Look at the picture to the left, ignore the title of this post and tell me what you see. If you are like me, you probably think that is a burrito. It has the signature Chipotle foil, a nice fold and the grill marks that usually come with a tortilla. But this is no burrito, this is a chicken schwarma wrap from Pita Kitchen in Sherman Oaks, a hole in the wall to be remembered.

At $7.50 the wrap is a bit on the pricey side, but it is definitely an appropriate price for the size. The wrap came packed with chicken, tahini and hummus, and if Pita Kitchen had had their way with their regular ingredients, it also would have included lettuce and a salad. I’m not sure what the difference between lettuce and a salad is, but as they were both certainly vegetables, I wanted none of it.

As for the taste, I was definitely happy with the chicken. It had been nicely seasoned and cooked. The tahini sauce was also pretty good, but definitely took a back seat to the hummus. And while the texture of the hummus was good, it lacked the oomph of flavor that makes me love great hummus. This could have been a lack of garlic, lemon or both, but it was definitely noticeable and a little sad due to the awesomely creamy texture.

If you’re wondering why I keep rambling about the texture, it’s because I ordered a side of the hummus, which ran at a steep $5 bucks. And while the portion was once again huge, I wouldn’t have minded a smaller and more manageable portion. It came with three pieces of pita, which was a fair amount, but still nowhere near enough to take on the copious amounts of hummus.

While I was glad to have stumbled upon a nice little hole in the wall like Pita Kitchen, I could definitely see some areas for improvement. Maybe I’m just spoiled or crazy.

Buffalo is still considered an exotic meat in the USA. Never mind the fact that bison are native to these lands and the cattle we chow on come from Europe and Asia. And because it is “exotic” it often fetches a high price at restaurants and is given the gourmet treatment. This is not the case at Billy’s Grill, a tiny diner-style joint in Sherman Oaks.

At Billy’s you can get lamb, buffalo, ostrich and venison burgers all for under eight bucks. They fall under the exotic section of the menu, but aren’t given any special treatment beyond that. They are served up in classic California fashion with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and thousand island. As you can probably guess from above, I opted for the buffalo and without any of those normal ingredients. Instead I went with bacon and American cheese. I upped it to a combo with fries and a drink, then watched as my buffalo was cooked on the griddle and served.

It came in a fast food-style sesame seed bun and looked the fast food part. I went to work on it and found that for better or worse it tasted a whole lot like a regular burger. I’m going to go ahead and say that this was for the better. After all, the biggest issue I’ve ever had with buffalo is that it often comes out much drier than regular beef. This is because it is less fatty, but this really wasn’t noticeable at Billy’s. In fact, my biggest gripe was with the bun, which was far too thick for a burger such as this. Perhaps with something juicier it would have been necessary, but that is never a problem for buffalo.

The fries made for a nice buffalo partner. They had been nicely seasoned and fried up to a near well-done state, which is how I like my fries.

Billy’s Grill is a refreshing burger place that manages to combine exotic burgers with the feel of old timey fast food. It’s nice to see such a place and to also be reminded just how similar buffalo is to regular beef. There’s really no need to dress it up any differently.

Up in the valley is a place called Stanley’s that I have been hearing about pretty much from the day I started dating my fiancee. Very little about the valley is exciting, but Stanley’s is in a stretch of Sherman Oaks on Ventura that’s pretty cool, so I found myself surprisingly excited to go. Previously, I had heard they have delicious wings, but we were in a rush and I am not a man who rushes wings. Instead, I went with my arch-nemesis.

That’s right. The BBQ Short Rib Sliders. I fully knew these were no real sliders, and nothing makes me sadder (not even injured puppies) to see mini burgers or mini sandwiches passed off as sliders. But these just looked too good to pass up, being topped with onion rings and mozzarella cheese. They also came with a side of fries (or sweet potato fries) and a cabbage salad. I had misread the menu and thought the salad was an option instead of fries, but I’ll get back to that in a bit. First, I must write about the bread.

Stanley’s makes (or reheats) some damn good bread. It’s the kind with the really crispy crust and fluffy-ass innards. It is awesome, but even more awesome when ordered with a side of Stanley’s Caesar Dressing. This dressing is more of a paste and can be spread on the bread (or dipped in) for a nice punch of garlic and joy. I definitely recommend going this direction, for while butter is nice, this spread is much better.

