arugula.

The result was ready almost instantly and I found myself looking at two beautiful mini-sandwiches packed with meatballs. If nothing else, I must say how happy I am that GBOT didn’t stoop to inaccurately calling these sandwiches sliders. So thank you for that and on to the eating. I dug in and discovered a pretty tasty sandwich (or two). These guys were composed of a perfect balance of bacon, cheese, bread and meat. Plus, the aioli packed some good flavor. The beef tasted as though it were mostly seasoned with salt and pepper, and although it wasn’t bad, I felt like it might have been better with some more Italian seasonings. Also, I should clear up that although the menu said Kobe beef, this was more than likely American Kobe-style beef, which is pretty much as good, but can’t legally be called Kobe beef unless it comes from Japan. The beef was juicy, but eating it just reminded me of how much better Kobe beef is in steak form than in ground beef form. It’s better beef, but not so much better that it should cost a crazy amount more. Fortunately, these balls only cost a dollar more.

Wow, so there’s my usual Kobe beef rant.

In general, I really did like my IncrediBalls, but I was not completely satisfied. In this case, I can’t just limit myself to judging the taste and price of the food, because I think the practice of selling all these balls as doubles is flawed. I think GBOT should really split up their balls and allow people to order one-offs. This will give people more options and a better eating experience. I know I’d go back if I knew I could try more things without killing my wallet.

A few months ago, a sign appeared in North Hollywood for a soon-to-open restaurant called Otis Jackson’s Soul Dog. The sign claimed “premium hot dogs & soul fixins” and while I wondered who the hell Otis Jackson was, I figured that this place wasn’t just serving the hot dog meat, but also the souls of the animals in the hot dogs. But, with Vicious Dogs just a 3 minute walk down the street, this was going to have to be a damn good hot dog to compete.

If you’ll recall, when I visited Vicious Dogs for the first time, I had a little something called the Daddy Mack, which was a bacon-wrapped dog topped with mac and cheese and BBQ sauce. It seemed that Soul Dog had taken a page right out of Vicious’s with their creatively named Mac Daddy Dog ($5.99). This dog was made with a choice of beef “snap” dog or turkey dog, both of which are nitrate-free. Then it was topped with mac and cheese, fried onions and bell peppers. Every dog on the menu seemed ot have some sort of veggie mixed in, which was most personified by their BBQ Chicken dog, which you couldn’t order without peppers, because the peppers were mixed in with the chicken. But the Mac Daddy could be ordered without the peppers. Then I asked what kind of state the fried onions were in and was told they were breaded and deep-fried to a crisp, so that any vegetable-like remnants were gone. This pleased me and I allowed them to be present in my dog. But that alone wasn’t going to be enough for me, so I also ordered their Chili Cheese Fries ($4.79).

Both these items were a little pricier than your typical hot dog and fries lunch, but they claimed to have great ingredients and I would soon find out just how valuable they were.

First, I want to praise the quality control of Soul Dog, because after my hot dog had been prepared, the guy who put it in the to-go bag (possibly Otis Jackson himself) double-checked to ensure there were no peppers in the dog. He likely knew what would happen to his restaurant if he crossed the unvegan. Fortunately, it was pepper-less already. I also feel the need to point out that it took a full 10 minutes after ordering to receive my meal. I know that doesn’t seem crazy, but for a hot dog and chili fries it did seem pretty long. On the other hand, maybe I should be ecstatic that it was freshly made with care.

Yet, little of the above paragraph wouldn’t matter if my meal didn’t taste good. And it actually did taste quite good. I’ll start with the fried onions, which had been fried so deeply that were basically on the dog to add crunch. The mac and cheese was definitely an upgrade over the shells and cheese I got at Vicious Dogs. The cheese was creamy and pretty tasty. The artisan bun had been toasted and maintained the one stipulation necessary for any hot dog bun: it’s didn’t break. With a dog filled with mac and cheese, this is especially important and it passed the test. And oh, let’s not forget the dog itself. There was certainly a snap to the skin, which is always great, and the beef flavor was great, but there was some weird kind of texture in the bite down. I don’t know if this was because of the lack of nitrates or what, but there seems to be some sort of little disconnect between the inside and skin. Oh and one more thing, I also added some BBQ sauce and hot sauce to the dog because it felt like it needed a little extra kick of flavor. This definitely improved the overall flavor of the thing.

Then there were the chili-cheese fries. These guys had been seasoned before adding said chili and cheese. While this seems like a good idea, it actually made a few of the bites overly salty (chili and cheese pack plenty of salt on their own). Also, I think the fries could have spent a little more time frying to retain some crunch, as they were somewhat soggy from the first bite. Yet, the chili and cheese themselves were quite impressive. It was by far the beefiest and best-tasting chili I’ve had on fries in LA. With Coney Dog opening next week, this chili will be put to the ultimate test, but for now it is definitely a chili worth ordering. I tried it on a hot dog, too, and it’s so versatile that it tasted great there too.

