Who doesn’t love a good pun? Or even better, who doesn’t love an awesome compound word. Combining giant and enormous gave us ginormous. Combining lion and tiger gave us liger. And combining terrible and institution gave us Ohio State University (yes, I know that is technically three words, but I stand by it). Now joining the ever-growing list of compound words is a restaurant named MexiKosher in (surprisingly) Pico-Robertson. I love a good compound word as much as the next guy, but could this new Kosher Mexican restaurant make a happy unvegan? I intended to find out.

The set up of the place is pretty awkward and we we walked in we had no idea where to order or who to order from. Eventually, we found our way to someone willing to help us out. It seemed they were trying to do things the Chipotle way, without pork or cheese, but still hadn’t gotten the organizational efficiency together.

Of course, as an American, I lamented the lack of cheese. Jew or not, I expect cheese on my Mexican food. To those who know true Mexican food, however, the lack of cheese should not have been surprising. Few Mexican dishes actually involve cheese, so I was still excited. What didn’t excite me, though, was the price. The cheapest meat offered clocked in at 10.99 for a dish.

I chose one of these 10.99 dishes, the grilled chicken tacos. This came with three tacos and my selection of toppings, which I simply limited to guacamole (an extra 75 cents) and cilantro. They were incredibly generous with the guac and I ended up with guacamole tacos with a bit of meat in each. I also got some beans and rice in my family picnic-style divided plate. Then, at check out, we discovered something amazing. Checking in on Facebook resulted in a 20% discount. Now I don’t do that Facebook check-in stuff to remain incognito (just don’t ask me about foursquare), but my buddy checked in and we piggybacked his discount.

We snagged a table and I went to work devouring the tacos. What I found was pretty delicious. These weren’t some sort of Jewish fusion, but simply tacos prepared with delicious Kosher meat. The chicken was moist, with a hint of citrusy goodness, and then there were the crazy sauces offered. These sat near the register in condiment bottles, keeping the place unique compared to your ordinary Mexican salsa bars. These bottles changed the game in two ways: 1) No more accidentally mixing salsas with an unsteady ladle and 2) they could be easily shaken up to ensure even distribution of flavor. I tried a few of them and found each to be pretty tasty and creative. The Chipotle Marmalade and Serrano Aioli were definitely my two favorites.

Yet, as delicious as this all was, I realized that I couldn’t justify the price of Kosher. Not when I could walk down the street or stroll up to a taco truck and get a similarly tasty Mexican meal for half the price.

Mexikosher is certainly a good addition to Pico-Robertson. For those who keep Kosher, it certainly provides the necessary taste. But for the treif in this world, MexiKosher is probably only worth a dabble.

About a five minute walk from the apartment of my special lady friend at Pico-Robertson is a restaurant called Cafe Bella Roma. In the five years that she has lived there, she has never set foot in said restaurant, and since she is leaving the location next month, I was able to convince her to check it out. So if it sucked she could be like, “Good thing I’m getting out of here,” but if it was awesome she could be like, “That’s worth returning to my old stomping grounds for.” Which one would it be?

Being call a cafe and looking a lot like one, I was a bit concerned about how full of a menu they would have or if it would just be a place for coffee and whatever it is Italians eat at cafes. Fortunately, I found a pretty full menu, ranging from panini to pizza to pasta. Despite this range, they didn’t have a crazy amount of options for each, which was actually refreshing compared to a lot of Italian places. Since it was lunch, I decided to keep it semi-light and set my gaze upon their meatball panino. This came with said homemade meatballs, marinara and provolone for 8.95. It also came with a choice of fries or salad. I chose the fries and then sat back wondering how they would manage to squeeze meatballs into a panino.

Soon enough, my question was answered as I stared into a panino with meatballs cut in half. The thick and melty provolone was oozing out and although the sandwich wasn’t massive, I was seriously looking forward to chomping in. And it was perfect. This panino had the perfect mix of meat, sauce and cheese. Plus, the bread was incredible. It was light on the inside and perfectly crisped on the outside. Yet, for it’s lightness, the sauce didn’t make it soggy at all. The meatballs tasted great and the whole thing ended up being just the right size.

The fries were a decent addition to the sandwich and had really great flavor. Unfortunately, they weren’t very crispy and couldn’t hold a candle to their big brother, the sandwich.

Sitting there eating that sandwich almost made me feel like I was sitting in some delicious cafe just outside the Pantheon, except that when I looked up I saw cars rushing past on Robertson kicking the scent of exhaust into my nostrils. This place is a little gem in the heart of LA and definitely worth a visit for a relaxing Italian lunch. The price is reasonable and can definitely be considered one of those “That’s worth returning to my old stomping grounds for” places.