And with that said, let’s get back to the mini sandwiches.

When I saw the cabbage salad on my plate, I was in shock. Fortunately it had no impact upon my real food and the fiancee was happy to lap it up. The mini sandwiches were a thing of beauty and I hoped they would taste as good as they looked. They did. The buns, while intimidatingly large in relation to the rest of the sandwiches, were surprisingly squishy and offered the perfect amount of flavor to each bite. The onion rings had been fried perfectly so that little to none of the grotesque onion texture shone through. Instead, they offered a simple crispiness to the sandwiches. The mozzarella was as you would expect, and finally there was the meat. These were sizable chunks of short rib and were incredibly tender and juicy. The BBQ sauce had a nice sweet and savory taste, with just a hint of tart. Overall, I could hardly complain.

The fries, on the other hand, were a different story and a real disappointment. They had definitely not been fried long enough or were in need of another frying, as they came out pretty limp and soggy. I don’t need my fries to be well-done, but I do expect some sort of crunch when I bite in. Maybe they figured if In-N-Out could serve crappy fries without damaging business, then they could too.

Yet, I couldn’t let these fries ruin my meal. After all, this was all about my mini sandwiches and the Caesar bread. In those, Stanley’s was a huge success.

In a clear trend of awesome, Brats Brothers is one of the newest gourmet/exotic sausage/bratwurst places to hit LA (okay, they’ve been around since 2007, but just moved to a new location). Within 48 hours of learning of its existence, I made my way out to Sherman Oaks for lunch to see how it stacked up against its brethren. Made up to look all German-like and with a hostess/waitress that was also decidedly German (accent and all), Brats Brothers seemed a little more authentic than hipster-loving joints like Wurstkuche.

The menu had your regular run-of-the-mill bratwurst like Italian, Polish, cheese-filled and whatnot. They even had good old American hot dogs, which I assumed were for the children that could potentially show up. But, as usual, I was in the mood for something exotic. Their exotics ranged from gator to wild boar to kangaroo. While the ‘roo would have been my first choice, they were sold out and I went with the bratwurst named for the native land of the kangaroo. It was called The Aussie and was made with ostrich and pistachios. I was hoping the bratwurst was called The Aussie because it sounded like the O-S at the beginning of ostrich and not because they thought ostriches live in Australia (as we all know, ostriches are from Africa, emus are from Australia and their bastard cousin, the rhea lives in South America). Look, you came to a food blog and learned about animal geography, you deserve at least 12 gold stars.

But I digress, back to the bratwurst. Each one could be upgraded to a meal, which included two sided and a soft drink. This sounded great, so I ordered Beef Chili and Bavarian Tater Tots as my sides, then prepared to get meaty.

The meal took a while to arrive, and frankly everything took a while. It should be noted that I don’t totally blame the restaurant for this as our waitress/hostess was pulling double duty while her regular waitress stayed home to do homework. Why the manager approved this, I don’t know, but I can only assume the normal waitress is his daughter and doing this homework meant she would not fail school/die in a fiery crash.

Anyway, bratwurst. Delicious. Not only was it a healthy size, but it was glistening like meaty gold. The bun was a little bit squishy, in a good way, but a bit big for the bratwurst. Yet, once I loaded it with curry sauce, my side of beef chili and hot sauce, everything fit just perfectly. Don’t worry, though, I tried the ostrich before loading it up and it was certainly tasty. The ostrich had a unique poultry flavor that was a little tough, and the pistachios added some interesting texture, if not a ton of flavor. One of my favorite parts of the brat was the casing. It was thick, but had an awesome snap when bit into. The only downside was that it was a little bit dry. I’ve experienced this before with ostrich, which is why the curry sauce was perfect on it, as it enhanced the flavor while keeping it moist.

The sides were not huge, but they were quite delicious. For the tater tots, I had kind of expected regular tots with some sort of Bavarian spice dusted on. Fortunately, this was not the case and I was delivered three fried, cheesy potato balls. They were awesome. The beef chili was good, too, but not as good as the tots. It had some unique spice to it and consisted of a majority of beef, with some beans inside for additional texture. I loaded it up on the brat, but it was certainly fine to eat solo.

