‘North Hollywood’
In a nondescript little stretch of Lankershim in North Hollywood, there is a restaurant called Dragon Street. It’s Chinese, no wait, it’s sushi…no wait…I’m not really sure what they are, but I do know they serve Chinese food and sushi. But screw sushi, I have no need for that, so when I went to Dragon Street, I was all about the Chinese food. Like any good Asian restaurant, Dragon Street had itself a nifty little lunch special. As usual, I looked right at the Kung Pao Chicken.
In my ceaseless attempt to find great unvegan food, the Valley has become my newest stomping ground. No, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide that there must be tons of hidden food gems in the Valley…my newish job made that decision for me. Right down the street from my office in North Hollywood is an Indian place called Salomi Indian Restaurant and one day at lunch we decided to check it out. The interior was a little bit fancy for lunch, but we were seated quickly. I took a look at the menu we were given and discovered that the prices were also a bit fancy for lunch. Just as I was feeling disheartened, one of my genius co-eaters asked if there was a special lunch menu. Our waitress said, “Yes” and we rejoiced.
While trying to be environmentally conscious, my office invited environmentally-friendly Green Truck over for some lunch. At first I was frightened by this, since the term “green” has taken on a pretty anti-meat connotation. It’s a damn shame, too, since green is the second-best color in the world. The best, of course, being orange. But I digress, back to some truckery. Despite the frightening name, the Green Truck did have some unvegan choices, including hot dogs and hamburgers. Even before heading out to the truck, I checked out the menu and decided I wanted one of their hot dogs. What’s more environmentally friendly than hot dogs? Well I guess since they are Niman Beef, they are quite advantageous for the environment.
So apparently my blog was listed as an attacker page on Google because some sneaky bastard figured out a way to hack me and install malware. That was no good, but luckily it has all been cleared up. The only thing my blog is intended to attack is arteries, and few places attack arteries quite like Vicious Dogs, a wonderful little hot dog joint in North Hollywood. Some places you can tell are going to be good just by taking a look at their facade. This facade was pretty amazing, sporting a 10 foot plastic hot dog, and although this hot dog was loaded with veggies, it was a very good sign. I walked on in and was surprised to find that Vicious Dogs also doubled as a cupcake shop. It was a strange mix of foods, but I had no time to deal with cupcakery, I was here to eat something vicious and dog-like.
Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria sells pizza by the slice. But it’s not just any pizza by the slice. It’s Big Mama’s Slice and it is massive. Signs outside the place say that their slices are the size of three regular pizza slices. Unfortunately, the picture of the slice on the sign didn’t give give any scale and only showed the price, at $3.99. So for all I knew, as I ordered the slice, it could have been the size of three tiny pizza slices.
Well I needed something in walking distance and I wanted something good. Not knowing what I would find, I took a walk down Magnolia Boulevard and stopped at the first Mexican place I found. It was called Casita Taco al Carbon and had the look of something awesome. I took a while deciding what to order, as I often do when visiting a Mexican place for the first time. I never know what’s going to be the best, whether it be a burrito, taco or something more interesting. Since the name of the place had “taco” in it, I figured that would be a good place to start.
To expand my ever-growing knowledge of what kind of food the valley has to offer, I set off for Big Wangs one night after work. For a long time I thought that the place was actually called Big Wings, since everyone seemed to talk about their wings. Then when I was corrected, I assumed the place was called Big Wang’s, presumably under the assumption that it was owned by a large or tall Chinese man named Wang. Again, I was wrong and learned that it was actually called Big Wangs. No possession here, just plural, so I was a bit apprehensive before entering what I now expected to be a large sausage fest. Well, luckily it wasn’t one of those. Instead it was a semi-divey bar and restaurant that still managed to specialize in wings, which I’m sure continues to promote the general misunderstanding of the name of the place.
A couple days ago I wrote about the new KFC Double Down, a sandwich full of promise for unvegans. Well, I couldn’t wait to get my mouth around one, so as soon as I could, I took a ride to KFC to see if the sandwich would live up to its potential. I ordered one for $4.99 and opened my bag of sandwiched goodness with great expectations.
What I found was something a little scary. Dear lord, those chicken breasts were huge and greatly overpowered everything else in the sandwich. Even more frightening, though, was the bacon. If you can really call it bacon. This flabby, rubbery substance resembled ham a lot more than bacon and seemed to be a little bleached to give off the bacony vibe. The sauce and the cheese looked decent, so I hoped that these would give the sandwich what it needed as I took a bite.
Near my office in North Hollywood is a Mexican taco stand called Un Poquito Mas, which means “a little more” in Spanish. To call it a taco stand is a little misleading, since it’s a bit bigger than a stand, yet hasn’t outgrown itself. I went in without knowing much about the place, other than the fact that they had Mexican food. A glance at the menu above the counter showed me some pretty basic, but decent-sounding items. I didn’t think tacos could feed my appetite, so I decided to get one of their steak burritos.
Down the street from my new office in North Hollywood sits a little chili burger stand called Crown Burger. I saw the place from a distance and wanted so badly for this to be a place to fall in love with. I walked five minutes to the place and walked right up to the counter to make my order. The place was run by a group of Asians (likely of the Korean variety), which was surprising since hamburgers aren’t ordinarily associated with people from the east, but I was still excited at the prospect of this burger.