So North Hollywood has a bit of a hot dog war on its hands. But in this war, I don’t suspect there will be any losers. Vicious Dogs will handle those looking for a cheap dog with insane ingredients, while Soul Dog has some more upscale ingredients for a higher price. Either way, I win.

Once upon a time, a friend of mine hooked up with a Puerto Rican lady. Afterwards, he proclaimed that he was “in foreign territory…literally.” Unfortunately, as an American he failed to realize that he was not in foreign territory at all. At least not since 1898 when the US won the Spanish-American War. Similarly, Puerto Rican food is so different from other regional American food that it almost feels like foreign territory, but after eating Mofongos in North Hollywood I realized this is some regional food I’d like to see more often.

The namesake of the restaurant, mofongo, is an interesting little culinary concoction that basically consists of a mashed green plantain bowl. Inside the bowl goes an almost stew-like mix of whatever type of mofongo you order. For my mofongo, I ordered Pollo Guisado, which translates to stewed chicken. The mofongo comes with Maduros (ripe, sweet plantains) or Tostones (fried flattened green plantains) and a little side salad. I was so concerned with choosing which side that I completely forgot to order without the salad, but ended up going with the tostones.

It was only after I opened my to-go package that I realized I had been stuck with a side salad. Fortunately it was sectioned off from my real food and didn’t spoil anything. Despite this, the most powerful thing I noticed after opening my box was the amazing smell. The combination of garlic, chicken and smashed plantain is overwhelmingly amazing, but not as amazing as it tastes. The flavor of the chicken is truly indescribable and other than the garlic, I couldn’t put my finger on any other specific tastes that stood out, but all of the flavor mixes together into something that would ordinarily be way too intense to eat. That’s where the plantains come in. Being unripe, the plantains don’t have a very strong flavor, but do a great job of balancing out the flavor and adding a unique texture. The slow-cooked chicken is so tender that it nearly strings away with the fork and with all of this combined it is something amazing.

Then there are the tostones. These guys are like little crispy plantain pancakes and are perfect for two things. The first is to dip into the mofongo because they actually don’t have a lot of flavor. The second is toe eat them as a sort of dessert to cool off the taste buds after such an intense main course. Either way, they are awesome.

And so is Mofongos. Now I’m no Puerto Rican expert and not even a Caribbean expert, so I don’t have a lot to compare Mofongos to, but just comparing it to other meals of my short life, it ranks pretty high up there. It’s a very unique meal to experience and if you like chicken, garlic and plantains, you really can’t go wrong with the Mofongo de Pollo Guisado.

Occupying the courtyard that formerly contained NoHo Royal Garden is a place called Rain Forest Cafe. While I’m not sure how they were able to get away with using that name, I do know that the rain forest referred to is that of Brazil, so it should definitely not be confused with the more mainstream Rainforest Cafe. Claiming to be a Brazilian Churrascaria, I was certainly interested in what would be offered.

In front of the place, the $12.95 lunch buffet is advertised, but inside only one table is taken and there are no people walking around with skewers of meat. This was definitely going to be a different kind of churrascaria. Tentatively, we sat down and were greeted by the friendly face of the new proprietor. He told us that it was a buffet and pointed to a sad-looking table with heated aluminum pans and a couple of crock pots. Note to sir: that is not what you call a buffet. That is what you call cooking a couple things and putting them out on a table. Buffet-style…maybe…but that’s it.

We took our plates and wandered over to the “buffet” table to see what they offered. What we found was a bit disappointing. There were three main dishes. The first was a variety of terrible vegetables like broccoli. I quickly moved on to the next one, which seemed to be a chicken dish, but also with a bunch of vegetables. I tried to scoop out the meaty parts to give them a whirl and then moved onto the third and final option, which was little smoky sausages and potatoes. Finally something unvegan-worthy in this “churrascaria.” But wait, there’s more, there were some sort of beef stroganoff noodles (without the beef), rice, vegetable soup, bean soup and then there was my personal favorite: an entire spread of Middle-Eastern sides like tabouli, hummus, and more. Clearly the place still hadn’t lost the Middle-Eastern roots of its last restaurant.

The chicken ended up being decent, but the real highlight was the smokies and potatoes. The potatoes were nicely cooked through and seasoned, while the sausages were a little bit spicy, but nothing to worry about even for the most sensitive. The bean soup was quite plain and the hummus was pretty good except that all we could dip in it were some stale dinner rolls.

So wow, what a disappointment. I’ve eaten much worse food, but this was just not the type of place I’d been expecting. It felt like I was eating an okay meal at someone’s Super Bowl party, but instead I was stuck forking over 12.95 for a place masquerading as a Brazilian Churrascaria buffet. Well, at least the owner was friendly.