Despite the service, my Brats Brothers experience was decidedly positive. I loved the bratwurst variety and the total lack of a vegetarian brats (just eat your kale and quit whining). I also saw that they have themselves a bit of an eating contest. This is one huge version of their Santa Fe Fire brat (beef, pork, jalapenos, habaneros, onions and cilantro), but a huge platter of fries. If you can eat it all in 30 minutes, it’s free. If not, it’s only $16.95. Next time I go, I may take them up on the challenge and even be willing to eat onions if it means winning a challenge. We shall see, but challenge or not, I know where I will be heading next time I need some bratwurst in the valley.

After seeing the frontrunner for Most Gratuitously Violent Movie of the Year (Drive, which is great by the way), some people might not have much of an appetite. Those people, though, are not unvegan and the sight of so much blood made me crave some meat. As we had seen the movie in the Sherman Oaks Galleria, my local valley friends took me to a place called Townhouse Kitchen + Bar. I knew little of what to expect, except that football would be on TV and this was a good start.

A quick look at the menu told me I would be getting a burger, and that burger would be the Fried Egg Burger. As we all know, I love me a fried egg on a burger. This thing was topped with the aforementioned fried egg, bacon, gouda, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions. I asked for mine without any of the veggies and then played the waiting game. Fortunately, my waiting game was not nearly as bad as one of my valley friends, who waited just as long to get his beer as I did to get my burger. The burger wait wasn’t too long, but it was far longer than a wait should be for a beer. Nonetheless, in the middle of my own wait, I realized I had not been asked how I wanted my burger cooked. I was a little scared, but figured restaurants usually default towards the medium end.

Yet, when my burger arrived, I was in for a shock, and not due to vegetables as usual, because my plate was free from those bitter beings. No, the shock was my meat, which was not cooked medium and it was easy to see why he had not asked me how I wanted my meat cooked. Sitting on my bun were two patties of meat, both pretty thin and both cooked all the way through. In other words, it looked like they had cooked up two patties of grocery store frozen beef and served them to me. When I bit in, this was all but confirmed. Now, had I been at a friend’s BBQ, I would have been damn happy with the double burger, but at a restaurant I was more than a little disappointed. Yet, from the ashes of bad meat rose tasty toppings. I must admit that the gouda, bacon and egg combo worked out pretty nicely. The egg was nice and runny, although not to the extent that the plate was overflowing with yolk drippings. And of course the bacon and gouda were delicious.

Oh, the burger also came with fries, which were quite delicious. They almost made up for the…wait, no, not at all. Good fries never make up for bad beef. So, Townhouse, if you took the time to prepare some real patties, you could have some burgers worth bragging about. Instead, you hover somewhere between fast food and gourmet, which, in my world is known as no man’s land.

While I rarely venture into the valley after work hours, I recently took a trip there after dark for a bit of a birthday celebration. The gathering was at the Mad Bull’s Tavern in Sherman Oaks and although I wasn’t quite in a drinking mood (plus I was the driver and Sherman Oaks is a long way from home), I actually found myself in an eating mood. It was five minutes to 11:00 pm and when I asked for a menu, I was told that most of the food, except for appetizers, would only be available until 11. I had to think fast.

Although they had a buffalo burger, this did not seem like the right place to get one. Instead, I looked to the MBT Burger ($12), which presumably stood for Mad Bull’s Tavern. It was prepared with onion, bacon and manchego cheese. Hoping the Mad Bull was in now way related to Mad Cow, I made this my order, without the onions of course.

It arrived pretty quickly and looked pretty great. The bun glistened and the crispy bacon poked out from within. It was a good start. Inside, the bacon that had looked crispy turned out to be just so. The manchego cheese was also a nice touch and the bun was nice and moist, but not too much so. The burger, although made with tasty beef, was just a little too cooked. It was pretty brown all the way through and although it wasn’t dry, it probably could have come off the grill a bit sooner. The fries were pretty awesome, though, and a great burger partner.

So although Mad Bull’s Tavern wasn’t great, it was a pretty good burger. But for 12 bucks, you’ve gotta do better than that.