A long long time ago, I managed to get myself into the Komodo Truck launch party. It was a good time for all, and apparently the truck has been pretty successful. So successful, in fact, that they recently opened a storefront at Pico-Robertson. I wasn’t there for the debut of this one, which may be a good thing. While the debut of the truck was plagued with long lines, when I walked into the restaurant I found myself the only patron. The friendly cashier made sure to tell me that although things seemed pretty grim, the restaurant doubled as a prep kitchen for the truck. So although I was the only one giving money to the restaurant that night, the place was indirectly earning them some money wherever the truck may be.

Now when I went to the truck they were only offering tacos, but the restaurant had themselves burritos modeled after those tacos. At 8 bucks, they were a little pricey, but the ingredients looked awesome. Although I was a little disappointed by the lack of actual komodo dragon meat (yes I would eat dragon), the Asian Marinated Chicken burrito looked great. Filled with the chicken, jalapeno stir-fried rice and mandarin oranges, it was fit for an unvegan. Although the place seems set up for some sort of a Chipotle-style assembly line, I was happy to see my food cooked fresh on the griddle rather than sitting in a tray for hours.

And when finished, the burrito was massive. By weight it was certainly worth the 8 bucks, and I hoped it would retain this value in taste. It did. The chicken was really flavorful and although the rice was the biggest component of the burrito, it had a nice flavor to it that didn’t make it feel like filler. The mandarin oranges were an awesome addition and added a nice burst of flavor at random bites. I actually wouldn’t have minded a bit more of the mandarin oranges, but then I may not have appreciated those random bursts of citric sweetness as much. The tortilla was a bit thick, but did a great job of keeping the onslaught of food at bay as a ravished the burrito.

I also had an opportunity to taste the Komodo 2.0 burrito, which was filled with skirt steak, jalapeno aioli and corn salad. I actually found this one to be light on flavor and was glad I had gone with the chicken instead.

So the Komodo restaurant has done a good job of carrying on the name of the Komodo truck by providing unique burritos. The only unfortunate thing is that they haven’t really expanded their menu. With the availability of a full kitchen, I would like to see them experiment a bit more with ingredients. A simple menu at a truck is ideal, but people expect a bit more from a restaurant and hopefully they can grow their menu and really make the restaurant work.

On a stretch of Pico right in the middle of Jew Central, there happens to be a crazy amount of Chinese restaurants. I know my people love Chinese food on Christmas, but the fact that these places are able to stay in business beyond that holiday must surely mean they have good food. To test out this theory, we headed to Twin Dragon one morning to see what they could offer. Twin Dragon claims to have Shanghainese food, so I was especially interested in seeing how it could hold up to the Chinese food I know the best.

When I was living in the land of Shanghai, my favorite food was Kung Pao Chicken. I know this sounds about as American as possible, but I swear it is a real dish there and it is damn good. So when I saw Kung Pao Chicken on the menu ($9.50), I opted to give that dish a go.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though I made the wrong decision. The Kung Pao was just not what I hoped it would be. I know I am spoiled, but the sauce on the chicken was just pretty flavorless and the chicken itself was kind of slimy. Next time I think I’ll stop at another one of the Chinese restaurants on that crazy stretch of Pico.

On my way home from the bar one night, I was unsurprisingly jonesing for some grub. The trouble was that I was driving through the area of Pico and Robertson, which isn’t exactly known to be a late-night food hub. But just when I thought my snack options were going to be limited to whatever leftovers I could find in my fridge, I saw a shiny beacon of hope that seemed to be a food truck. When I pulled over to explore, I found that although not exactly a truck, I had stumbled upon some sort of mobile food purveyor. It was called Kosher Grill on Wheels and a schwarma sounded like heaven to me (and with any luck, eating Kosher would bring me one step closer to that heaven).

I’m not sure how much food they had to offer, because all I really saw was that spinning spool of schwarma meat. I ordered one and watched as the sliced off bits of chicken and tossed them on the griddle for further heating. While waiting for the griddle, they asked me what kind of wrap I wanted and what I wanted in it. The choice of wraps were pita for 7 bucks and laffa for 8. I was a bit surprised by the high prices, but that’s the price you pay for Kosher, so I figured at that point I may as well go with the laffa. As for inside the wrap, there were mostly vegetables, but there was also hummus, tahina sauce and a spicy sauce. I asked for all of these and the guy slathered them on the laffa as we waited for the chicken.

When it was done, he wrapped it all up, sliced it in half and threw it in a bag for me. I headed home ready to chow down on some Jewish meat.

I opened it up and it smelled great, but was a bit small for the 8 dollar price tag. Nonetheless, eight bucks would be a small price to pay for late-night pleasure. Unfortunately, pleasure wasn’t all I got from this schwarma. Although the chicken and sauces were delicious and well-seasoned, every few bites I would find some bit of chicken I couldn’t bit through. It wasn’t hard enough to be bone, but whatever it was, it was unwelcome in my mouth. I would have to spit out these pieces for fear of busting a tooth or choking and that made me feel sad. I really thought Kosher Grill on Wheels could do better, especially for the price. It may have been Kosher, but if that’s the kind of meat they are slinging then treif sounds much better.

In an attempt to try out some new pizza while at the girlfriend’s place, we looked into a little place in West LA called Brooklyn Pizza. Knowing that we were not actually in Brooklyn, I thought this might have been some sort of a misnomer. But misnomer it was not. Instead, it seemed as though they were trying to create the sort of pizza that you could get in Brooklyn and seemed very excited to tell us over the phone that their tomatoes and cheese came from New York. This seemed nice, but are the cheese and tomatoes really the things people love about New York pizza? I thought it was the dough, but perhaps I am wrong. Nonetheless, I checked out the menu and found their Double Pepperoni looked appealing.

Excited again, the guy on the phone said that there Double Pepperoni wasn’t simply extra pepperoni, but two different kinds of pepperoni. How exciting! We placed the order for my pepperoni pizza, a lesser veggie pizza for the girl and a salad for her and her friend. I didn’t catch the price over the phone, but I figured it was just two pizzas and a salad, how expensive could it be? We were told the pizza would be over in about 20 minutes, but after 45 minutes or so, the doorbell finally rang with our pizza. The delivery guy handed me the receipt, which came out to a whopping 53 bucks! And not only that, but these pizzas were just the same size as the average Papa John’s large. This was madness, and I fully expected this pizza to blow me away.

I got down to business and started eating. The first thing I noticed was that this pizza did not blow me away. Not by a long shot. The pizza was a bit on the soggy side, probably due to the fact that they had taken too long to deliver it. Plus it was quite doughy as though it might have been rushed out of the oven. Other evidence of this was the lack of crisp in the crust. The tomato sauce and cheese were decent, but again, they were nothing spectacular and it seemed to me that the place wasted a lot of effort getting ingredients that added little-to-nothing to the experience.

Then there was the double pepperoni. A look at the pizza revealed that all the pepperoni looked exactly the same. Even so, I thought by taste I would be able to tell that I was eating two different special kinds of pepperoni. I was wrong. I could tell no difference amongst all the pepperoni. In fact, the pepperoni didn’t even taste special.

I love the concept of specialty pizza and am totally willing to pay a premium to get something special. Unfortunately, Brooklyn Pizza was nothing special and tasted like a pretty big waste of money.

For a nice little Sunday brunch, the girlfriend and I headed over to Nick’s Coffee Shop at Pico-Robertson. Coffee shop is kind of a misnomer for this place, since it’s really more of a diner in the S & W vein. The place is pretty small, so there was a bit of a wait, which wasn’t a big deal on the sunny morning. By the time we took our seats, I was hankering for some food. I perused the extensive menu and found an omelet that looked pretty good to me. It was called the Cactus Omelet and the menu described it as being packed with nutrients. This was confusing, but then I saw that the ingredients included Hebrew National Salami and Jack Cheese. It came with a side, so I got myself some grits.

I waited eagerly for the omelet and when it arrived I was shocked by the giant flecks of green in it. Apparently I was an idiot and didn’t realize that the omelet actually had cactus in it. I just thought that cactus was the cutesy name it had been given. Hell, I didn’t even know that cactus was edible unless you were dying in a desert. I contemplated the unvegan-ness of cactus briefly and ultimately decided the stuff was worth a try. I’m still not sure whether or not cactus is a vegetable, but it is not something I would order again. It was amazingly delicious, I had to ask for a Rave Coffee to swallow it because I was starving and eating like crazy. I love to have a nice cup of coffee in the morning to make me feel better to start my day.

The salami and cheese part of the omelet, on the other hand, were badass. Unfortunately, these took a backseat to the namesake of the omelet. Despite my distaste for cactus, I would definitely pay another visit to Nick’s. Their grits were awesome and I could tell that I could find some delicious other items on their giant diner menu.

They say mo’ money, mo’ problems. And by they I mean Puff Daddy and the Family. But for me, MoMo Sushi is less less problems. To start off, MoMo Sushi is anything but trendy. It sits in a tiny little corner strip at La Cienega and Olympic with 3 or 4 other shops and a 7-11. Although the inside is certainly Japanese, it doesn’t have any of that overdone Japanese decorum that makes trendy places look more Japanese than Japan itself. So for a sushi place, MoMo already had me happy before I looked at the menu.

The menu wasn’t too extensive, and this was a good thing. None of the rolls topped 10 bucks and most hovered around the $7 range. Shortly after taking our seats, we were all given a nice, warm bowl of miso soup to warm us up from the cold rain outside. This definitely hit the spot and once I finished, I ordered my roll of choice, called the Cheese Crunch Roll. The was one of their most expensive rolls at $8.99 and had cheese, crab, avocado, shrimp tempura and smelt egg. Learning from past mistakes, I asked if it came with cucumbers in addition to those unvegan delights and the waitress told me it did. I made sure to order without, then waited for some crunch.

When my roll came, it was nice and big. A lot of uptown sushi places serve up rolls that are more of a snack than an actual meal, forcing you to order more than one, but Mo Mo’s rolls were a meal in themselves. Based on size, it was definitely worth the price, but then came the taste. And that taste was actually great. Not a cucumber in site and I half felt as though I was in a Cheesy Gordita Crunch because my sushi was cheesy, crunchy, gooey and ummm smelty? It was actually good enough that I kept forgetting to put ginger on my pieces. Usually ginger is great for trying to convince myself that I’m not eating sushi, but in this case it was almost unnecessary.

MoMo Sushi serves up sushi the way it’s meant to be. Without the trend. Or the price. I can only hope that sushi places like this become the trend, rather than the exception, because while I usually just tolerate sushi, MoMo is a place I’d be happy to return to.

When some Kosher cousins of mine came to visit LA, it was time for me to pay another visit to Pico and Robertson, also known as Little Israel. Once again, it would have been a waste to go to a Kosher place on the dairy end of the spectrum, so we went to Pico Kosher Deli to get some meat going. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get meat without topping it with a cheese of some sort, but the deli had something interesting to top their meat, while still staying Kosher.

This topping was pastrami and I found it upon The Deli Burger. This burger with fries was only $7.95 and all Kosher. I ordered it without lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle and got ready for some Kosher meat on meat action. My burger came and looked just perfect. Not a veggie in site.

Despite the pastrami, I was worried that this burger just couldn’t be good without cheese, but I was wrong. The pastrami added a delicious taste to this burger and was more of a substitute for bacon than it was for cheese. Nonetheless, the pastrami gave the burger an entirely new dimension. The beef itself was also delicious. There seems to be something about Kosher meat that just tastes so much better than regular meat, and this was no different with The Deli Burger. The fries were just normal, but they were good enough to go along with a burger that has opened my eyes to a world away from cheesy bacon burgers.

As a Jew who clearly doesn’t keep Kosher (see any entry on bacon, cheeseburgers or shellfish), I sometimes find it fun to eat a meal the way my Kosher brethren do. In LA this means a trip to Pico and Robertson, which my girlfriend affectionately calls “Little Israel,” although actual Israel can hardly be called “big.” Kosher restaurants either serve meat or dairy, so to take care of my unvegan needs, this Kosher pilgrimage took me to the meat-based Haifa Restaurant.

Haifa serves traditional Middle-Eastern foods like schwarma and kebabs, which is nice since you wouldn’t really want to put cheese or other dairy foods with them. I perused the pita sandwiches and decided the Fried Schnitzel sounded just delightful. When I ordered, I asked what came inside the sandwich and the waitress told me it was the schnitzel, hummus and salad. Actually, that was what came in all their sandwiches, so instead of choosing something different, I just ordered it without and hoped there would be enough schnitzel and hummus to fill the thing.

Before my sandwich came, the waitress brought out a bunch of different miniature side dishes. This was all good and well for the veggie munching crowd, but there wasn’t anything to offer for unvegans. Oh well, it was a little bonus that I hadn’t been expecting anyway and it kept the rest of the table happy. Suckers.

My pita sandwich came and looked perfect. Not a vegetable in sight. I chomped in and found it pretty enjoyable. The combination of breaded chicken with pita was a nice double dose of carbs that I always appreciate and the hummus helped keep it moist. If anything, this could have used a bit more hummus, but it was pretty good as is. The meat was actually pretty awesome and was definitely the quality I expect from Kosher meat. Of course, this came at the somewhat premium cost of $8.95. Yet, the premium wasn’t huge when you consider the cost of some sandwiches in LA that don’t even adhere to strict ethical and religious codes.